Spotify's Memberships program for podcasts is here to compete with Patreon

Creators will keep 90 percent of the revenue earned from the program.

Spotify

Spotify is offering another way for its creators to make money, drawing inspiration from existing competitors like Patreon and YouTube. The streaming giant is rolling out its Membership program, which allows users to get access to exclusive content in exchange for subscription fee. 

Spotify's Memberships program was introduced back in May during the company's Investor Day event. At the time, it was only detailed as a way for creators to "build recurring revenue directly from their most engaged fans on Spotify." Similar to Patreon's membership tiers and YouTube's six Channel membership levels, Spotify creators can also bundle Membership benefits into specific tiers with different price points. Spotify said creators get to keep 90 percent of the revenue earned from Memberships, much like how Patreon takes a 10 percent platform fee.

According to Spotify, Memberships will launch in 34 markets but have certain requirements to qualify. The streaming service said that a show on Spotify for Creators or Megaphone has to have at least 100 consumption hours, 100 listeners/viewers and three published episodes. The Memberships program represents Spotify's latest efforts to help creators monetize their content, following up on the Partner Program from 2024 that offers a cut of ad revenue and additional earnings through paid subscriptions. Before that, Spotify introduced a paid subscription platform that first allowed creators to monetize exclusive content back in 2021.