YouTube Music Struggles Against Spotify, Apple, and Amazon

Is the race for subscribers over? A breakdown of US-based DSP market share, Q3 2025 (Source: DMN Pro)

YouTube was one of the first major players in music streaming, thanks to a video platform that quickly absorbed millions of music videos, live tracks, lyric videos, and sing-along covers. But given its immense first-mover advantage, why is YouTube Music struggling so badly behind Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music when it comes to paying subscribers?

If you enjoy riddles wrapped in conundrums, you’ve come to the right article. Today’s perplexing head-scratcher concerns YouTube Music, a subscription service that remains a distant fourth behind Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music in terms of total subscribers in the all-important US market.

Indeed, ‘distant’ only scratches the surface. According to the latest streaming music data from DMN Pro, Spotify’s subscriber base is five times larger than YouTube Music’s. Even Apple Music, a relative latecomer to music streaming, enjoys a similarly gaping lead.

Combined, Spotify and Apple Music dwarf YouTube Music’s subscriber count by roughly 10x.

But how is that possible given YouTube’s longstanding dominance in the media landscape?

Part of the reason is timing.

Amazingly, YouTube’s footprint in music dates back to the early 2000s, when users first started uploading grainy music videos and concert footage. But the current, bona fide iteration of YouTube Music, a proper on-demand audio and video music platform that solidly battled Spotify, Apple Music, and other DSPs, didn’t emerge until 2018. That was after a few half-baked attempts and a second-fiddle position behind the now-defunct Google Play Music.

By contrast, Spotify first bowed in 2008, arriving on American shores by 2011. Apple Music, which is now jockeying for the top slot in the US, arrived in mid-2015. Amazon Music, which also remains far ahead of YouTube Music in total subscribers, has been in digital music since the mid-2000s, but first debuted its Prime streaming music service in 2014.

Those are multi-year head starts, and one explanation for YouTube’s lag in the paid subscriber race in the US and other markets.

Then again, Apple Music — which also arrived years late to the race — is now threatening Spotify’s longtime subscriber lead in critical, high-value markets like the US.

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Part of Apple’s come-up comes from group accounts, particularly Family accounts. According to DMN Pro data sourced from a range of IP owners, major publishers, IP administrators, and distributors, Apple Music now holds a leading position in the critical Family plan market segment.

In fact, Apple Music has twice as many Family plan subscribers as YouTube Music’s entire US subscriber base, according to our data.

But Apple Music couldn’t be more different than YouTube. For starters, Apple Music has always been a paid-only platform, while YouTube’s platform is dominated by free, ad-supported access. YouTube’s free-access model, coupled with massive subsidization from Google, enabled it to become one of the most viral and expansive platforms on the planet.

One side effect of that growth strategy, however, is that converting users into paid relationships becomes tricky. That’s undoubtedly been a dilemma for YouTube Music, where mainline YouTube users can quickly and easily access high-quality videos from virtually any artist without opening their wallets.

Meanwhile, YouTube Music is actually seeing substantial subscriber growth.

As of Q3, YouTube Music has grown more than 13% year-over-year in the US alone, while Spotify and Apple Music have notched only single-digit year-over-year gains. Amazon Music has shed subscribers over the past year, part of a broader subscriber plateau in the now-mature American market.

Back in May of 2025, YouTube Music chief Lyor Cohen pointed to a total of 125 million subscribers across its YouTube Music and Premium properties. But Cohen stopped short of breaking down music-specific subs, nor did he offer any regional subscriber breakdowns.

Regardless, that topline figure — of which YouTube Music is a fraction — is less than half of Spotify’s global subscriber total of 276 million reported at the end of the first half of 2025.

But paid or ad-supported, YouTube is tossing a lot of coin into the music industry pot.

Pound-for-pound, paying subscribers contribute a lot more revenue than ad-supported users. But YouTube has a ton of ad-supported users — i.e., billions of them.

That translates into significant revenue for the music business. According to data shared by Cohen this week, YouTube has contributed more than $8 billion in revenues to the broader music industry, including labels, publishers, PROs, production houses, and indie artists.

Specifically, the revenue total happened between July 2024 and June 2025, though details on specific revenue sources (subscriber, ad-supported, or other) were scant.

“Today’s $8 billion payout is a testament to the fact that the twin engine of ads and subscriptions is firing on all cylinders,” Cohen shared. “This number is not an endpoint; it represents meaningful, sustained progress in our journey to build a long-term home for every artist, songwriter, and publisher on the global stage.”