Royalties

Every stream pays. Here's how it works.

When someone plays your music, money moves. Understanding where it goes—and how to collect all of it— is one of the most important things you can do as an artist.

Master recording royalties

This is the money earned from your actual recording — the audio file people stream or download.

SongDis collects these royalties from every platform your music lives on and pays it directly to you. No commission. You keep 100% of your master royalties—your SongDis subscription is the only fee.

Publishing and mechanical royalties

Every song has two parts — the recording and the composition underneath it. The melody. The lyrics. The songwriting.

When your composition gets streamed, it generates mechanical royalties. SongDis doesn't collect these automatically — that's a separate system.

To collect your publishing and mechanical royalties, you need a publishing administrator.

SongDis offers publishing admin services through SongDis Publishing. We handle the registration, the collection, and the paperwork — so you can focus on making music while we make sure every royalty finds its way back to you.

To access SongDis Publishing, you'll need to opt in separately. Once you enroll, we handle everything from that point onward.

Don't skip this. Most artists leave this money uncollected for years without realizing it.

Performance royalties

Every time your music plays on the radio, TV, or at a live venue—you're owed performance royalties.

These are collected by PROs—organizations like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC in the US; PRS in the UK; SAMRO in South Africa.

SongDis doesn't collect these. Register directly with your PRO to make sure you're getting paid.

Neighbouring rights

When your music is broadcast on radio, TV, or certain streaming services, there's another layer of royalties owed to the master rights holder and the performers. These are called neighboring rights.

SongDis doesn't collect these either. Contact your regional neighboring rights society to register and start collecting.

How streaming royalties are calculated

Every platform runs a royalty pool. Each month, a percentage of the platform's total revenue gets divided among all rights holders — based on how many streams each track received.

The per-stream rate changes depending on the platform, the country, and the listener's subscription tier. Generally, you can expect somewhere between $0.003 and $0.01 per stream.

It's not a fixed number. But every stream adds up.

Questions about your earnings?

Reach out at help@songdis.com. A real person will help you figure out what you're owed.