Which Streaming Music Service Currently Has the Best Payout Rate for Artists?

So this is pretty interesting: Digital Music News went ahead and ranked several of the most prominent streaming music services in order of who currently has the best payout rate for artists… and the list does not shake out the way most of us probably assumed it would. Frustratingly, for example, the three services with the most users by far are the three that have the lowest compensation rates.

Here’s the full list (courtesy of Metal Injection)…

1. Napster – $0.0167 per stream / 5 million users
2. Tidal – $0.0110 per stream / 4 million users
3. Apple Music – $0.0064 per stream / 27 million users
4. Google Play Music – $0.0059 per stream / 10 million users
5. Deezer – $0.0056 per stream / 16 million users
6. Spotify – $0.0038 per stream / 140 million users
7. Pandora – $0.0011 per stream / 81 million users
8. YouTtube – $0.0006 per stream / 1 billion users

And if you wanna be really depressed, this infographic lays out most of the same information… but will also tell you how many plays you’ll need just to earn minimum wage (which, as of this writing, is $7.25/hour in the United States). Click to enlarge:

You can read DMN’s entire article here.