Contents
AI and streaming have made it easier than ever to make and release music. One person can finish a song in their bedroom and have it on global platforms the same day. But between writing a song and living from your songs, the distance is still enormous.
We wanted to know how far that distance really is for musicians at the very start of their careers: how much they earn from music, where their money goes, and how they see their future.
Over the past year we spoke with 300 musicians through one-to-one interviews and a survey. Most live in the UK and are between 20 and 27 years old.1
The results were blunt. Of 300 people, only 2 can live off their music income, and 216 haven't earned anything from music yet. At the same time, when we described a product where supporters share in a musician's future income while the musician keeps their rights, 237 people (79%) said they were very interested in trying it.2
Only 2 can support themselves with music
Of the 300 people we spoke with, only 2, less than 1%, can live off their music income. Another 67 earn something, but not enough to live on, and 216 haven't earned anything from music yet.
| Income from music | People | Share of 300 |
|---|---|---|
| Enough to live on | 2 | 0.7% |
| Some, but not enough to live on | 67 | 22.3% |
| None | 216 | 72.0% |
| No answer | 15 | 5.0% |
Income decides the place music has in their lives. Many started out seeing music as their future career, but today only 24 people (8%) plan to keep doing it full time. The rest treat it as a side project, or expect to need another job to pay for their music.
The money goes out first, and the income comes late
Nearly half of what these musicians spend on music goes into producing songs, and a quarter into social media promotion.3
Nearly half goes on producing songs, a quarter on promotion
Main areas of spending, as an approximate share of total spending
Source: self-reported by respondents; approximate shares after removing outliers3
Add artwork, music videos and short-form video, and about 60% of spending goes into the work itself. Most of that money has to be spent before or just after release, while streaming income usually arrives months later. For the 72% who have no income yet, none of it has paid back.
Worried about AI, and starting to doubt the point
176 people (58.7%) said they are very worried about AI, most of them working in production roles such as arranging and mixing.4 Production is exactly where AI generation tools arrived first, and it is also where young musicians find paid work and build experience.
The worry isn't only about money. 35 people (11.7%) said in interviews that making music feels “pointless” or something similar.5 Their reasons mostly came back to one thing: AI is rapidly multiplying the number of songs out there, any single song is harder to remember, and they find it harder to say what they are making music for.
One musician working in a niche genre, whose work is respected by her peers, has never found a way to earn from it. This is how she described where she is now:
“Right now I make music just to keep myself company. At first I hoped for listeners. The listeners came, then they left, and nothing stayed.”
Getting paid early usually means selling the work
Early-career musicians have few ways to get money up front: an advance from a label, or selling their rights outright to a publisher. The first usually comes with a long-term contract. The second is a one-off buyout, so however much the song grows later, the artist sees none of it.
We didn't count how many people have sold their rights, but one musician's experience shows what that path can cost:
“Every one of my songs has 999+ on NetEase Cloud Music (a Chinese streaming platform), but I sold them to a publisher right at the start. You know, I heard one of my songs made 800,000 yuan, and I didn't get a cent.”
His music found listeners and made money. The problem was that the income and the artist had been cut apart.
What this points to
These musicians aren't short of songs, and many aren't short of listeners. What they lack is a bridge in time: the money for production and promotion goes out first, and the income arrives much later, if it arrives at all. And the existing ways of getting paid early often ask them to give up the work itself.
So in the interviews we described a different arrangement: the musician keeps their rights and offers a share of their future music income to people who want to support them, in exchange for money to keep making music today. We didn't say whose product this was. 237 of 300 people (79%) said they were very interested in trying it.2
That is what Asynflow is building. But we know there is a gap between “interested” and “ready to sign”. Our sample is mostly UK-based and aged 20 to 27, and the answers are self-reported.1 Next, we want to test three things with behaviour rather than intention:
- 1Whether musicians will actually offer a small share of future income in exchange for money today.
- 2Whether supporters will actually take part, based on their belief in an artist, and complete a payment.
- 3Whether the whole process, from signing and data checks to paying out income, can run through one full cycle.
To do that, we are recruiting our first 3–5 pilot artists and collecting sign-ups from more musicians. If you are an independent artist with officially released music and can export income statements from your distributor, we'd love to hear from you.
Notes
- 1.Sample: The 300 respondents mostly live in the UK; excluding a few outliers at either end, they are aged 20–27. The research combined one-to-one interviews with a survey. Findings don't represent musicians in other countries, age groups or genres. Unless stated otherwise, all percentages use 300 as the base; 15 people didn't answer the income question and are listed separately in the table.
- 2.Product interest: Interviews described how a type of product works, without saying it was Asynflow's. “Very interested in trying it” is a stated intention, not a commitment to sign or pay.
- 3.Spending breakdown: Approximate shares after removing outliers, not an itemised calculation; we didn't collect amounts. “Studio and arrangers” and “Arranging and mixing” follow respondents' own descriptions and partly overlap.
- 4.Concern about AI: 176 is out of 300. “Most work in production” is a qualitative observation from the interviews, not a count.
- 5.Sense of purpose: Counted by person: 35 people mentioned “pointless” or something similar, not the number of mentions.
- 6.Quotes: All quotes are anonymised, keeping only the background relevant to the finding.
Asynflow © 2026. All rights reserved. Please don't republish without permission.
