Between 2021 and 2024, not one of the four platforms Duetti tracks every year paid more per 1,000 streams than it did at the start. Spotify’s measured rate fell 6.3 per cent, from $3.20 to $3.00. Apple Music fell 6.1 per cent, from $6.60 to $6.20. Amazon Music fell 3.3 per cent, from $9.10 to $8.80. YouTube alone avoided a net loss, closing 2024 exactly where it started at $4.80, but only after falling to $4.30 in 2023 and climbing back.
Duetti Music Economics Report, published 23 January 2025. Figures are Duetti's stated global rate for each full calendar year; sample size behind them is not disclosed.
Show the numbers
| Platform | Change, per cent |
|---|---|
| YouTube | 0 |
| Amazon Music | -3.30 |
| Apple Music | -6.10 |
| Spotify | -6.30 |
Source: Computed from this desk's registered duetti-per-stream-rates-2024 dataset, itself transcribed from the Duetti Music Economics Report published 23 January 2025, retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · download the data
The four rows behind the finding#
Duetti has published a rate for these four platforms every year since 2021, which is what makes a four-year, four-platform comparison possible at all. No platform’s line points up.
| # | Platform | 2021 rate, USD per 1,000 streams | 2024 rate, USD per 1,000 streams | Change, USD per 1,000 streams | Change, per cent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spotify | 3.20 | 3 | -0.2 | -6.30 |
| 2 | Apple Music | 6.60 | 6.20 | -0.4 | -6.10 |
| 3 | Amazon Music | 9.10 | 8.80 | -0.3 | -3.30 |
| 4 | YouTube | 4.80 | 4.80 | 0 | 0 |
Source: Computed from this desk's registered duetti-per-stream-rates-2024 dataset, itself transcribed from the Duetti Music Economics Report published 23 January 2025, retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · download the data
| # | Platform | Year | Usd Per 1000 Streams |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon Music | 2,021 | 9.10 |
| 2 | Amazon Music | 2,022 | 8.90 |
| 3 | Amazon Music | 2,023 | 8.90 |
| 4 | Amazon Music | 2,024 | 8.80 |
| 5 | Apple Music | 2,021 | 6.60 |
| 6 | Apple Music | 2,022 | 6.30 |
| 7 | Apple Music | 2,023 | 6.40 |
| 8 | Apple Music | 2,024 | 6.20 |
| 9 | YouTube | 2,021 | 4.80 |
| 10 | YouTube | 2,022 | 4.40 |
| 11 | YouTube | 2,023 | 4.30 |
| 12 | YouTube | 2,024 | 4.80 |
| 13 | Spotify | 2,021 | 3.20 |
| 14 | Spotify | 2,022 | 3.10 |
| 15 | Spotify | 2,023 | 3 |
| 16 | Spotify | 2,024 | 3 |
Source: Duetti Music Economics Report, published 23 January 2025, covering 2024 payout data, retrieved 21 Aug 2026 · download the data
YouTube is the one platform that did not end lower, because it round-tripped#
YouTube’s rate did fall, from $4.80 in 2021 to $4.30 in 2023, a 10.4 per cent dip, before recovering to $4.80 in 2024. It is the only one of the four platforms whose 2021 and 2024 values are identical, and the only one whose reported trough sits inside the period rather than at either end. Every other platform’s low point is also its most recent value: Amazon Music, Apple Music and Spotify each closed 2024 at the bottom of their own four-year range.
The counter-reading#
Neither platform discloses a contractual per-stream rate. Duetti derives both from royalty statements it reviews as part of its catalogue-acquisition business, and does not disclose the sample size behind any of the sixteen underlying numbers. Spotify told TechCrunch in March 2025 that describing its payouts this way was “ridiculous and unfounded”, since platforms pool subscription and advertising revenue and pay rightsholders pro rata rather than crediting a fixed rate to each play. That dispute applies to all four rows here, not only Spotify’s own.
All four rates are global blends. Nigeria’s, Egypt’s, South Africa’s and Morocco’s Spotify and Apple Music subscription pricing sit below the US and UK tiers that pull those blends upward, so an Africa-specific starting rate for any of the four platforms, if one were published, would very likely sit lower than the figures above, without necessarily changing the direction of the four-year move.
Running this desk’s sensitivity check on the four platform rows shows the finding does not depend on any single platform. Dropping YouTube, the only platform without a net fall, leaves the remaining three platforms’ average decline steeper, not shallower: the mean four-year change moves from -3.9 per cent across all four platforms to -5.2 per cent across the three that fell, a change of 33.3 per cent in the mean itself. Isolating Spotify alone, the platform with the steepest measured fall, accounts for 100 per cent of what remains once the other three are dropped.
| # | Scenario | Rows | Total | Mean | Largest row share, % | Change in total, % | Change in mean, % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All rows | 4 | -15.70 | -3.93 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Excluding the top 1 (YouTube) | 3 | -15.70 | -5.23 | 21.02 | 0 | 33.33 |
| 3 | Excluding the top 3 (YouTube, Amazon Music, Apple Music) | 1 | -6.30 | -6.30 | 100 | -59.87 | 60.51 |
Source: Recomputed from platform-rate-change-2021-to-2024, retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · download the data
What this means for an artist or a label pricing a release#
A catalogue priced against 2021’s per-stream rates on any of these four platforms is being priced against numbers that no longer exist. An African label modelling a 2026 release plan on a 2021 rate card would overstate Spotify revenue by roughly 6.3 per cent and Apple Music revenue by roughly 6.1 per cent per 1,000 streams, before any platform-share shift in where the streams actually land.
YouTube’s round trip is the one result in this table that a label should not read as stability. A platform that fell 10.4 per cent and then recovered by 2024 offers no more certainty about its 2027 rate than one that fell in a straight line; the recovery is a data point about 2023 and 2024, not a floor.
The direction is more useful here than the size. Every platform’s own trajectory over four years points down or flat, never up, and that holds before any Africa-specific pricing discount is applied to Duetti’s global blend. A release plan built on the assumption that per-stream rates will hold steady, let alone rise, is being built against the only four years of comparable data this desk has found that platform actually publishing on.
