Qobuz Is The Anti-Spotify Music Streamer You’ve Been Waiting For

When Dan Mackta, The general manager of Qobuz in New York, was looking for musicians to accept music promotion service launched in the US in 2019, he found a partner – the manager of Flaming Lips. It was a crisis in the midst of an epidemic.

“I flew to Oklahoma to shoot with Wayne Coyne,” Mackta says. “He is seen wearing one of those helmets, with enough ventilation to protect you, a steel jacket and big silver moon boots.” He didn’t hear what Coyne said in the helmet, so the leader went home and shot promotional video himself: “How do you pronounce this wonderful word ‘ko-buzz.’

The A few questions after “What do you say?” maybe “Can I update my music library?” and “Does it have everything?” Answers: yes it is approximately. Story: I recently switched to Qobuz, after almost 20 years with Spotify. (Emotionally.) I used it a third-party service called Soundizz to transfer my music; it took half an afternoon to get to port, hitting more than 90 percent of my list.

One Million Club

I’m not the only one, according to Mackta, who arrived at Qobuz after many years in big companies and indie records – 2025 was the year of the 19-year-old company. Twelve months ago, Qobuz had about 500,000 subscribers. The French player has grown steadily since 2007, targeting “people who already know what hi-res music was” with its 100 million-plus catalog of flawless CDs and 24-bit music.

The first winds of change arrived with Liz Pelly’s January 2025 book The Mood Machinewhich criticized Spotify business practicesfeaturing interviews with former collaborators and artists who want to be part of the company’s economy. As Mackta says, “This is not a music company; music was a means to an end.” It reignited the scuttlebutt among low-paying artists, and Qobuz’s US daily numbers began to climb.

In mid-October, free users started posting ICE ads they saw on Spotify, which spread on TikTok and Instagram Reels. “The day this story came out was our biggest day in the US,” Mackta said. Qobuz saw further growth, growing even further to Spotify’s advertising which led to many conversions in early December. “The second best day was Spotify Closed” he says. Qobuz encouraged everyone from listeners and “discerning consumers” in response to the boycott as Death to Spotify and Invisiblefor K-pop fans looking for the highest quality downloads.

Qobuz now has 1.2 million monthly users, and its streaming revenue is expected to grow 45.7 percent in 2025, compared to 8.8 percent growth in paid music downloads. About a third of its revenue now comes from the US, its biggest market. Those are still small numbers by their side Spotify (293 million paid subscribers) and Apple Music (over 100 million). “To say that we will compete with Apple or Amazon,” says Mackta, “we can say that we are trying to launch a rocket.” Qobuz’s goal is to reach 1 percent of the payment market; under its French CEO Denis Thébaud, hopes to turn a profit by March 2027.

Higher Pay

Over the years, Qobuz has replaced artists clamoring to be paid “a quarter of a cent per stream” on major platforms versus a “higher rate” on Qobuz. Entering digital payment systems to labels and rights holders can be confusing, with little transparency, unclear payments, as in the past, conflicts between labels and artists. But in general assessment and artist anecdotes, Qobuz has the highest payment on-stream, the edge a competitor Hi-res music service Tidal and, in some cases, paying five to six times as much as Spotify.

The average rating for each stream is an artificial metric, which does not reflect how each individual is paid. But in March 2025, the company released an important number, verified by an independent auditor: Qobuz pays about $0.01873 per stream, or $18.73 per 1,000 streams. “We knew we had a really good number so we thought we’d just put it in,” Mackta said. “Does anyone want to tell us what theirs is? Spotify is almost on stream.” various and around $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, or $3 to $5 per 1,000 streams.