Qobuz Royalty Calculator 2026
Qobuz is a French hi-res streaming and download service with no free tier. It is the only major platform to publish its own per-stream payout: $0.01873 to rights holders for its most recent reported year, the highest figure of any service we track.
Qobuz earnings by stream count
How many Qobuz streams to make $1,000?
At $0.0187 per stream, you need approximately 53,476 Qobuz streams to earn $1,000.
The Only Platform That Publishes Its Own Rate
Every other figure on this site is a modelled average, put together from distributor reports and artists' statements, because no major platform states what it pays per stream. Qobuz is the exception. In March 2025 it published an average payout of $0.01873 per stream to rights holders for its fiscal year to March 2024, and said it was the first streaming service to do so. Music Ally and Billboard both carried the figure.
That is the number the Qobuz calculator runs on, rounded to $0.0187, and it needs one qualification before you compare it with the rest of the table. "Rights holders" means labels, distributors and publishers together. The figure is gross: it is what left Qobuz, not what reached an artist. A self-released artist on a 0% distributor keeps the recording side of it; an artist on a label deal keeps whatever share the contract says; and some of it is publishing income that arrives through a collecting society or a publisher, if it arrives at all. The other platforms' averages on this site are closer to the artist's side of that line, so Qobuz looks a little further ahead in the table than it is in a bank account.
Even with that allowance it is the highest per-stream figure of any service we track, roughly 4.7 times the Spotify average and about 40% above Tidal. The reason is not a different royalty model. Qobuz explained it as revenue per user: no free tier, a higher monthly price than most services, and subscribers who stream fewer tracks. A pool divided by fewer plays gives a bigger number per play, the same arithmetic that puts Tidal above Spotify.
Who Listens on Qobuz
Qobuz started in Paris in 2007 as a download store for high-resolution audio and added streaming later. It still sells downloads alongside the subscription, which no other platform on this site does, and a purchase pays a share of the sale price rather than a per-stream rate. The calculator models streams only; a download shows up on your statement as a separate line.
The audience is small and specific: listeners who care about sound quality enough to pay for lossless and hi-res audio, with the service strongest in France, the rest of Western Europe and the United States. Classical, jazz, acoustic and audiophile-leaning rock and electronic catalogues are over-represented relative to the wider market. Qobuz also runs an editorial layer, with album reviews, liner notes and curated features, that matters more to its subscribers than algorithmic playlists do on other services.
For most independent artists that means Qobuz streams are a rounding error on the statement: a fraction of a percent of total plays, at a high rate. Most distributors deliver to Qobuz by default, so there is nothing to opt into, but there is also little to be gained by promoting it unless your music and your listeners fit the profile above.
Should You Care About the Qobuz Rate?
As a per-stream figure, it is worth knowing for one reason: it is real. When someone argues about what streaming pays, the Qobuz number is the one data point that comes from a platform rather than from an estimate, and it shows what a subscription-only service with a high price can afford to pay out. It is a useful reference in a negotiation or an article.
As a source of income, it depends entirely on volume. A thousand Qobuz streams gross about $18.70 at the published rate. The same thousand streams on Spotify gross about $4. But if your catalogue does 100,000 Spotify streams a month and 500 on Qobuz, Spotify pays you $400 and Qobuz pays you $9.35. The rate is not the number to compare; the payout is. Run both through the Spotify vs Qobuz comparison with your own stream counts and the answer is usually clear.
Where Qobuz can matter is at the margin, for artists whose music already suits it. If you release classical, jazz or well-recorded acoustic music, or your existing statements show a Qobuz line that is bigger than you expected, it is worth making sure your releases carry hi-res masters where you have them, that the credits and liner notes are complete, since Qobuz surfaces them, and that your smart links include it. That is a few hours' work for a platform that pays more per play than any other, and it costs nothing if it does not pan out.
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