Do my distributor " Distrokid " pay me correctly ???

[RO45]

Dear Community,

I hope someone here can help me. I have a Spotify for artists account and I don't see how I can contact Spotify directly.

My problem is that I think my music distributor " Distrokid " is not paying me correctly. I googled and found out that Spotify is paying currently between 0,006 and 0,0082 for every stream. So let's take the lowest stream 0,006 and multiply that with 20.000 streams, that makes 120 dollars and Distrokid paid me for 20.000 streams only 27,89 dollars 😞

This can´t be ok and must be wrong or do I oversee something?

I would be very thankful if someone here in the Comunity can help me with this.

Thanks in advance to all of you. 

[Jᴀᴄᴋ · Accepted solution]

Hello @RO45 thanks for reaching out to the community,

I’d recommend reaching out to Spotify for more help with this. Due to the fact that your issue is related to your distributor and Spotify. You can find some more info here on how to do this. 

Let me know,

Jack 🙂

[jrobthehuman]

I don't think that the figures that you found from your Google search are current. In my experience, the number is closer to $0.003 or $0.004 per stream. The actual amount can vary by many factors, including where your music was streamed from. I think Distrokid is pretty reputable as well.

Here's a link to a website that does research yearly on streaming rates from various platforms.

[JacobTrapLord]

I heard it varies depending on if the stream was a replay or if the user has premium count or a free account. But I would reach out to Spotify.

[om142747]

The rate I have heard for Spotify is $0.0039 USD. 

[RO45]

Thank you very much. I see there are many factors that one should consider. What I know is that 0,006 per stream is not true and it makes a huge huge difference for all the indie artists out there. Nobody can make a living with those numbers 😞

[alibababaghdad]

i have the same problen were i had 3000 listening a day on distrokid and got paid less then 400$ and i went up to 7k a day they still never paid over 400 ill show in screen shots 

[alibababaghdad]

this is more to show 

[Lesurelove]

I was wondering did they correct your pay. I just got my first payout from them and I know its wrong I know Spotify pays half of what they pay for non premium accounts but I had 186, 678 streams in the month of May and they paid me $61 I'm trying to figure out where is the rest of he money.. I know I should be getting around $500-$700 80% of my streams was paid accounts. I know even with low paying countries added it should be way more. When I was with tunecore I was getting that same pay with 20k streams if they don't fix this I'm going back to tunecore

[RO45]

Well, I think they do not pay me correctly but I have no clue how to find an evidence.

So why did you left TuneCore ? Are they too expensive ? It worth it when they pay more at the end.

[TimLambert]

I currently got $6.32/4090 streams = $0.0015/stream they saying (Distrokid support) it's ok cause there's different countries and non-premium accounts. bla-bla-bla Next album will be a CD Baby or TuneCore. I didn't decide. But this situation with Distrokid is awful. Everywhere is calculated 3-4 times more, even with detailed option of non-premium streams included in online calc. If someone's got a clue i'll be appreciated.

[played]

This is flat out robbery.

[RaelP]

Those DistroKid stats are not just for Spotify they're for all services including YouTube etc which pays much less per stream, Also that last screenshot showed a 50% split so only half of the amount per stream

If you have plays in poor countries the rate is way lower, if you use bots or stream the music suspiciously the plays will be discounted and you won't be paid

I think Distro is legit, my main issues are Deezer payments being over 6 months late (or paid once or twice a year)

and the fact that everything is in  dollars,  whereas my audience is in Europe, and I need euros, so surely  losing money in the exchange rates

[budw59]

I don't believe Distrokid is legit. Their royalty stream count isn't even close to the Spotify stream count. I had 9100 streams for a previous month on Spotify. Distrokid royalties statement only paid for 3200 streams. If the royalty numbers don't match the actual streams on Spotify, it's just a scam. There's no transparency. They can do whatever they want and there's no way to verify anything. All streams should be on Distrokid's bank statement, even if they didn't make any revenue.

[WesDeLux]

Having this same exact problem.  Especially with newest single where 59k of the 61k streams are US audience and from ads, non bots.  Distrokid is showing a fraction of that, and this is just one example.  Almost no song is accurate, and the royalty payout is ALWAYS undercut.  I would love to talk further about this with you to see if you have and insights if you are up for it as I am chatting with spotify support now, and going to send another distrokid support email now.  My email is **bleep**.  Thanks!