‘20 years ago, this industry was fighting for survival’ — Spotify claims it’s saved music, but its new report is only one side of the album

• Spotify has released its full Loud and Clear 2026 report
• The company paid out $11 billion to the industry, which is 70% of its total revenue
• It claims to have saved the industry, but artist royalties are growing at a stagnant rate

It’s proven difficult for Spotify to shake off the harsh criticisms it often receives for its artist royalties, but its Loud and Clear report is the streaming giant’s chance to offer transparency — and its full overview of 2025 has just dropped.

Since 2021, Spotify has been releasing its annual Loud and Clear report, a way for the music platform to give subscribers and creatives an insight into its artist royalty payouts, as well as mapping out the current state of the music streaming economy.

I attended Spotify’s Loud and Clear briefing earlier this week and overall, Spotify’s numbers have grown across a multitude of areas — with the streaming giant also keen to herald its role in saving the music industry from piracy ahead of its 20th birthday next month. "20 years ago, this industry was fighting for survival," a Spotify spokesperson said, adding that the platform was created "not to disrupt the healthy system, but to help rebuild a broken one".

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However, today's statistics show that its artist payout system is also expanding at an alarmingly slow rate, despite the platform claiming that “artists generate more money from Spotify than any other streaming service” during the briefing. So what’s new this time around?

For starters, Spotify’s total payout equated to over $11 billion for 2025 compared to $10 billion in 2024. This figure isn’t new as Spotify announced it at the start of the year. However, the company added that it was the “largest single year payout from any retailer in history”, a claim that it also made during last year’s report.

Compared to last year, Spotify is seeing more artists making over $100,000 each year in royalties alone, increasing to 13,800 artists in 2025 (1,400 more than the previous year). According to Spotify, royalties for growing musicians are also accelerating, with more than a third of artists who made over $10,000 in yearly royalties starting out as ‘DIY’ artists (meaning they self-released music through indie distributors). But still, a sustainable wage it is not.

“Revenue opportunities reach far beyond the superstars”

Spotify made the claim above in its briefing, and though the payout numbers for lesser-known artists has increased from last year, it’s only by a small margin. The company did also claim that “70% of (its) music revenue (is going) back to the industry on behalf of the artists and songwriters who they represent”.

Our audio contributor and band singer Carrie Marshall knows first-hand the struggles of making money through Spotify. “I think it’s absolutely true that Spotify helped save the music business from online piracy. And the music business is doing brilliantly in the streaming era; musicians, not so much," she said.

“The collapse of recorded music sales, the move from broadcast radio listening to streaming, and the closure of so many grassroots venues means that despite the billions in streaming, it’s harder than ever for artists to make money from their music,” she added.

Then there’s the case of grassroots venues, which Carrie also addresses. In 2025 Spotify drove a staggering $1.5 billion in live music revenue, which is attributed to its Live Events hub and local concert listings. On top of this, Spotify's total 2025 revenue equates to roughly $17.2 billion when you add each of its quarterly earnings together, leaving around $6 billion left to use after its industry payouts.

A lump sum of this gets invested back into the business, and no doubt goes towards funding new product features (some of which many users will use once and forget). But grassroots venues continue to struggle despite Spotify's move into live music.

“Streaming isn’t filling the gap at a grassroots level because it uses a pro-rata payment system based on audience share, not payment per play, so the lion’s share of the money goes to the likes of Bad Bunny while smaller artists earn little or nothing”, Carrie Marshall concludes.

So while Spotify has undoubtedly has had some positive impacts on the music industry in the past 20 years – and it is the only streaming service that releases a report like Loud & Clear – many artists would argue that its figures don't tell the while story about what it's like to be a musician today.

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