What does a million mean on Spotify? The answer might be surprising.

While the world’s largest music streaming platform has 600 million listeners, this could mean 7.5 percent of the population on this planet uses Spotify to listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks. But one million streams still sound impressive when it comes down to streaming numbers. However, data from Spotify’s Loud & Clear report suggests a rather different picture.

The report aims to clarify myths and misconceptions about streaming numbers and royalty payments. Some of the numbers are eye-watering: the company paid out a record $9 billion to rights holders last year (Spotify doesn’t pay artists directly) but putting aside the big picture figures, let’s get back to the value of a million streams.

It is an accomplishment for a song to reach that coveted seven-figure streaming milestone. But just before one starts celebrating, musicians should know they’ll be sharing celebrations with 329,000 others, making the milestone less impressive.

If a song was played 1.4 million times it would have broken into the top 250,000. But why let ambitions stop there? With 4 million, a song would reach the top 100,000. And with a mere 31 million more - for a total of 35 million streams, you could sing your own praises from the lofty peak of the top 10,000 most-streamed songs on Spotify in 2023.

If you’re a glutton for punishment, Spotify provides a handy calculator to put your success into the context of all-time achievement.

Type in: 1,000,000 all time streams.

Now, to find out your ranking, simply press Enter and your answer will magically appear.

Ready?

Drum roll please!

Congratulations again! You’re among the top 1,130,000 tracks on Spotify!

But don’t be disheartened. A million streams might not make you a million dollars, but you don’t need to have a hit to make a million. You don’t have to be a household name, and you don’t need to have a viral hit! Of the 1,250 artists whose Spotify streams produced $1 million last year, over 1,000 of them didn’t chart on Spotify’s Global Top 50.

Spotify’s guidance if you want to earn $1 million a year is simply: muster 4-5 monthly listeners or 2025 million monthly streams and you’ll be there or thereabouts. That’s priceless information, so what are you waiting for? Get composing!

In the meantime, there are many more fascinating facts and figures on the latest episode of the Riz Khan Show on Al Arabiya English, as Riz interviews Bryan Johnson, Spotify’s Head of International Artists and Industry Partnerships.