Spotify says it paid out $11 billion in royalties in 2025

Today, Spotify announced that it has paid over $11 billion to the music industry in 2025. That’s an impressive number that’s $1 billion more than it paid out last year. And, according to Spotify, that represents about 30% of the entire recording industry’s revenue. And, according to Spotify, that represents about 30% of the entire recording industry’s revenue. This figure, however, is only a measure of royalties paid to the music industry and does not include merchandise or ticket sales, nor royalties from audiobooks or podcasting deals.

However, it is important to note that this does not mean that Spotify paid $11 billion to musicians and artists. This money went to the “rights holders”. This includes labels, distributors, publishers and more.

Spotify says it doesn’t know how much of that money ends up in the hands of artists. Deals between individual artists can vary widely. However, it’s not uncommon for an act on a major label to only receive 15% of their royalties. However, independent labels usually offer much better deals, with 50% or more going to the artist.

Spotify says that once again, about half of those royalties went to independent artists and labels. This includes DIY bands who self-release their music through distribution services like DistroKid or TuneCore, as well as those signed to independent labels. But it also potentially includes library content and some so-called “ghost artists,” which have been the subject of controversy. Chris Macowski, Spotify’s global head of music communications, says the company doesn’t have more detailed data on the distribution of payments to independent artists.

Macowski said more than 12,500 artists generated more than $100,000 in royalties in 2025. That’s up from 10,000 in 2024. Spotify says that’s more than the number of artists on record store shelves “at the height of the CD era.” However, The edge was not able to independently verify this claim and Macowski was unable to provide the origin at the time of publication.

Since royalties are calculated by dividing a limited amount of money, the more songs streamed, the lower the per-stream payments to artists. Unless Spotify decides to cut its revenue (it currently retains 30%), the only way to grow this pool is to either increase its subscriber base or increase prices. Artists with fewer than 1,000 streams still receive no payment from Spotify.

In its post announcing the payment of $11 billion in royalties, Spotify also discussed its future plans which appear intended to address the criticism received. On the one hand, he promises that “new solutions” are in the works to combat scams, artist impersonation and spam content. He acknowledges that “AI is being exploited by bad actors to flood streaming services with low-quality products” in an attempt to steal revenue from real artists, and so he will introduce changes to artist verification.

The company also appears to be moving more toward human curation in response to growing backlash against the algorithm. He said it would “bring more of the human voice behind that curation into the listening experience.”
However, none of this is likely to quell artists’ constant complaints that Spotify pays less than its competitors.