Analyzing Your Royalty Statements

Hey friends!

Today I want to walk you through some interesting aspects of a DistroKid royalty statement, although a lot of this information will apply to any distributor.

BUT, if you do use DistroKid you can follow along at home because I made a free DistroKid royalty analyzer tool. Click here to check it out, no strings attached and no email required (although obviously I already have your email if you’re reading this lol). Your royalty statement is not uploaded, it’s processed locally on your computer.

One of the reasons I made this free tool is because I wanted to easily graph bank statements from DistroKid over time. It’s nice to know how much money you’re getting monthly, and how much you’re paid per stream on different platforms - but making spreadsheets for this can be a chore.

But let’s look at some interesting data point. The first is one i’ve talked about before, which is the average payment per stream on Spotify broken down by country.

Just so you know, for all the images in this email the artist in question is using Discovery Mode so keep that in mind, as that reduces the average payment per stream on Spotify.

Often Brazil and Mexico are cheap countries for running Meta ads, which can be great for triggering the algorithm. But the tradeoff is they pay 1/3rd of what the US pays, and about ¼ of what the UK pays per stream. While it’s not all about the money by any means, it’s good to be aware of this discrepancy so you can account for it.

Typically one strategy is to use Brazil / Mexico, and other cheaper ad countries to trigger the algorithm on Spotify, and when that happens it mostly ends up being in Tier 1 countries that pay much better.

What about Apple Music?

There are definitely some differences between countries, but interestingly Brazil pays about the same as the US here. I’d be interested to know if anyone else finds this to be the case as well!

But also, GB (United Kingdom) pays over 1 penny per stream on Apple Music - nice! They’re one of the best paying countries for Spotify as well. I wonder if this is due to legislation in the UK or because people in the UK just pay more for Spotify / Apple Music than most other countries.

Now, let’s look at YouTube Music.

Here the US pays almost 1 penny per stream - nice! Unfortunately the UK isn’t on this table so they didn’t make the top 10 highest streamed countries for this artist, meaning we don’t see the results. But it’s cool to see that Brazil and Mexico on YouTube Music pay nearly as much as the US does on Spotify.

Just a reminder, if you haven’t yet please consider submitting your Spotify for Artists data to help us out with our Spotify algorithm study! This video explains how it works:

If you want to learn how to promote your music on streaming services using Meta ads check out my course Spotify Growth Machine.

New Content

Spotify doesn't have the best reputation for how it pays music artists, so here's 5 things they could do to make things better.

In this interview I talk to Danny Garcia, a music marketing expert and CEO of SongTools, a tech platform that simplifies music marketing for creators and companies, helping over +1.5 million songs get discovered worldwide.

Recently the music artist Russ said Spotify should remove monthly listeners (and all other visible stats) from the platform. What do you think?

Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.

2. My ad agency specializes in running Facebook conversion ads to promote your music on Spotify.

3. Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels is the best all-in-one platform for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels and build their mailing list.

4. 1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or my team here.

My Links:

• 🚀 Spotify Growth Machine Course

• 🏆 Hire us to run your ads

• 🌍 MusicFunnels - Best website / store / funnels for music artists (get your 14-day FREE trial!)

• 🎬 YouTube Growth Machine

• Fan Growth Machine

• 🧑‍💻 Consultations 

• ⌨️ Chat in the community (FREE)

• 🎬 Animated lyric videos

• 🎬 Get 15% off Melodist music distribution with code ANDREW15 here

Discount / Affiliate Links:

• ►► Hypeddit Free Trial

• ►► Smart Noise Free Trial

• ►► FeatureFM - use code ASOUTH30 for 30% off annual plans!

• ►► Get 10% off Artist.Tools here 

If you’d rather just purchase the e-book, or physical book or audiobook you can do so here.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Music Marketing Monday! Please give your feedback using the poll below.

** There are affiliate links on this site, meaning I may receive a kickback when you purchase a product or service using my links at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I’d recommend to friends, but i’m obligated to inform you that these affiliate links are present. Overall affiliate income is not my focus and is a relatively small part of my income.

In case you’re curious what platform i’m using to run this newsletter, it’s called beehiiv.