Add up the costs, factor in vinyl and merch sales, and see how many streams it takes to break even.
Profit each = what you clear per unit after manufacturing.
DistroKid / CD Baby = 0%
Ballpark 8,334 engaged monthly listeners playing it a few times to recoup the rest.
Streaming pays in fractions of a cent, so a release rarely recoups on streams alone — the numbers are sobering when you do the division. Physical does the heavy lifting: a short vinyl run at a healthy per-unit margin can clear a modest budget before you've banked a single stream. Add up the real costs, set what you'll actually sell on vinyl and merch, and this shows how many streams the rest takes — usually a smaller, more honest number than the "how many streams to quit my job" headline.
A small indie run often lands around $25–$35 retail; after pressing, jackets, and shipping you might clear $10–$18 a record. Plug in your real per-unit profit — the margin matters far more than the sticker price.
Because the useful question isn't the abstract per-stream rate — it's whether *this* release pays back what *you* put into it. Physical sales change that math completely, which the generic royalty calculators ignore.
No — everything runs in your browser, nothing is stored. If you want to turn the budget into a real release plan with dated tasks, that's what Pierre does.
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