As an independent and full-time music artist, I still struggle to make a living despite having thousands of supporters and listeners across multiple streaming platforms. This critical issue affects thousands of artists and songwriters. We aren’t being fairly compensated for our hard work.

Currently, artists make an average of $.003 cents per stream on Spotify.

This means that even a successful song with over 1 million streams would only have a payout of $3,000. That’s before an artist usually has to share a cut with the record label, PR agencies, producers, marketing costs, and other collaborators, leaving artists with mere pennies to sustain and grow their careers.

I've seen songs I've worked on with millions of streams and we've barely seen anything after accounting for the ownership splits, marketing costs, and distribution costs.

After maintaining its subscription fee at $9.99 for over 14 years, Spotify has finally decided to increase its price by 10% across more than 50 markets, including the US and the UK. This increase, which lifts the price to $10.99, was announced to "invest in and innovate product offerings and features," according to Spotify.

Unfortunately, the company has failed to highlight the potential benefits of this subscription increase for artists.

The problem here is even though Spotify has increased its prices, it has not made any commitment to increase the pay of artists and songwriters proportionally.

You would think a 10% subscription increase across the board would mean more royalties for artists...

For those who don't know, this rate per stream is based on a few factors:

User Location

• Is the listener in the US, UK, or Asia?

Subscription Type

• Is the listener paying for Spotify or not?
• ex. Free, Premium, Duo, Family, or Su-Premium

Song Duration

• How long is the song?
• Based on the CRB (Copyright Royalty Board), songs longer than 5 minutes are paid out at a different rate.

Currently, a significant portion of the subscription revenue goes to record labels and the streaming platform itself, leaving artists—especially those with less favorable or independent deals—with only a small slice of the pie.

As songwriters, artists, musicians, and producers, we are coming together to demand that Spotify ensures that a substantial part of its price increase directly benefits the artists who provide the platform with the music we all love.

We urge Spotify to reconsider its current revenue distribution model and bring about fair and equitable changes for artists and songwriters whose creativity powers the platform. Sign this petition to ensure our music creators are fairly compensated for their hard work and talent!