How do I get paid for my music on YouTube Music?

There are two ways to make money off your music on YouTube, their streaming service and their video service. 

1. YouTube Music

If you're distributing your music to streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify, your albums and singles will be delivered to YouTube Music automatically. With YouTube Music, they will create high-quality album art videos called "Art Tracks," which play audio while displaying an image of your album cover. There are two categories that you can make money off of:

• Subscribers to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music App
• Regular YouTube site streaming/non-subscription YouTube App users

Subscription streaming on YouTube Premium and YouTube Music App:

Streams in-app are paid like any other streaming service where your tracks are monetized per play. The rate may vary based on listening time and territory.

Regular YouTube site streaming / non-subscription YouTube Music App Streaming:

Streams from your YouTube topic channel on the YouTube site and streaming by people who are not subscribed to YouTube Music are monetized differently. Like a regular YouTube video, your rate is based on whether an ad is placed on your video on a specific listen. All tracks have the potential to be monetized or unmonetized depending on the listener. For this reason, you may see unmonetized and monetized plays for the same track in the same territory.

These videos are available not only to YouTube Music subscribers but also as standard ad-supported content accessible on YouTube.com. Revenue for Art Tracks activity through YouTube Music will be paid to you by CD Baby just like a stream on Spotify or Apple Music, and you'll be able to view details in the accounting section of your CD Baby member account.

2. Content ID through YouTube Monetization

If you opt-in for YouTube Monetization, your music will be matched with the YouTube Content ID system. YouTube will then be able to find every video that uses your music and when the video is found, an ad will be placed on that video. This will include content you have uploaded yourself as well as videos submitted by other users. As the artist, you will get a portion of the ad share revenue and those funds will be added to your CD Baby account balance. 

Requirements - You must have Youtube Music as part of your distribution to also take part in Youtube Monetization.

You can opt into our YouTube Content ID by logging into your account and clicking on YouTube/Facebook Monetization under the Manage section from your dashboard.

Want to know more about the program? Click here.