Spotify has paid more than $100 million to podcast publishers and creators since January, the company told The New York Times’s DealBook.
The payout is the result of a program introduced in 2025 that opened up new revenue streams to eligible hosts. But it is also an attempt to draw more creators (and their audiences) to Spotify, as the rise of video podcasting has driven many of them to YouTube.
Video has come to dominate podcasting. More than half of Americans over the age of 12 have watched a video podcast — but primarily on YouTube, according to an Edison Research report from January. The service claims to reach 1 billion podcast consumers every month, making it the dominant platform for podcasts — a media king and kingmaker — and leaving onetime audio-only platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts in the dust. (Spotify introduced video podcasts in 2019.)
Compared with YouTube, Spotify has become a podcast underdog, with about 170 million monthly podcast listeners among its total audience of 675 million. One indication of how far Spotify has to go to catch up to the top player: YouTube paid out more than $70 billion to creators and media companies from 2021 to 2024.
The company reports earnings on Tuesday and is expected to make about 540 million euros in pretax income on 4.2 billion euros in sales, according to S&P Capital IQ.
But Spotify, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange but is based in Stockholm, remains a major player in the industry thanks in part to its talent roster — it distributes and sells advertising for the biggest podcast in the world, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” And it achieved its first full year of profitability in 2024. (Mr. Rogan’s podcasts are also available on YouTube.)
The new partner program aims to chip away at YouTube’s dominance. Spotify previously paid creators only by sharing advertising revenue with them, much like YouTube. Now it also gives them incentives to upload videos, with eligible creators earning additional money based on how much premium subscribers engage with their videos.
The company is trying to attract more viewers. At the same time that Spotify announced the partnership program in November, it announced that paid subscribers in certain markets wouldn’t have to watch dynamic ads in video podcasts. Video consumption has already increased by more than 40 percent since January, according to Spotify.
The question now is whether Spotify can persuade creators to shift priorities.
David Coles, host of the horror fiction podcast “Just Creepy: Scary Stories,” said he is re-evaluating his “home platform” after his Spotify revenue recently surpassed his YouTube revenue. Last quarter, Mr. Coles said he received about $45,500 from Spotify. After joining the company’s new partner program, his quarterly Spotify income rose to about $81,600.
This increase can be even more dramatic for larger shows and podcast companies, like YMH Studios, a comedy network with 2.1 million YouTube subscribers that produces popular podcasts including “2 Bears, 1 Cave.” While declining to share exact figures, YMH Studios said its quarterly Spotify revenue more than tripled after joining the partner program.
Although creators emphasized that these are still early days, Alan Abdine, the head of advertising revenue at YMH Studios, called the new payment program “a game-changer” and “a very happy surprise.”
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
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