Spotify Pays $100M As Platforms Woo Creators

Spotify has disbursed over $100 million to podcast publishers and creators since January 2025, as reported to The New York Times’s DealBook. The payout stems from a 2025 program that introduced new revenue streams for eligible hosts, aiming to attract creators and their audiences to Spotify amid YouTube’s dominance in video podcasting.

Video podcasts now lead the industry, with over half of Americans over 12 watching them, primarily on YouTube, per a January Edison Research report. YouTube reaches one billion podcast consumers monthly, dwarfing Spotify’s 170 million podcast listeners within its 675 million total users. YouTube paid creators and media companies over $70 billion from 2021 to 2024, while Spotify, which began offering video podcasts in 2019, trails as an underdog.

Spotify, set to report earnings Tuesday with an expected 540 million euros in pretax income on €4.2 billion in sales (per S&P Capital IQ), remains a key player, distributing major podcasts like “The Joe Rogan Experience” and achieving full-year profitability in 2024. Its new partner program, launched in November, supplements ad revenue sharing with incentives for video uploads, rewarding creators based on premium subscriber engagement. Spotify also removed dynamic ads for paid subscribers in select markets, boosting video consumption by over 40% since January.

The program shows promise. David Coles, host of “Just Creepy: Scary Stories,” saw his Spotify revenue rise from $45,500 to $81,600 per quarter after joining, surpassing his YouTube earnings and prompting him to reconsider his primary platform. Spotify’s challenge is convincing more creators to prioritize its platform over YouTube’s vast reach.