Spotify has revealed new numbers about the streaming economy, claiming more than 13,800 artists generated at least $100,000 from the platform in 2025.
The figures come from Spotify’s latest ‘Loud & Clear’ transparency report, published this week, which also claims the company paid the music industry more than $11 billion last year alone, according to Spotify, that pushes its total lifetime payouts to roughly $70 billion.
The company says the latest figure represents a year on year increase of more than 10%, arguing that streaming revenue is growing faster than other areas of the music business (per Billboard).
“These numbers reflect Spotify’s central role in today’s music economy,” the company wrote in the report. “Not only as the largest platform for artists and the largest source of recorded music revenue, but also as the largest driver of the industry’s continued growth.”
More artists earning six figures
One of the headline stats from the report is the number of artists now earning significant income through the platform, Spotify says 13,800 artists generated more than $100,000 in royalties last year, an increase of nearly 1,400 artists compared with the previous year.
The company also claims many of those artists have rapidly grown their earnings over time, according to the report, more than one third of artists in the $100,000 tier have increased their royalties tenfold in under a decade.
Artists who break into that bracket often stay there, Spotify says eight in ten artists who first crossed the $100,000 mark in 2022 have remained above it every year since.
The streaming economy is becoming more global
Another major takeaway from the report is how international the streaming economy has become.
Spotify says 85% of artists earning more than $100,000 are based outside the United States, highlighting how the platform’s reach allows musicians to build audiences across borders. According to the company, the artists generating more than $500,000 in annual royalties came from 75 countries last year, while artists earning at least $10,000 were spread across more than 150 countries.
The diversity of music on the platform is also expanding, Spotify says songs in 16 different languages appeared on its Global Top 50 chart in 2025, more than double the number seen in 2020.
Million dollar artists and the long tail
At the higher end of the scale, Spotify says more than 1,500 artists generated over $1 million from the platform last year, what is interesting is the company argues many of those artists are not global superstars.
“Many of them aren’t household names, and they may never trend globally,” the report states. “The streaming era isn’t narrowing success to a few global stars.”
Still, the biggest names on the platform continue to dominate, Spotify says the top 80 artists on the service each generated more than $10 million from the platform alone.
Even lower tier artists are seeing growing payouts compared with a decade ago, with Spotify saying the 100,000th highest earning artist made more than $7,300 last year, compared with just $350 a decade earlier.
Whether those numbers reflect a healthy streaming economy or highlight the ongoing gap between megastars and working musicians will likely remain a point of debate across the music industry.
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