SoundCloud Revenue And Usage Statistics (2024)

David Curry

Updated: November 5, 2024

SoundCloud is one of the largest open music streaming platforms available, known for its massive list of independent music creators who upload hundreds of hours of music to the site every week.

The platform was founded by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss in 2007, who met at university and bonded over their love of music. Originally, SoundCloud was built for professional musicians, but the pair quickly saw the value of opening it to all sorts of content creators.

Millions of creators use SoundCloud as a way to distribute music, demos and beats, with producers, singers and everything in-between collaborating on the platform. Many artists used the platform as a first step in their career, including Post Malone who uploaded White Iverson in 2015, which became a viral hit.

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SoundCloud grew at a impressive rate for the first few years, rising from 15 to 150 million registered users from 2012 to 2015. However, the platform struggled to generate income for it or its creators, many of whom did not receive anything for their streams.

Twitter and Spotify both looked into acquiring SoundCloud in the mid-2010s, however both pulled out after reviewing the financials. It was reported that Twitter planned to offer SoundCloud $2 billion.

In 2015, Sony Music decided to pull several artists of the platform, deeming the collaboration unprofitable. The artists were added back at a later date, after SoundCloud reached an agreement. Several other top artists have removed songs from the platform in the past for similar reasons, although most can be found on SoundCloud’s premium Go+ service.

This battle, between its independent creators and music industry, has led to tension. Radio hosts, DJs and independent artists have had their content removed because of copyright infringement, which some say goes against SoundCloud’s open, collaborative beginnings.

SoundCloud has seemingly deemed it worth working with the music industry to become profitable, even if it harms the website’s creative independent users. The rate of new music being uploaded to SoundCloud has increased every year, so it’s clear a lot of independent creators are still happy with the platform.

SoundCloud has had a few changes in management over the past five years, with Ljung being replaced by Kerry Trainor in 2017 and then Trainor being replaced by chairman Michael Weissman in 2020. The aim of both has been to increase SoundCloud’s earnings, which have accelerated in the past five years.

We have collected data and statistics on SoundCloud. Read on below to find out more. Looking for in-depth information? Check out our music app report.

SoundCloud Key Statistics

SoundCloud generated €288 million revenue in 2023, an increase of €20 million on the previous year
SoundCloud has 140 million registered users
Over 40 million music creators have a SoundCloud account
SoundCloud was most recently valued at $100 billion

Music App Report 2024

Want to learn more about the music app industry? In our Music App Report, we cover financials, usage, downloads, and demographics by app and industry, alongside market share, engagement, and benchmarks.

SoundCloud Overview

Title	Title 2
Launch date	October 2008
HQ	Berlin, Germany
People	Michael Weissman (CEO), Alexander Ljung (co-founder, chairman)
Business type	Private
Industry	Music streaming

SoundCloud Revenue

SoundCloud made over €288 million revenue in 2023, its highest recorded annual revenue.

SoundCloud revenue 2011 to 2023 (€mm)

Year	Revenue (€mm)
2011	4
2012	8
2013	11
2014	17
2015	21
2016	25
2017	81
2018	108
2019	116
2020	194
2021	231
2022	268
2023	288

Sources: Music App Report, Company data

SoundCloud Users

SoundCloud has 140 million registered users. It had to delete over 70 million users between 2015 and 2018 due to inactivity.

SoundCloud users 2012 to 2023 (mm)

Year	Users (mm)
2012	15
2013	40
2014	85
2015	150
2018	85
2019	92
2020	115
2021	130
2022	135
2023	140

Sources: Music App Report, Company data

SoundCloud Music Creators

Over 40 million creators use Soundcloud as a way to publish music.

SoundCloud music creators 2018 to 2023 (mm)

Year	Creators (mm)
2018	20
2019	22
2020	25
2021	30
2022	35
2023	40

Source: Company data

SoundCloud Number of Tracks

There are over 375 million tracks available to listen to on SoundCloud.

SoundCloud number of tracks 2015 to 2023 (mm)

Year	Number of tracks (mm)
2015	100
2016	125
2019	180
2020	200
2021	150
2022	250
2023	375

Source: Company data

SoundCloud Traffic by Country

More than a quarter of SoundCloud’s web traffic comes from the United States, its most popular market.

SoundCloud traffic by country 2022 (%)

Country	Percentage of Traffic
United States	28
United Kingdom	6
Germany	4
Russia	4
France	3

Source: SimilarWeb

SoundCloud Valuation

SoundCloud was valued at $1 billion in 2023, double the previous valuation in 2017.

SoundCloud valuation 2012 to 2023 ($mm)

Year	Valuation ($mm)
2012	200
2015	700
2017	500
2023	1000

Source: Pitchbook

SoundCloud Funding

SoundCloud has received $552 million in funding since it launched in 2009.

SoundCloud funding 2009 to 2020 ($mm)

Year	Funding ($mm)
2009	3
2011	13
2012	53
2014	103
2016	208
2017	447
2020	552

Source: Crunchbase

SoundCloud Users vs Competitors

SoundCloud is a mid-level music streaming service in terms of total users, way behind YouTube and Spotify but ahead of Apple and Amazon.

Music streaming users by app 2023 (mm)

Want to learn more? Check out our Music App Report

SoundCloud FAQ

How many countries is SoundCloud available in?

SoundCloud is available in 190 countries

What companies have tried to acquire SoundCloud?

Twitter was reportedly considering a $2 billion acquisition of SoundCloud in 2014 (Recode). Spotify also mulled an offer in 2016, but did not end up making a bid for the company (TechCrunch)

How much music is uploaded to SoundCloud?

Users upload 12 hours of music and audio every minute (TechCrunch)