Spotify reported 777 million monthly users at the end of June 2026, 300 million of them paying, and a catalogue past 100 million tracks. Premium is $15.99 a month in Australia. That part holds up.
The asterisk is how the money divides. One 2024 estimate puts an independent artist at about US$3 per 1,000 Spotify streams, so matching the Australian minimum wage takes about 12 million streams a year. Spotify says it helps new artists get found. Of about 13 million people who have uploaded a song, it counts more than 81,000 artists past US$10,000 in 2025.
It is also in the share indexes super funds are measured against, so you may own a small piece. This page sets out both sides so that owning it is a choice.
the company
Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify in April 2006. It launched in Europe in October 2008, when it says piracy had cut the global music industry nearly in half, and reached Australia in 2012.
In its results for the second quarter of 2026, Spotify reported 777 million monthly active users at 30 June, up 12% in a year, and 300 million Premium subscribers, across 184 markets. Revenue for 2025 was EUR 17.2 billion, up 10% on 2024, and operating income was EUR 2.2 billion, a second straight profitable year after operating losses in 2022 and 2023.
hold on to this one
what spotify says it is
Daniel Ek, its founder and executive chairman, said in February 2026 that “what we’ve really built is a technology platform for audio”. Podcasts and audiobooks now sit beside the songs. This page follows the music.
the good stuff
Start with the price. Researchers at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oslo put a CD at US$21.59 in 2000 and a downloaded album at US$11.11 in 2013, in 2019 dollars, against US$9.99 for unlimited streaming. In Australia, Premium Individual is $15.99 a month and the free tier costs nothing but ads.
That buys over 100 million tracks. The reach, the catalogue and the price all hold up. What follows is where the money goes.
what a play pays
Spotify says roughly two-thirds of every dollar it makes from music goes to rights holders, meaning labels, distributors and publishers, split by their share of all streams. They pay the artist under whatever deal was signed. There is no set rate per play. In Spotify’s words, “No service pays a fixed amount per stream because listeners don’t pay per stream either”.
An average can still be worked out afterwards. Duetti, which buys stakes in independent artists’ recordings, did that with its own royalty data and put Spotify at about US$3 per 1,000 streams in 2024, the lowest of the four big services it compared. That is about 333 plays for one US dollar. Spotify called the claims “ridiculous and unfounded” and disputes the numbers.
Set that beside a wage. The Fair Work Commission set the national minimum wage at $1,004.90 a week from 1 July 2026, or $52,254.80 over 52 weeks. At the Reserve Bank’s rate of 69.33 US cents on 2 October 2026, that is about US$36,228. At US$3 per 1,000 streams, matching it takes about 12.1 million streams a year, or about 33,000 a day.
Since April 2024 a track has also needed 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months to earn recording royalties at all. Spotify says tracks under that line averaged 3 US cents a month, and that the money now goes to the tracks above it. NME reported that, on Spotify’s data, around 60% of tracks would not qualify.
Spotify’s answer is the size of the pool. It says it paid the music industry more than US$11 billion in 2025, more than any other service, and that a higher per-stream figure elsewhere mostly means listeners who stream less.
discovery, and who gets paid
Spotify’s other case is discovery. It says Discover Weekly alone starts more than 56 million new artist discoveries a week, 77% of them for emerging artists.
Then the count. Spotify says about 13 million people have uploaded at least one song, and that more than 81,000 artists generated at least US$10,000 in royalties from it in 2025. That is about 0.6%, or one in 160, and the US$10,000 is counted before a label, distributor or publisher takes a share.
Spotify argues the fair comparison is smaller: it estimates about 250,000 artists worldwide are pursuing music professionally, and says more than 30% of them passed US$10,000 from Spotify in 2025.
the streaming footprint
The Glasgow and Oslo researchers also estimated the greenhouse gases from recorded music in the US: 157 million kilograms in 2000, the CD’s peak, and between 200 million and over 350 million kilograms by 2016, from storing and sending files to people listening online.
Spotify publishes its own emissions. Its Equity & Impact Report for 2025 counts 202,666 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, up 3.9% on 2024. It set a goal in 2021 of net zero by 2030, and the report says “we are currently evaluating this goal, including target scope, timing, and underlying methodologies”.
The asterisk is in the method notes. One category is listed as “relevant to Spotify for the reporting year but not included in reported emissions due to limited availability of relevant guidance and industry consensus”: use of sold products, which the Greenhouse Gas Protocol defines as emissions from customers using what a company sells. For a streaming service, that would be the electricity used to listen.
the data play
Spotify’s privacy policy lists what it collects as you listen: streaming history, searches and playlists, with the date and time; your devices; your general location, down to the city; and “inferences (i.e., our understanding) of your age, interests and preferences based on your usage of the Spotify Service”. Streaming history is kept for the life of the account.
Wrapped turns a year of that record into something people post. Spotify counted more than 300 million engaged users and more than 630 million shares for the 2025 edition.
in the policy
the trade you already made
Music, free with ads or $15.99 a month, and in return a dated record of what you play. Most of us would take that deal again. The policy says usage data also goes to advertising partners, and that tailored ads can be switched off.
what this means for your money
Spotify’s parent is a Luxembourg company, and MSCI, the index company, counts it as Swedish: at 30 September 2026 it was the largest stock in the MSCI Sweden Index. Sweden is one of 23 developed markets in the MSCI World Index, where Spotify’s US$71.56 billion was about 0.08% of the total, or 8 cents in every $100.
APRA, the super regulator, measures the international shares in super products against MSCI’s world indexes with Australia taken out. A fund that tracks one holds Spotify at about that weight, so if your super holds international shares, there is a reasonable chance a small part of it is Spotify.
The question this series asks is whether the companies in your portfolio match what you care about, and whether you know what is in there at all. inaam does not rate Spotify as a stock.
We hold ourselves to the same reading. Every company in the fund is named in the app, with the reason it got in and the trade-off written next to it. The three checks a company has to pass are set out on how it works, and the five themes members customise for themselves are on investment areas. The subscription is $10 a month, which is $120 a year, and it is separate from the money you invest. The minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app, not on this website. SMSFs and family trusts are welcome.
key sources
Spotify Q2 2026 results · Spotify Loud & Clear · Duetti Music Economics Report 2024 · Billboard · Fair Work Commission · Reserve Bank of Australia · University of Glasgow · Spotify Equity & Impact Report 2025 · MSCI · APRA
General information only. It does not take your objectives or circumstances into account. Consider the PDS and TMD, and we recommend independent advice, before investing. This article is general information only and does not constitute financial advice, a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial product, or an endorsement of any investment strategy. Readers should do their own research before making investment decisions. The inaam Impact Investments Fund is ARSN 691 614 132. inaam is not affiliated with Spotify, Alphabet or Google, or any entity discussed in this report.
