Spotify Paid $100 Million to Podcasters as Creator Wars Heat Up

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.)