Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood
Taylor Swift will earn more than $100 million from Spotify in 2023, according to calculations based on the number of her top streams for that year, released by the streaming company in its year-end „Wrapped” account.
Based on the 26.1 billion streams he’s amassed since the start of the year, using an average of $0.0035 cents per stream (a rough calculation, but enough to speculate), he’ll have earned about $104 million in November alone („disabled” was cut off at the end of last month). With similar numbers in December, the total would be closer to $130 million.
Representatives for Swift and Spotify did not immediately respond to requests for comment or confirmation.
Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake and Peso Pluma were the top earners; The Weeknd hasn’t released an album in 2023, but the late-blooming 2016 single „Die For You” was one of the biggest hits of his career. Not all of these artists are self-titled, but considering both Bad Bunny and Bezo Pluma are signed to independent labels, their respective takes may be closer to Swift than their streaming numbers suggest.
Of course, while Spotify is the world’s largest streaming service, it’s not the only one: Billboard estimates that Swift’s total revenue from streaming alone will be nearly $200 million by 2023.
While streaming such astronomical numbers might seem to pay well for all musicians, that’s rarely the case: the streaming model pays based on a song or artist’s share of the total number of global streams. If the musician in question is Swift, Drake or the Beatles, that’s great if he commands a relatively large percentage of total global streams – but the further down the chain that percentage drops dramatically (the numbers listed above are just artists), the more lucrative the returns.
Universal and Warner Music Groups are teaming up with France-based streaming service Teaser to test a different, „artist-focused” payment model; Go here for details.