DistroKid does not set a rate: each store pays, and the amount depends on country, free versus paid listening and the pool. Published estimates put Spotify around $3–$5 per 1,000 streams, with Apple, Tidal and Deezer higher and YouTube Music disputed. Your own rate is simply your earnings divided by your units, store by store.
Two dated secondary sources, per stream, then multiplied by 1,000. (Multiplying is our arithmetic; the per-stream figures are theirs.)
| Store | RouteNote (updated May 22, 2025) | Royalty Exchange (published July 15, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Spotify | $0.003–$0.005 | $0.003–$0.005 |
| Apple Music | $0.01 | $0.007–$0.01 |
| Amazon Music | $0.004 | ~$0.004 |
| Tidal | $0.013 | $0.013–$0.015 |
| Deezer | $0.0064 | $0.005–$0.007 |
| YouTube Music | $0.008 | $0.001–$0.002 |
The two sources disagree most on YouTube Music: $0.008 against $0.001–$0.002. RouteNote also lists YouTube’s own figure as $0.005–$0.007. Both say there is no fixed rate, and that it moves with the listener’s country, paid versus ad-supported listening, and the size of the pool. Royalty Exchange says premium streams pay roughly 2.5 to 3 times what ad-supported ones do. RouteNote attributes its numbers to “various sources” it does not name; Royalty Exchange says its numbers draw on TuneCore and Ditto data. Treat both as rough guides, not as what you are owed.
For Spotify that is $3–$5 per 1,000 streams in both sources. Apple Music is $10 per 1,000 in RouteNote and $7–$10 in Royalty Exchange. Tidal is $13 per 1,000 in RouteNote and $13–$15 in Royalty Exchange. Deezer is $6.40 in RouteNote and $5–$7 in Royalty Exchange. Amazon Music is $4 per 1,000 in RouteNote and about $4 in Royalty Exchange.
Divide the earnings by the units for a store and multiply by 1,000. With $41 and 18,000 Spotify streams that comes to about $2.28 per 1,000. That is arithmetic on those two numbers and it assumes the $41 is Spotify alone. It sits below both published Spotify ranges, which is worth understanding (see why) but is not by itself evidence of an error.
Open your own DistroKid statement here and see exactly what each store and country paid per 1,000 streams — free, and it stays in your browser: https://musiciwant.com/musicians/distrokid
Last checked October 15, 2026. Sources marked “read as a summary” are pages we could see only as a search-result summary because the page itself would not open for us; we have kept those claims general and not quoted numbers from them. Per-stream figures are estimates from the two dated articles named below; none of them are ours.