Is Qobuz the highest artist paying streaming service?
Executive summary
Qobuz publicly disclosed and had independently validated that it paid an average of US$0.01873 per stream to rights holders in 2024, a figure the company and multiple trade outlets say places it among the highest per‑stream payouts in the business [1] [2]. That headline number, however, is paid to labels and publishers — not directly to artists — and the share an individual musician sees depends on label contracts, publishing splits and the industry’s pro‑rata royalty pool, so Qobuz’s lead is meaningful but not an automatic guarantee that every artist earns more on Qobuz than on any rival platform [1] [3].
1. Qobuz’s headline payout: the numbers and how they were presented
Qobuz announced an average payout of US$0.01873 per stream to rights holders for the 2024 fiscal year and said this figure was independently audited — a first for a streaming service to publish and validate an “average per‑stream” rate — and Qobuz framed the disclosure as part of a transparency and artist‑friendly positioning tied to its paid‑only, hi‑res business model [1] [4]. Outlets quoting Qobuz translated that to roughly US$18.73 per 1,000 streams and noted the company claims it pays about 70% of revenues to rights holders, consistent with wider industry statements from the platform [2] [4].
2. Why “per‑stream to rights holders” is not the same as “per‑stream to artists”
Most streaming payouts flow to rights holders — labels, distributors and publishers — who then pay artists according to contracts and splits, so an aggregate per‑stream rate to rights holders does not equal the net per‑stream an artist receives; analysts and industry commentators stress that an artist’s real take‑home depends on label share, publishing splits, and whether a service uses pro‑rata pools versus user‑centric models [3] [5]. Billboard’s breakdown shows that when publishing and other allocations are sliced out, Qobuz’s recorded‑music portion could be nearer US$0.015 per stream — still multiple times higher than many platforms’ average per‑stream figures — but that headline still doesn’t map cleanly to individual artist incomes [6].
3. Comparison with rivals: context, lists and caveats
Multiple trade pieces and aggregators have positioned Qobuz at or near the top of per‑stream lists — Tom’s Guide, What Hi‑Fi?, MusicTech and newer industry roundups name Qobuz as among the best paying, and independent lists have placed Qobuz ahead of Apple, Spotify and YouTube on a per‑stream basis [7] [2] [1] [8]. However, those comparisons rely on different methodologies and on “per‑stream to rights holder” calculations; Billboard cites Duetti’s list where Amazon, Tidal, Apple and Spotify show lower per‑stream figures and notes platforms dispute simplistic per‑stream ranking methods because music payouts are derived from pools and complex usage mixes, not a single static rate [6] [3].
4. Business model and scale matter: why Qobuz can pay more — and why that matters unevenly
Qobuz’s premium, paid‑only, hi‑res positioning yields a much higher average revenue per user (Qobuz cited an ARPU figure far above market averages), which explains how it can push more revenue to rights holders per stream; smaller, pricier services with fewer free tiers naturally generate more revenue per play than mass‑market platforms with ad tiers and heavy discounting [5] [4]. But the trade‑off is reach: larger platforms deliver scale and discovery that can mean more total income for some artists despite lower per‑stream rates, and industry observers caution that encouraging fans to stream on high‑payout services is only one part of a musician’s income strategy [8] [3].
5. Verdict — is Qobuz the highest artist‑paying service?
Qobuz has openly published and had validated an average per‑stream payment to rights holders that places it among the industry’s highest per‑stream payers, and on published per‑stream rankings it often tops the list [1] [8]. But the precise question of whether Qobuz is the “highest artist paying” service cannot be answered with an absolute yes for every artist: the company’s numbers refer to payments to rights holders (not artists directly), artist earnings vary by contractual splits and payout models, and competing calculations and platform defenses mean rankings change with methodology and time [1] [3] [6]. In short, Qobuz is demonstrably one of the highest per‑stream payers at the rights‑holder level and likely among the most artist‑friendly platforms in per‑stream terms, but whether an individual artist will earn more on Qobuz than anywhere else depends on their contracts, audience behavior and distribution choices [2] [3].