How much does Spotify pay per stream?” is one of the most pressing questions upcoming entertainers in the Nigerian music industry often ask. We can now provide an answer to that question—thanks to the global streaming platform’s 2025 year-end Loud & Clear report.
According to the annual report, Nigerian artists earned about ₦1.98 for every stream on Spotify in 2025. This payout per stream is about 33 times less than what the platform pays artists in Sweden, where the company is headquartered.
One million streams in Nigeria generate just $300 for artists, while the same streams in Sweden can make artists up to $10,000. Although, the Spotify pays per stream is not fixed.
Artists' earnings are influenced by various factors, including streamers location, subscription plans (such as paid vs free users), total streams in a particular market, and revenue pool for that period.
In lower-income markets, streamers pay less for subscriptions or mostly use free tiers. This results in artists earning less per stream than their counterparts in Western countries, due to how streaming payouts are calculated.
Spotify uses a territorial payout model to adjusts earnings based on regional subscription fees and economic conditions. The payout model calculates and distributes music streaming royalties based on the region of the streamer, rather than maintaining a universal global rate.
The purpose of the territorial payout model is simple: to keep streaming affordable for streamers. In Nigeria, Spotify’s premium plan costs about ₦1,600 (that's roughly $1.17) per month, while the same subscription plan cost about $13.78 per month in Sweden.
How Spotify payout system works
Spotify doesn’t operate on a fixed “pay-per-stream” system. Instead, it distributes royalties based on an artist’s share of total streams on the platform. For example, if an artist makes up 1% of all streams in a specific country, the rights holders representing that artist receive 1% of the total royalties Spotify pays out in that market.
If an artist accounts for 1% of all streams in a particular country, their selected rightsholder(s) receive 1% of the recording royalties we pay there.
Spotify
Another factor that needed to be put into consideration, or that influences artists’ payouts, is that Spotify pays roughly two-thirds of the revenue generated from music streaming to rights holders. However, it's worth noting that many of these artists are under contractual agreements that make the money to not go directly to them.
The revenue first passes through intermediaries such as record labels, distributors, publishers, and collecting societies, who then pay the artists according to their agreements. In some cases, there may be a lack of transparency within these channels before artists finally receive their share.
However, this structure is gradually shifting. About 58 percent of the royalties that was generated by Nigerian artists on the platform in 2025 went directly to independent artists or artists who were working with indie labels. This means that a significant portion is now going directly to artists operating outside traditional label systems.
Nigerian artists generated over ₦60 billion (that’s roughly $43.92 million) in royalties from Spotify in 2025. This money was made from 30.3 billion total streams and 1.6 billion listening hours. If our calculations are correct, these figures show that Spotify pays Nigerian artists just under ₦2 per stream.
This revenue represents only 0.39% of the $11 billion the platform paid out to artists globally in the same year. In addition to that, Nigerian artists’ earnings in 2025 increased by more than 140% compared to the ₦58 billion ($42.45 million) the platform paid them in 2024.
