How much does YouTube pay per stream? About $4.80 per 1,000 streams in 2024, according to a study by the music investor Duetti. To see what your YouTube plays add up to, try the Spotify royalty calculator, which covers YouTube too.
That’s recording money, paid to whoever owns the recording before any distributor or label cut.
What that works out to
At Duetti’s 2024 rate:
| YouTube streams | Recording money |
|---|---|
| 1,000 | $4.80 |
| 100,000 | $480 |
| 1,000,000 | $4,800 |
For comparison, Duetti put Spotify at $3.00 per 1,000 and Apple Music at $6.20. More on that in Apple Music pay per stream.
Treat it as an average. The figure Digital Music News reported is a single rate for YouTube, and what you get from a play depends on things like whether the listener pays for a subscription and where they live.
YouTube Music and your official tracks
When you release through a distributor, your music usually goes to YouTube Music as well. Each track also appears on YouTube as a video of the audio with your cover art, on an automatic “Topic” channel in your name.
Plays on YouTube Music and on those Topic videos pay recording money through your distributor, the same way Spotify does. Your official music videos can earn advert money too, if they’re monetised.
If you wrote the song, there’s separate songwriting money as well, collected through your performing rights society and publisher.
Content ID: getting paid when other people use your music
Content ID is YouTube’s system for spotting your recordings inside other people’s videos. In plain terms:
- Your distributor sends your track to YouTube as a reference file.
- YouTube scans uploads for anything that matches.
- When someone uses your track, say in a vlog or a dance video, the claim lets you take the advert money from that video, just track it, or block it.
Most distributors offer Content ID as an extra, often for a share of what it earns. It can be worth switching on if people use your music in their videos.
Be careful, though:
- Don’t switch it on for tracks you don’t fully own. If you made a song on a non-exclusive beat or with an uncleared sample, other people have rights to the same audio, and claims will cause disputes.
- Clear your own channels and friends. Tell your distributor which channels are allowed to use your music, so you don’t claim your own videos or a creator you’ve licensed.
- Expect some mistakes. Matching isn’t perfect, and claims can be disputed.
How to earn more from YouTube
- Release through a distributor that delivers to YouTube Music.
- Decide whether Content ID is right for each track.
- Put your official videos on your own channel, not just fan uploads.
- Register as a songwriter so the publishing side gets paid.
Next step
Put your monthly YouTube plays into the Spotify royalty calculator next to your other services. To find a distributor that covers YouTube at a price that works, try the music distribution calculator, or browse our music royalties and pay guides.
Where these figures come from
- Digital Music News: Duetti’s 2024 per-stream rates (24 Jan 2025)
