What Do a Million Streams Pay? Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube

No major streaming service pays a fixed rate per stream, and the money goes to labels and publishers before the artist. By the last figures published, a million plays were worth about $10,000 on Apple Music in 2020, about $3,300 to $5,000 on Spotify in 2021 as reported by the Wall Street Journal, and over $3,000 on YouTube's ad-supported US streams in 2017. Spotify paid more than $11 billion to the music industry in 2025.