{"id":3206,"slug":"apple-vs-spotify-cascade-gap","title":"The dollar gap between Apple Music’s and Spotify’s per-stream rate, carried through one Nigerian label cascade, by deal structure","source":"Computed from the registered datasets apple-music-rate-through-nigerian-cascade and spotify-rate-through-nigerian-cascade, which each apply Duetti's 2024 platform rate to the same four scenarios in nigeria-distribution-cascade-example","source_url":"","source_type":"computed","method":"For each of the four scenarios in nigeria-distribution-cascade-example, gap_usd_per_1000 = apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist minus spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist, both already-registered products of Duetti's 2024 global platform rate (Apple Music $6.20, Spotify $3.00, per 1,000 streams) and that scenario's artist_share_pct. gap_pct_of_spotify = gap_usd_per_1000 \/ spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist * 100, one decimal place. This is arithmetic on two already-published, already-derived figures, not a new measurement. It inherits every limitation of both parents in full: Duetti's rates are global blended averages that Spotify itself disputes as a valid unit at all, the cascade is one worked Pulse Nigeria example (Ycee and Tinny Entertainment, originally reported 2017) rather than a survey of Nigerian deals, and because the gap is a fixed multiple (Apple's rate is 2.0667 times Spotify's in every scenario, by construction) the percentage gap is mathematically constant across scenarios and carries no information beyond the two platform rates; only the dollar gap column moves with the deal structure and is the one worth reading.","unit":"usd_per_1000_streams","license":"Afrobeats Wire's compilation and analysis are licensed CC BY 4.0. Rights in the underlying source data remain with the source named above.","confidence":"low","retrieved":"2026-09-02 01:42:57","n":4,"first_party":0,"columns":[{"key":"scenario","label":"Scenario","type":"text"},{"key":"artist_share_pct","label":"Artist's share of gross, %","type":"number"},{"key":"spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist","label":"Spotify: USD to artist per 1,000 streams","type":"number"},{"key":"apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist","label":"Apple Music: USD to artist per 1,000 streams","type":"number"},{"key":"gap_usd_per_1000","label":"Apple Music minus Spotify, USD per 1,000 streams","type":"number"},{"key":"gap_pct_of_spotify","label":"Gap as % of the Spotify value","type":"number"}],"rows":[{"scenario":"Telco-bundled, through a label and manager","artist_share_pct":5.1,"spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.153,"apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.316,"gap_usd_per_1000":0.163,"gap_pct_of_spotify":106.5},{"scenario":"App-based, through a label and manager","artist_share_pct":7.5,"spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.225,"apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.465,"gap_usd_per_1000":0.24,"gap_pct_of_spotify":106.7},{"scenario":"Telco-bundled, artist bypasses the label","artist_share_pct":20,"spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.6,"apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist":1.24,"gap_usd_per_1000":0.64,"gap_pct_of_spotify":106.7},{"scenario":"App-based, artist bypasses the label","artist_share_pct":25,"spotify_usd_per_1000_to_artist":0.75,"apple_usd_per_1000_to_artist":1.55,"gap_usd_per_1000":0.8,"gap_pct_of_spotify":106.7}]}