Spotify monthly listeners are a key metric for artists, indicating how many unique users listen to their music within a 28-day period, while streams count the total number of plays, even if from the same listener. A good monthly listener count varies based on experience, effort, and genre, with 1,000–3,000 considered strong for new artists and 5,000+ as a solid start for making money, given Spotify’s payout of $0.003–$0.005 per stream. Tracking monthly listeners is simple via the artist dashboard, and increasing them can be achieved through social media promotion, cross-platform streaming, and optimizing artist profiles for visibility. More monthly listeners lead to more streams, boosting engagement, earnings, and potential playlist placements.
The Key Difference Between Spotify Streams and Monthly Listeners
As the world’s most popular music streaming platform, Spotify is used by millions of people. It doesn’t matter where you are; whether on the bus, at home, or working out. Using the Premium plan enables you to access your favorite songs, and playlists of podcasts anytime and anywhere. On the platform, we can categorize listeners into two distinct segments: streams and monthly listeners. What do we mean by these two terms? Let’s explore streams first and then move on to monthly listeners.
What Defines a Spotify Stream?
A Spotify stream is recorded when a platform user engages with a song for a minimum of 30 seconds. In other words, if a user listens to a song for at least half a minute, it counts as one stream. Let’s give a simple example.
Let’s say as a relatively new artist, you produce and share a new song on your Spotify account. If your new track is played 1,000 times by platform users, it would refer to 1,000 streams. At this point, one user can generate multiple streams if they listen to the same song repeatedly. To put it differently, if the user plays the track again, it counts as another stream. Therefore, the total number of streams you have shows how many times your song has been played. Once you have a high number of streams, it improves your popularity and even visibility on the platform.

Understanding Spotify Monthly Listeners
Now the question is ‘What does monthly listeners mean on Spotify?’ Monthly listeners can be defined as the number of unique users who have listened to the song within 28 days. Another question is ‘How does Spotify calculate monthly listeners?’ How does this work? Let us explain.
If one unique listener plays your track twice on Spotify, they will still count as only one monthly listener. However, this will contribute two Spotify streams to your songs. This is the main difference between the platform streams and monthly listeners, okay? Similar to the streams, monthly listeners can help you improve your visibility, creating an opportunity for playlist placements. In this regard, you may be wondering ‘How many monthly listeners on Spotify is good?’
The good monthly listener count on Spotify can vary significantly depending on a range of factors. If you wish, let’s take a look at the most important ones!
- Your Experience Level: If you’re a relatively new Spotify artist, having between 1,000 and 3,000 monthly listeners can be considered perfect. On the other side, having 10,000 monthly listeners as Ketty Perry must be a nightmare.
- Your Efforts: ‘How many monthly listeners on Spotify to make a living?’ depends on your marketing efforts on the platform. An effective marketing strategy and the number of monthly listeners have a parallel relationship for your high-quality songs.
- Your Targeted Listeners: Depending on the type of music you produce and share, your potential listener base may vary. For example, having 10,000 monthly listeners might be underwhelming for a pop type. But, this number might be impressive for a niche genre, like classic music.
How Much Money Can You Make From Monthly Listeners?
You may be a passionate music producer, but nowadays there’s another topic that’s just as important: How much does Spotify pay per monthly listener? On average, the platform pays artists between $0.003 – $0.005 per stream. For this reason, as an artist, your earnings will vary depending on how many times listeners play your tracks. If you get 100,000 streams within a 28-day period, your total earnings could range between $300 and $500.
To increase your earnings as a new artist, it’s important to gain as many streams as possible on the platform. Spotify streams enable you to gain more monthly listeners as they have the potential to discover your tracks. We all know that monthly listeners tend to be more loyal and consistent in engaging with what you produce. So, how many monthly listeners do you need on Spotify to make money? Again, the answer can vary based on different factors, such as the year of experience you have on Spotify. But, generally speaking, having around 5,000 monthly listeners is a good starting point to make money on the platform.
Having a high number of streams and monthly listeners makes you more appealing to your target listeners, right? All of this helps you earn more money for your efforts at the end of the day.
How to Track Your Monthly Listener Count on Spotify?
Is it the right time to start earning from your songs, or should you wait? To answer this critical question, you should check the number of monthly users you have on the platform. Here are the easy steps to achieve this!
- As a first step, log in to your artist account using your username or e-mail address, and password. By the way, the process can be managed on both mobile devices and desktop computers.
- Once you successfully log in, you will be directed to your artist dashboard within seconds. On this page, you will be able to see a wide range of metrics related to your tracks.
- Now, you can look at the area below your artist name; The number provides information about your monthly listeners on the platform.
- Alternatively, you can check the About section on your artist page to see the number of monthly users you have.
By following the steps below, you will be able to determine if you are at a good point. This helps you answer two vital questions: ‘What is a lot of monthly listeners on Spotify?’ and ‘Can I also start making money?’

Proven Strategies to Boost Your Spotify Monthly Listeners
As an artist, having a high Spotify monthly listener count plays a key role in your visibility and earning money. More monthly listeners create a snowball effect on your Spotify artist account, as increased monthly listeners lead to more streams. At the end of the day, more streams attract the attention of more new monthly listeners. But, how can you achieve this? Millions of songs from various genres are uploaded and the number is increasing with each passing day. All of this makes it hard to stand out in such a crowded environment. Don’t worry; implementing a few key strategies can help you take a significant step forward.
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Here are the proven strategies to boost monthly listeners:
- Promote Your Tracks Across Social Media Channels
- Leverage Multiple Music Streaming Platforms
- Ensure Maximum Visibility for Your Spotify Tracks
Promote Your Tracks Across Social Media Channels
Let’s say you produce and upload your new song, playlist, or podcast to your Spotify artist account. To increase the popularity of your new track, sharing it on other social media platforms like Instagram is a perfect strategy. Once you do this, you can attract the attention of your Instagram followers, for example, to your Spotify profile. At this point, sharing the most exciting part of your song can increase your chance of achieving this. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook can be excellent platforms for cross-promotion. Purchasing Spotify playlist followers can also help you shorten the path to increased visibility and engagement.
Leverage Multiple Music Streaming Platforms
As an artist, you should also use other music platforms to enhance the exposure of your songs. In this regard, YouTube stands out as one of the best platforms to share your music. Whether you create classical or pop music, YouTube allows you to reach a wide range of audience within minutes. This enables you to drive traffic to your Spotify profile and increase the chance of earning more monthly listeners.
Ensure Maximum Visibility for Your Spotify Tracks
To have your new tracks recognized, it’s essential to engage with your target Spotify listeners. To achieve this, you must have a high level of visibility as much as possible. There are plenty of strategies to ensure maximum visibility for your tracks. Optimizing your profile and providing detailed information about yourself creates a more professional-looking bio. For example, you can use high-quality images and links to your social media accounts. Besides, researching playlists that match your genre and submitting your tracks, helps you attract more people’s attention to your profile. You should also create your own Spotify playlists that include similar artists’ content in order to reach their fans.
You can check out related blog : How Can You Increase Your Monthly Listeners on Spotify?
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