I love to stream music. I love artists that make music. I want them to be able to live off what they make.

Here are some of my favourite music-streaming platforms:

Qobuz

Qobuz have been around since 2008. They are, as far as I know, the only music-streaming and music-purchase platform that openly publish how much they pay per stream^[1]:

In terms of average revenue per user (ARPU), Qobuz generated average revenue of  US$121.13 per year, where the market average is US$22.38 per year. This means that Qobuz generates on average five times more revenue per user than the market average, which results in a significant impact on artists' remuneration.

They offer high-fidelity music. Even though they offer less music than services like Tidal and Spotify, they treat artists far better. Another good thing about Qobuz is that they, unlike Tidal, Spotify, and a few other music-streaming platforms, filter out a lot of artificial intelligence-generated content. One of the reasons why I recently (September 2025) left Tidal was the massive amount of AI slop.

Coda

I recently—November 2025—heard of Coda, which is an artist-centric music-streaming service. They're so far launched in the USA, as far as I can tell, so I can't use their services.

Coda claim to provide the industry-leading artist payout per stream. They don't accept AI-generated audio (although they do accept use of AI as a tool, not to create entire songs). They let users send 1 USD per month to an artist of their choice.

A quote from Jamie Steward from one of my favourite bands, Xiu Xiu:

Music is sacred. It is the first form of organized emotional, spiritual, social and physical expression. This primary human culture deserves care and respect. Coda, within the rightly maligned but inevitable world of streaming, is working to give music fans and working musicians a home where they can find this care and respect. When Xiu Xiu left Spotify to protest their choice to become war profiteers, hundreds of people asked us where they should listen to music. Coda is working to be that place.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud: use an artist-centric payment model. In 2023 they turned profitable, which is something Spotify have not achieved. Edit, 2024-01-08: it was recently announced by Sky News that SoundCloud appear to try to sell their platform. Hopefully, this will not lead to what Bandcamp are becoming.

Catalytic Sound

Catalytic Sound: from their site:

Catalytic Sound is a music based co-operative designed to help create economic sustainability for its artists through patron support. Put simply, one half of all album purchases and subscription fees will always go directly to the musicians of the collective.'

Ampwall

Ampwall: this platform is currently (February 2025) in beta and is similar to Bandcamp but allows artists to do more. They have a mission statement. Exciting! The UX is very nice. Also, this platform is built and run by people who are deeply involved with making underground music. What mainly differs Ampwall from Bandcamp is a subscription model where an artist pays 10 USD/year for every five hours of music uploads. Artists get 95% of the money from all purchases; in comparison, Bandcamp take 10-15% of all purchases^[2]. Ampwall is listed as a Delaware Public Benefit Company^[3], which means:

Delaware Public Benefit Corporations (PBC) function like any other for-profit corporation, but with a key difference. Public Benefit Corporations bake specific public benefit purposes into their foundation documents as for-profit entities.

There's another bit that I really like about Ampwall:

No ads, no data sales, no AI music, no crypto.

Vocana

Vocana is launching:

Vocana is the first independent-only streaming platform where your listening directly fuels the artists you love, with built-in discovery and community tools that bring fans and artists together.

Rokk

Rokk: launched in September 2024, they want to pay artists '2-3 times more' than other streaming services and allow the end user to pay 10% of their monthly pay by signing up for Rokk via a special artist link^[4]. Support their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign!

Direct artist support

Rokk allows people to sign up by using a special link provided by one of their favourite artists. By using that link, the artists gets 10% of the user's first-year subscription payments. Year two, they get 5%. The percentage can stay at 10% for users who pay the most.

“An artist over the course of a year could see earnings equivalent to selling multiple records, and that’s already covered in your regular subscription fee,” explained co-founder Alex Landenburg in an open letter as the service went live. Rokk is launching in the UK and Europe, with plans for expansion in the future.^[5]

HIIO

I don't know much about HIIO, a new streaming service. Musically have published an article^[6] about the company, which aims to go live as soon as they've licensed the use of more than 100 million songs, which roughly would put the company at the same level as most other big streaming companies.

Their subscription-based model would give 100% of a user's money to artists whose music that user listens to. I've not looked into other models.

Tuneswell

Tuneswell is up and running. They say they pay artists five times more than Spotify:

A streaming service that pays artists 500% higher royalties and pays users for curation. We also offer linked recording credits to ensure all contributors are properly compensated.

Artists control how revenue is distributed among all contributors, ensuring everyone gets their fair share.

Every contributor gets recognition and fair compensation - from session players to producers, engineers to songwriters.

Get paid 2% of streaming revenue when listeners discover music through your playlists, profiles, or recommendations.

Tone

Tone are not yet up and running, but you can enter an email address to get updates. Their page reads:

open source, artist & listener owned music listening service.

We're building it out right now, help us decide what an equitable music marketplace looks like.

Come say hello over at our discord, or check out our codebase on github.

Civil Polis/diskotek+apotek

Swedish artist Civil Polis has, as far as I can tell, collaborated with their record label, diskotek+apotek, to create a subscription-based music-streaming service: https://civilpolis.org/radiocivil/registration/. The page is in Swedish but basically says: avoid big corporations, spend one thousandth of your monthly income each month and get to stream as much music as you want from 'the Swedish underground'.

I've not used this platform, but I very much appreciate the effort!

Bandcamp

Bandcamp: even though Bandcamp have been sold a couple of times (in 2022 and 2023), they allow users to stream music (both via the web and via their app) and download the music, too. They take roughly 10-15% of what users pay, and the rest goes to the artist.

Another thing about Bandcamp: there's been turmoil in the company since it was sold off a couple of times. Bandcamp United is the union at Bandcamp.

RIP

Resonate

Resonate: sadly, Resonate came across a crisis early in 2023, and are winding down since October 2024. Resonate is/was the first community-owned music-streaming service. Their payment model is artist-centered and user-centric.