Answers/Calculators/Streaming payout estimator
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Streaming Payout Estimator, Built on 41.98 Million of My Own Plays
By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·Runs in your browser
The short answerThere is no fixed per-stream rate. The figures here are the rates actually paid into my account across 41.98 million plays between June 2019 and July 2026 — Apple Music at $0.0066 per play, Spotify at $0.0033, Facebook at $0.00000088. Your own rates will differ with your listener mix, country spread and subscription tiers.
Most payout calculators use rates somebody made up. This one uses the measured per-play rates from my own complete DistroKid export — 45,894 royalty lines across 49 stores, June 2019 to July 2026.
## Where these numbers come from
These are not industry averages and they are not estimates. They are the rates that were
actually paid into my account, derived from my complete DistroKid bank-details export:
**45,894 royalty lines, 49 stores, 184 countries, 41.98 million plays, June 2019 to July
2026.**
The method matters, so here it is. Rates are normalised for team percentage, because a
track with a split otherwise understates the platform's rate. Play types are kept separate
rather than averaged, because a download and an ad-supported video view are not the same
unit and averaging them produces a number that describes nothing. Any store with fewer than
500 measured plays is suppressed. The full method and the caveats are on
[the study page](/what-streaming-platforms-actually-pay-per-play/) and the tables are
published on [the data page](/data/).
## The measured rates
| Platform | Play type | Plays measured | Paid per play | Plays to earn $1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube VEVO Video | Ad-supported video | 2,960 | $0.01129253 | 89 |
| Amazon Unlimited (Streaming) | On-demand audio | 3,156 | $0.01111366 | 90 |
| YouTube (Red) | On-demand audio | 56,479 | $0.00924776 | 108 |
| iHeart Radio | Radio-style | 947 | $0.00856836 | 117 |
| Vevo Video | Ad-supported video | 22,249 | $0.00702788 | 142 |
| Apple Music | On-demand audio | 175,162 | $0.00664378 | 151 |
| Apple Music Video | Ad-supported video | 3,217 | $0.00552279 | 181 |
| YouTube (Ads) | Ad-supported video | 63,426 | $0.00506680 | 197 |
| YouTube (ContentID) | Social / UGC | 2,377 | $0.00379197 | 264 |
| Snap | Social / UGC | 505 | $0.00343723 | 291 |
| Spotify | On-demand audio | 186,519 | $0.00332076 | 301 |
| Pandora | Radio-style | 12,258 | $0.00290844 | 344 |
| TikTok | Social / UGC | 1,412 | $0.00100066 | 999 |
| iTunes Match | Download / sale | 642 | $0.00080827 | 1,237 |
| Musixmatch | Lyrics | 2,488 | $0.00050606 | 1,976 |
| LyricFind | Lyrics | 6,576 | $0.00033009 | 3,029 |
| Luna | Other | 7,077 | $0.00018622 | 5,370 |
| Resso | On-demand audio | 5,375 | $0.00007986 | 12,521 |
## What this cannot tell you
Your rates will not be my rates. Per-play payout is not a rate card — it is a
[pro-rata share of a revenue pool](/how-streaming-royalties-are-calculated/), so it moves
with your listener mix, which countries they are in, and whether they pay for a
subscription. A catalog listened to mostly in the United States on paid subscriptions will
show higher rates than mine. A catalog that lives on short-form video will show lower.
What it can tell you is the **shape** of the thing, and the shape is stable across
everybody's data: on-demand audio on paid tiers pays orders of magnitude more per play than
social and short-form video, and the gap is not 2× or 10×, it is thousands. In my catalog
98.7% of lifetime plays came from social and short-form and produced 1.6% of the money.
*These are my numbers, honestly derived and openly published. Do not plan a budget on
someone else's per-stream figure, including mine — pull your own export and add it up.*
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