It’s not a secret to anyone who follows the streaming category that most artists can’t rely on revenue from it, and have to focus on live concerts, physical album sales, and merchandise revenue to earn a living.
Let’s take a look at Spotify for a second before jumping over to Qobuz which many of us gladly pay for and use for its superior sound quality.
Only a handful of musicians have hit 1 billion streams on Spotify with 252 million paid subscribers and 640 million monthly active users. As of March 2025, 912 songs have surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, 154 have surpassed two billion, 19 have surpassed three billion, and two have surpassed four billion Spotify streams.
Want to guess who those artists might be?
The Weekend, Ed Sheeran, Drake, Post Malone, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande — Taylor Swift does not even make the top 10 but she does come second when it comes to most streams of a single in one week — 102,878,399 for “Fortnight” in 2024.
Before you pretend to fake sadness that these artists can only afford one new mansion in Miami or the Italian Rivera — remember that Spotify does not pay out in the same manner as Qobuz or TIDAL and that the music labels take a rather hefty cut of this revenue.
So where does that leave a hi-res, audiophile streaming platform like Qobuz?
Unless the figures are incorrect, Qobuz has a global paid subscriber base of…300,000.
TIDAL is already past 3 million, but their financial stability is less than certain based on the events of the past 12 months. Firing 25% of your employees is not a good sign — nor is telling the remaining members of the team that they need to view their position as if they are a “start-up.”
252 million feels like a much better position and based on their Q4 2025 financial statements — Spotify is finally making a profit. It took forever, but they seem to have the kind of momentum that actually matters — and we don’t see too many of the top selling artists abandoning the platform.
So why my angst today? Therapy has been tough this week but an email from their PR people started to make me think about this during lunch.
Qobuz Rising
As we reported, rival hi-res streaming platform, Qobuz, seems to be moving in a positive direction with the announcement that it would finally be available for streaming and downloads in Japan — one of the top 3 markets in the world for music consumption.
This strategic expansion marks a decisive turning point in the international development of the platform, reinforcing its trajectory towards “profitability” and its commitment to a musical experience that combines quality and discovery.
In an industry where lack of transparency is often debated, Qobuz becomes the first streaming platform to have its average payout rate per stream officially validated. This initiative reinforces its position as a fair and sustainable model for the music industry.
Qobuz said they distributed royalties due to labels and publishers which average $0.01873 USD per stream for the fiscal year 2024. So if a track reaches 1,000 plays on Qobuz, $18.73 USD is paid to rights holders, who then pay out to the artists, songwriters and composers, according to the terms of their contracts.
In terms of average revenue per user (ARPU), Qobuz generated an average revenue of $121.13 per year, where the market average is $22.38 per year. This means that Qobuz generates on average five times more revenue per user than the market average, which results in a significant impact on artists’ remuneration.
The number of streams corresponds to the number of listens performed by Qobuz customers over the 12-month period ended March 31, 2024.
How Qobuz Benefits Artists
In a recent Qobuz blog post, the music streaming company outlined four key characteristics that directly benefit artists:
- No ad-supported free tier: Its exclusive paid model ensures higher compensation for all actors in the music creation.
- High quality subscriptions: All offers provide access to uncompressed (lossless) and high-resolution (Hi-Res) audio quality, as well as exclusive editorial content, justifying a premium positioning that ensures fairer payouts.
- High quality download store: Qobuz’s online store allows users (not limited to streaming subscribers) to buy albums in Hi-Res and CD quality, offering rights holders direct and higher compensation. This model, which complements streaming revenue, is particularly key in supporting music outside of just Top 40 hits, as over 51% of downloads on Qobuz come from genres like rock, classical, and jazz.
- Spotlight on diverse range of artists and music genres: Qobuz highlights artists and genres that are often underrepresented – such as jazz and classical releases. The editors’ selections, playlists and awards give a more eclectic selection of artists greater visibility, allowing lesser known releases to garner more streams, and overall generating more revenue for a wider range of artists.
Who Gets Paid
It is important to note that Qobuz, like other streaming platforms, does not directly pay artists. In line with market practice, about 70% of the revenues generated are paid to rights holders (labels, publishers, distributors, CMO), who in turn pay artists, publishers, composers and authors according to their respective agreements.
Georges Fornay, Deputy CEO of Qobuz, declares: “Although numerous reports highlight our payout rates as among the highest in the industry, no streaming service had officially disclosed its rates until now. Today, we are taking this step for greater transparency. Our payout rates are now public. This unprecedented move in our industry is a necessary first step toward promoting a fairer and more sustainable streaming model. Choosing Qobuz means taking concrete action for fairer compensation for all artists and supporting musical diversity, values that our customers cherish.”
The Bottom Line
Transparency from a company within an industry that is generally rather awful as it pertains to how much artists actually earn is a huge step forward. Qobuz is actually doing the right thing and compensating artists more than the competition. My issue is that the level of compensation feels pitifully low when you consider the level of traffic. And that applies to everyone.
Until we can access TIDAL and Qobuz’s streaming data, it’s almost impossible to know just how well specific artists are doing based on their royalty compensation formula.
300,000 dedicated and paid subscribers is fantastic on a platform like YouTube or Substack — but how many streams can an audience of that size actually be generating?
I can only stream Nick Cave, Jason Isbell, Miles Davis, Talking Heads, and the Cure so many times in a given year and that probably doesn’t even add up to the $18.73 royalty figure for 1,000 streams. I’m spending a lot more than that and happy to do so because I have over 3,000 saved albums — but are we not better off buying their records and CDs if we really care about their compensation?
Related Reading:
- Podcast: Interview with Dr. Mark Waldrep — Is Hi-Res Audio More Hype Than Reality?
- Podcast: Why is Streaming Audio So Complicated?
- Spotify Has Paid Out $40 Billion To The Music Industry, So Why Is No One Happy?
Anton
March 21, 2025 at 5:10 pm
When one considers how long it took for Spotify to become profitable…I have very little faith that both TIDAL and Qobuz are going to have a successful future. Qobuz offers a superior product and they will continue to get my money.
It’s shocking how little money these streams generate until they hit 1 billion and how much of that is going to the labels and not the artist or songwriters?
No wonder they love the resurgence of vinyl and $200 show tickets. Only way to earn a living.