The stores take between 2 to 6 months to pay out your royalties. Different stores have different payment schedules. For example, a Spotify stream in February shows in April, whereas a June download in Apple Music shows in August.

Spotify 1000 streams threshold

Keep in mind that Spotify requires a track to reach a minimum of 1000 streams in the previous 12 months to be eligible for monetization. If that threshold hasn't been reached, Spotify won’t be paying out any royalties for the tracks yet. Once the threshold has been reached, Spotify will start paying out royalties for the tracks.

Delayed store payments

We pay out royalties as soon as we receive them from the stores, but there are a few reasons payments from them can be late; this affects all distributors and is usually out of our control.

It could be for reasons such as:

Problems with statement processing
Foreign exchange delays

If a store pays out royalties after we’ve processed the statements for the month, the payment will be rolled into next month's royalties.

You may be eligible for an Early Access advance - this is an automated offer, and you’ll be notified in the app if it’s available for you.

Artificial streaming - withheld royalties

You always get 100% of the royalties the stores pay out. These are usually paid out 2-3 months after the streams happen. If you believe you’re missing royalties it could be because of artificial streaming.

Artificial streaming can be the result of one of these things:

Paid promotion through a third-party service, your release(s) have been added to playlists with fake listeners
Systematically putting the song on repeat

This goes against the stores' and our Terms of Use, and the stores could withhold royalties related to these streams. If you believe you are missing royalties on a release that has been live for more than 3 months, the stores might have excluded them.

Read more about artificial streaming here.

Artificial streaming - Spotify fines

If Amuse has fined your account as a result of artificial streaming, it means Spotify has detected and verified streams as artificial. They can also withhold royalties for those streams, and apply fines to Amuse for the relevant tracks. As a result, Amuse applies a $10 per track fine found in Spotify's report that is deducted from your Amuse Wallet.

Read more about artificial streaming activity fines here.

Frozen & deactivated accounts

Breaches of our Terms of Use may result in the freezing or deactivation of an account. In some cases, the account owner will still be able to withdraw royalties but just won’t be able to upload releases. In other more severe cases, the account needs to be completely shut down.

If your account has been deactivated for copyright infringement, artificial streaming or fraudulent payments, you won’t be able to access your Amuse account or royalties.

What does Spotify pay per stream?

Streaming services like Spotify don't have a set "pay per stream" rate. Instead, it varies greatly depending on whether or not the Spotify listener is Free or Premium, which region they're listening from (different regions have different payment modes on Spotify), when it's being streamed (payment also varies on Spotify from day to day) and a variety of additional factors.

Where do I find my royalties?

You'll be able to request a withdrawal when royalties have been paid into your wallet. You can find this in the “Wallet” section of the Amuse app, which you can access by clicking the “$” in the top left corner (iOS) or tap on the three dots in the top right corner (Android). To get your most recent balance, pull down to refresh your Wallet tab.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out by clicking on the chat bubble in the bottom right corner while logged into your Amuse account. We’re always happy to help!