100 Million New Paid Subscribers Added In Ten Years
The US market for paid music subscriptions continues to be robust, with an estimated 130 million on-demand and non-interactive subscribers in 2025. That represents a 10 percent gain over the 2024 subscriber base, demonstrating that the paid audio space even though mature, continues to be quite healthy. The estimates are sourced from MusicWatch’s 24th edition of the “Annual Music Study”, the most comprehensive consumer study of US music behaviors, attitudes and spending.
American’s appetite for paid music streaming began to accelerate in 2016, when the number of subscribers doubled, to an estimated 29 million. Thus, this year’s subscriber base represents growth of 100 million subscribers compared with a decade ago.
Paid On-Demand services include Spotify Premium, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, YouTube Premium, Tidal, and Pandora Premium among others. Paid Non-Interactive services include “radio” services such as Pandora Plus. Sirius satellite radio and Amazon Prime subscribers who use the music service are not included for this estimate.
“Industry veterans will recall that 2016 was the year that the US music industry began to exit the doldrums thanks to emerging adoption of paid streaming services, noted Russ Crupnick, Managing Partner of MusicWatch”. “Now, ten years on, 100 million additional American’s see the value of paying for a music subscription, thanks to a terrific price proposition, device connectivity that affords anywhere and anytime access, the most popular music discovery platform, and features that meet the needs of both casual and hard-core streamers.”