Pulling numbers out of thin air: Let's assume that Justin Bieber gets 100m streams this month, and that's 5% of all streams on Spotify. That means there are 2b

Pulling numbers out of thin air: Let's assume that Justin Bieber gets 100m streams this month, and that's 5% of all streams on Spotify. That means there are 2bn streams across all artists. If your 10 favourite bands between them get 2,000,000 streams, then they represent 0.1% of streaming activity. Out of your £10, spotify gets £8.33 (taking off the VAT). Spotify pays out 70% of revenues in royalties - so there's £5.83 going out the door. Bieber gets 5% of this - £0.29 - and your bands get £0.0058 - so about 0.6 pence. If there are ten bands, then they are each getting 0.06 pence of your £10. Assuming those bands are self releasing, and there are four people in a band, each band member is making 0.0015 pence out of your initial £10. Whether that money actually goes to Bieber personally, and whether the 0.06p actually goes to the members of the band is another thing entirely, and is dictated the deal that they have (or don't have) with an intermediary such as a record label.