MusicJet data

How many streams to earn minimum wage? We did the maths

How many streams to earn minimum wage? If you release your own music and wrote the songs, it takes about 715,000 Spotify streams a month to match a full-time UK Living Wage, and 327,000 to match the US federal minimum. Put your own numbers into the Spotify royalty calculator.

Key findings

  • UK, self-released: 715,000 Spotify streams a month if you wrote the songs, or 917,000 if you didn’t.
  • UK, on a record deal: 1,777,000 Spotify streams a month, or 3,935,000 if someone else wrote the songs.
  • US, self-released: 327,000 Spotify streams a month, or 288,000 at the all-services average.
  • Apple Music pays more per stream, so 346,000 a month covers the UK figure.
  • At 1¢ a stream, the minimum proposed in the US Living Wage for Musicians Act, you’d need 125,667 streams a month for the US minimum wage ($1,256.67 ÷ $0.01).

The full numbers

UK: National Living Wage

£12.71 an hour, full time, comes to £2,065.38 a month. Streams needed each month:

ServiceSelf-released, wrote itSelf-released, didn’t write itRecord deal, wrote itRecord deal, didn’t write it
Spotify715,000917,0001,777,0003,935,000
Apple Music346,000444,000860,0001,904,000
YouTube447,000574,0001,111,0002,460,000
Amazon Music244,000313,000606,0001,342,000
All services (average)629,000807,0001,564,0003,462,000

US: federal minimum wage

$7.25 an hour, full time, comes to $1,256.67 a month. Streams needed each month:

ServiceSelf-released, wrote itSelf-released, didn’t write itRecord deal, wrote itRecord deal, didn’t write it
Spotify327,000419,000812,0001,798,000
Apple Music158,000203,000393,000870,000
YouTube205,000262,000508,0001,124,000
Amazon Music112,000143,000277,000613,000
All services (average)288,000369,000715,0001,582,000

For scale, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found fewer than 1% of artists reach 12 million UK streams a year, about a million a month. The 2023 Musicians’ Census put average UK income from all music work at £20,700, with 43% earning under £14,000. More on that in how musicians make money.

How we worked it out

  • Wages. UK National Living Wage (21 and over) of £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026, at 37.5 hours a week: £12.71 × 37.5 × 52 ÷ 12. US federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 24 July 2009, at 40 hours: $7.25 × 40 × 52 ÷ 12. Many US states set a higher one.
  • Pay per stream. Duetti’s 2024 averages paid to independent artists, per 1,000 streams: Spotify $3.00, Apple Music $6.20, YouTube $4.80, Amazon Music $8.80, all services $3.41. More on how much Spotify pays per stream, and the rest in our music royalties and pay guides.
  • Songwriting. “Wrote it” adds the song money, estimated from the CMA’s finding that songs got 15% of UK streaming revenue and recordings 53%: about $0.85 per 1,000 Spotify streams, assuming you wrote alone and collect it all.
  • Self-released means a distributor that charges a fee instead of a cut. Our music distribution cost report shows what those fees come to.
  • Record deal gives you the 23.3% average royalty the CMA found major labels paid in 2021, with no advance left to pay back.
  • Currency. The UK wage is converted to US dollars at the day’s exchange rate. Figures are rounded up to the next 1,000.

These are averages. What a stream pays varies by country, subscription and month. Spotify pays nothing for a track with under 1,000 streams in the past 12 months, so a catalogue of tiny tracks earns less (see Spotify’s 1,000-stream rule). It’s all before tax and costs like recording, artwork and distributor fees.

Use this data

Anyone may quote or republish these figures, tables included, with a credit and a link to this page. Suggested credit:

Source: MusicJet, How many streams to earn minimum wage? We did the maths, musicjet.com

The figures update with our rate data, so check them before you publish.

Where these figures come from