How Much Does Boomplay Pay Per Stream In Zambia

Lately, we’ve been seeing Zambian artists get a million streams on Boomplay. As much as this is great for the industry, I have some minor concerns. The same reasons that made me dislike Audiomack.

Zambians, in particular, need to understand that industries are built on value. Streaming a song a million times on a free subscription is not the same as streaming the song as a paid user.

Platforms like Spotify don’t even allow you to use certain features on the free option as an incentive to get you to subscribe.

The thing is, if, for example, 1 million streams should amount to K10,000 for the artist, and if all the people streaming are streaming for free, where is that K10,000 going to come from?

Let’s say Boomplay covers that cost. Within a year, they’ll be running at a loss and will eventually have to shut down. It’s not viable.

To compensate costs, most platforms show adverts to free users. But the revenue from ads is so small that it can only operate if the artist payout is likewise decreased. Some don’t even pay artists for streams from free users.

Why do you think YouTube has one of the lowest payouts on streams? Because most people use YouTube for free, (there’s a paid version, if you didn’t know.)

Everything comes down to value. If people still place ads on Boomplay, if those ads don’t convert to business, they’ll stop placing them there. It means there’s no value. And money can’t come out of nothing, it has to come from somewhere.

I’m not here to say Boomplay or Audiomack are bad. I’m here to say that they’re promoting a culture of free use (one that we’re trying to run away from) and it’s bad for the industry. What we need is to push a culture of Zambians subscribing for access.

Don’t you wonder why most of the people getting a million streams on Boomplay have never gotten them on Spotify or Apple Music? That’s a question for you.