Spotify raises prices on subscriptions days after tweet prompts outcry from musicians

Starting in July, Spotify will begin charging more for Premium subscriptions, the company announced June 3.

The ad-free experience will now cost listeners $11.99 per month, a dollar more than before, adding up to a 20% increase over the last two years.

“So that we can continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience, we occasionally update our prices,” Spotify said in the announcement.

This news comes on the heels of a social media firestorm where, after years of criticism for not paying small artists enough, the streaming giant came under scrutiny again following a post by its CEO, Daniel Elk.

“Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content,” he said in a May 29 post on X, formerly Twitter.

Although Elk was likely alluding to the technology that facilitates at-home recording and producing, his statement was not well-received among musicians and music lovers. Responses to the post ranged from criticism of Elk’s categorization of music as “content” to reviews of artists’ financial realities Elk’s words appear to ignore.

“The cost of creating quality content is not, never has been, and never will be zero,” writer Katie Berry responded.

“Incredibly offensive to all musicians who spend a lot of money paying musicians, engineers, songwriters, producers & studios to make music that sounds as great as possible for fans,” singer-songwriter Darren Hayes said in response to Elk’s post.

Upfront costs aside, it takes 10-12 hours to record a song with a well-rehearsed band, according to audio engineering site Produce Like a Pro. And that doesn’t include the hours or months it may take to write the piece, or the hours a sound engineer takes to produce it. Overall, this adds up to hundreds of hours of work to create one album, time that usually doesn’t pay well for itself.

According to Spotify, the platform pays artists “royalties based on an artist’s share of overall streams across the platform,” a sum that generally amounts to $0.003 to $0.005 per play, according to Business Insider.

“Our model drives more fan engagement and generates revenue from more places, which means larger total checks from Spotify to rights holders. That’s why we pay more than any other service,” Spotify said in a March 2023 statement.

However, with the cost of living in the U.S. soaring and subscriptions to streaming platforms taking the place of album sales, many artists find themselves wedded to the payment model Spotify has chosen due to the platform’s ubiquity, even when it may not be profitable.

Today’s pricing announcement only magnifies public curiosity over what the streaming giant will do for artists making so little on their platform.

This story was originally published June 3, 2024 at 6:44 PM.