- How much money do you earn for 1,000,000 streams on Spotify?
If you’re not already using a Problem Solving Framework with your students, it has a section where they can list their low, high, and best estimate. For example, a student might pick $100 for a low estimate (“He has to earn at least $100!”), $50,000 for a high estimate (“There’s no way he’s earning more than $50,000”), and $1000 for a best estimate.
The experience of having to make an estimate is likely to leave these spies deeply unsatisfied. They may say things like “How are we supposed to know how much he will earn when we don’t know ____________________?!” This is exactly where you want them because now they’re both interested in the context and ready to control how the problem solving continues.
They may ask for some or all of the following information, but only give them what they ask for. They need to learn what information they need.
What is a stream?
A stream is what it’s called when a song is played using an online music service.
How much do artists earn for each stream on Spotify?
The chart below lists the average amount that artists on Spotify earn per stream. It’s important to note that this is not the exact amount but rather it’s the average of a lot of reported data. You can learn more about the details by using the links under “Source(s)” below.
How much tax is taken out?
We’re looking at the amount before taxes are taken out.
How much do other streaming platforms give you for each stream?
You can use the same chart above.
Did he have to share the money with anyone?
I’ve edited the video down, but in the original (linked below under “Source(s)”), he explains that his publisher took a portion of his earnings. So we are only looking at his share.
When students see that artists earn $0.00437 per stream on Spotify, they may have a hard time conceptualizing what that means. Is that more than a dollar? Less than a dollar? More than a penny? Less than a penny?
Once it’s established that it’s less than a penny, it may be worth asking students “How many streams does an artist need to earn a penny on Spotify?” We want students to realize that two streams is almost a penny ($0.00874). If you’re not sure that they get it, you can follow it up with “How many streams does an artist need to earn a dollar on Spotify?”
Something to be careful about are the units we use. For example, “0.00437 dollars” is different than “0.00437 cents”. After 229 streams, both will have a value of one, except the former will be one dollar and the latter will be one cent.
Eventually students will be ready to find out how much the artist earned. At $0.00437 per stream, he would multiplying $0,00437 by 1,000,000 to learn that one million streams should earn him $4370. When they’re ready, play the video below.
So what’s the deal?! Why didn’t what his answer match what we got? Did we calculate incorrectly? The reality is that it goes back to the original source of the data. $0.00437 is not the exact rate but rather the average of a lot of people’s results. So, each individual artist’s earnings may vary somewhat.
An interesting extension to this problem is the question: “How many streams would he need to earn the same amount of money on other platforms?” This takes you into dividing decimals. For example, he earned $4140 for one million streams on Spotify. Using the data in the chart, to earn the same amount of money on YouTube, he would divide $4140 by $0.00069 to see that he’d need six million streams (again remembering that it’s an average).
- CCSS 6.NS.3 – Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.
- Streaming payouts graphic
- Digital Music News (original source for graphic’s data)
- Casper Esmann’s “How much Spotify paid me for 1 million streams” video