The short answer, it varies.
The rates streaming services pay aren't up to us -- and we have no control over changing them. We just send along the exact amounts that services send to us. DistroKid has and always will pass on 100% of the earnings that services send us for your streams/sales, minus banking fees/applicable taxes. 💯
Why do streaming rates vary?
There are many factors that services use to calculate what you’re owed and rate calculations vary from service to service. Some things that services use to calculate rates include (but are not limited to):
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quantity of streams/downloads
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territory
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subscription type (free vs paid subscription)
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ad/subscription revenue
Pro Rata Model
Most stores distribute with the pro rata model. With this model, all the revenue from a product tier is pooled together and a % of that revenue is set aside for artists. That remaining revenue is then allocated to songs based on their share of the total streams that took place on that product tier.
Example (very not real numbers, each service varies!!!!):
A service has $1,000 to distribute for their paid subscription tier that accumulated 10 million total streams for the month. Of the 10 million streams in total, your song was streamed 1,500 times.
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1,500/10,000,000*$1,000= $0.15 owed
Spotify has a great video that explains how earnings are calculated on their end: How Spotify Pays You
Sales vs Streams
For services that sell digital downloads for your release as opposed to offering a platform for streaming, it is a very common industry standard that up to 30% of each sale goes to the service, while the remaining 70% goes to the artist.
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