What Musicians Actually Get Paid By iTunes, Pandora And Spotify Is Truly Pathetic

Information for this article comes from Business Insider

Most of us have harbored dreams of being a professional musician at one time. But when you see the personal finances of cellist Zoe Keating — and the money she earns from online song and album sales via iTunes and Amazon — you’ll think twice about giving up your day job.

Worse, the income she gets from streaming music services like Pandora and Spotify is so pathetic it’s not enough to live on — even though her songs were streamed 2.8 million times last year.

All told, Keating sold 33,000 singles, 8,600 albums, and 2.8 million streams for total 2013 sales of about $82,000. That’s not a bad income and it’s also not the point. The point is, that an artist is getting listened to millions of times but getting little return in comparison to the vast numbers of streams. (Keating released her finances with this arch tweet, “2013 music sales & streaming numbers for a middle-aged mom in a non-album cycle.”)