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The 4 ways a song gets paid

epik
October 12, 2026 · 5 min read

Every time your song earns money, it comes through one of four doors. Most independent artists only ever open one of them.

Your distributor pays you when people stream your recording. That’s real money, but it’s only part of the story. The rest depends on knowing which door each kind of money comes through, and who’s standing behind it.

The four doors

1. Performance royalties: paid when the song is played in public: radio, TV, streaming services, clubs, live shows. Collected by a P.R.O. (in the US: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or GMR) and paid to the songwriters and their publishers.
2. Mechanical royalties: paid when the song is copied, which includes every stream and download. In the US, streaming mechanicals are collected by The MLC and paid to songwriters through their publisher or publishing administrator.
3. Sync fees: paid when your music is put to pictures: a film, a TV show, a game, an ad. Negotiated deal by deal. It usually takes two licences: one for the song and one for the recording.
4. Digital performance royalties: paid when the recording plays on non-interactive digital radio like Pandora or SiriusXM. Collected by SoundExchange for the artist and whoever owns the recording, which is you if you’re independent.

Why most of it goes unclaimed

Doors 1, 2 and 4 don’t pay you automatically. Each one needs you registered, with your songs listed and your splits filled in. If you never register, the money still gets collected. It just sits there, waiting for someone to claim it.

The short version: join a P.R.O. as a writer, get your mechanicals collected (a publishing administrator can do it for you), and sign up with SoundExchange. It’s an afternoon of paperwork for money that keeps coming in for as long as people play your music.

Match the money: which door does it come through?

One thing about beats

When you write to a licensed beat, the song has more than one writer: you and the producer. Your licence says how the songwriting share is split. Read it before you register the song, so the splits you give your P.R.O. match the paperwork.

Got a song in progress? Every beat on the site opens in the Writing Pad, with the verse and hook already timed out.

Find a beat to write to

How can we help?

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