In 2010, we wrote about a chart which showed how much money artists made from sales online and compared how many copies of their music would have to be sold and streamed in order to earn a livable monthly wage. The chart showed some plenty interesting results, but the thing that seems to spark the most debate these days is how much money artists are making from streaming music. To cite the biggest culprit of animosity here, in 2010 you'd need to have over 4.54 million streams on Spotify to make $1,150 per month.
Now the study has been updated and published on Business Insider, with the current rates on how you get paid. Surprisingly, you'd only need about 1.09 million streams per month to make a livable income now. Yeah, that's still a lot of streaming, but it's a whole lot less than what you needed in the first place.
The new study also includes an interesting number for streams, which is the amount you'd need when you're unsigned. In 2015 when you're signed you'd need the 1.09 million, but if you're unsigned all you need is over 192,000… which goes to show how much of a chunk the label is taking. There's also some new numbers on this study, such as streaming services like Beats and Deezer, as well as Bandcamp. So dig in and get informed! Or mad. One of those two things.
