How to Create Music App Like Spotify

Global music consumption has significantly increased over the past decade and music streaming apps have made remarkable contributions to that. Growing usage of music streaming apps like Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud, to name a few, has replaced the usage of conventional radios. While this drastic shift has introduced us to whole new music streaming industry, at the same time it has paved paths for the businesses operating in this sector.

Not only creating music apps has emerged as a lucrative business idea, but the competition in this field is getting stricter with each passing year. To give you an estimation, Spotify has nearly 418 million monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2022 and the number is subject to rising further while the global music streaming revenue is expected to reach $76,9 billion by 2027.

No wonder there is a rise in the number of music streaming apps as the new entrants are trying to utilize this lucrative opportunity. If you too are planning to launch your own music app, then now is the right and best time to do it.

To ease your task, in this blog we will walk you through the a to z guide on how to create a music app. So, let’s get started!

Popular Music Streaming Apps in 2022

The popularity of music streaming apps is already well-known. Here we have listed out the top ones in 2022 for your knowledge.

Spotify

Spotify is most probably the most popular name you have heard of, when it comes to music streaming apps. Songs to audiobooks - Spotify provides an all-in-one music streaming service for its users. Founded in Sweden in 2008 Spotify has grown exponentially over the years to reach an annual revenue of over €9.67 billion. Personalized recommendations, easy-to-use interface, diverse content are some of its growth factors keeping it on the top of the competition.

Apple Music

Apple Music is another leading name in the global music streaming industry. Its large music library can be accessed via Siri and linked devices. One of its most popular services was launched in June 2021, where people can listen to music in lossless format. This music streaming app has shown quite a steady growth in terms of revenue and has nearly 78 million subscribers worldwide as of June 2021, up by 6 million compared to the year 2020.

Pandora

While it started as a highly popular music streaming app, after the introduction of the trending music apps like Spotify, there was a decline in its subscribers. However it continues to become in the list of the popular music apps. Also it was the first among the music streaming apps that offered premium personalization. Equipped with AI-based recommendations, now Pandora has over 60 million active users and over 6 million paying subscribers.

Also Read: 6 Effective Tips to Scale Products from MVP

Why Should You Build Music Streaming App?

There are innumerable reasons why you should build music app and how it is a profitable business idea. Let’s have a look before we go through the detailed steps on how to make a music app.

1. High Market Value

The music streaming sector is one of the fast-growing and profitable sectors in the global entertainment industry. The rising usage of smart devices coupled with the growing inclination towards listening to music, audiobooks, podcasts, and others have made this a lucrative market to invest in. Research says that more than 14% of the population use some type of audio streaming application regularly, while the global music streaming market is subject to grow at a CAGR of 17.8% from 2020 to 2027. The global market is expected to surpass US $24.711 billion by 2027 which clearly explains why the number of music streaming apps is surging fast.

2. Advanced Technologies

The advancement in various technologies such as streaming AOD (Audio On Demand) content with cross-device compatibility, and introduction of new technologies such as 5G streaming, AI (Artificial Intelligence), VR (Virtual Reality), and AR (Augmented Reality), to name a few is a major factor behind the rise in music streaming apps usage. These all together have improved the experience for the end-users by manyfold and even the new music apps are adopting these technologies to sustain in the market. As it is much easier now to avail these technical facilities, creating music apps can be a good idea to leverage this as much as possible.

3. Cost-Effective

This goes for the app creators as well as end-users. Creating music apps is a one-time process requiring one-time resources and development. Compared to the growing scope and profitability of your business, launching a music streaming app is quite cost-effective. Here you don’t need to invest a hefty amount of money like other businesses, but just need to hire the right development team and keep the content and app updated.

On the other hand, music streaming apps are quite affordable by the end-users as well. The users can avail a wide variety of content such as music, podcasts, audiobooks etc. through a single subscription and can enjoy seamless streaming on their devices. Even if you are wondering what type of business to start, you can consider building a music app as a profitable business idea.

7 Steps to Build a Music Streaming App

Building a music streaming app is not an overnight task. But it becomes much easier if you follow the right steps. Let’s see how.

Step 1: Generate an Idea

For any business, the journey to success starts with a unique idea. And creating music apps is not an exception. Have a clear understanding of the type and format of content you want to keep in your app, how it will stand out from the crowd and what exclusive will it offer to the users. Your brand name, app focus areas like music/podcasts/other audio content, business model - everything contributes to making your idea a success. So, always try to find out - why are you creating the app, what are the driving factors, or what pain points are going to be solved through it? For instance, you can give your users the options to contribute and partner through UGC (User Generated Content), can run contests to pick up and showcase young talents, and many more. Having a well-defined idea is the foundation to build successful music streaming app.

Step 2: Do Market Research

This is a vital step for your music streaming app business. Identify the target audience, their preferences, demand and unfulfilled requirements, do competitors analysis, analyze their market positioning and strategies to have proper understanding of the present market. These will help you in better market positioning and staying ahead in the competition in the log run.

Step 3: Get Licensed

Licensing ensures that you can provide your customers with authentic, secure and legal content. There are several options to get your music app licensed such as Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment Group etc. for sound recording license, ASCAP and BMI-managed license for musical composition etc. You need to choose the proper license agreement provider/providers covering all the content types/components of your music streaming app.

Also Read: Front End Vs. Back End: What’s the Difference?

Step 4: Opt for Technology Stack

Even if you hire experienced entertainment app developers, you must have some basic knowledge on which technology stack to use or recommend them. There are plenty of options on which the well-known music apps are built such as JavaScript, PHP, Python etc. However, for different parts/solutions you can choose them accordingly. The following information related to Spotify may help you with this -

Step 5: Hiring Developers

You need to hire professional app developers, preferably who have expertise in the specific domain - creating music apps. You can go for professional app development services, as well as can hire freelancers/in-house app developers. You need to keep in mind how experienced they are and how well-versed they are with the tech stacks.

Also, you need to consider the pricing factors, especially if you are hiring individual app developers from specific regions. Here’s a pricing chart to have an idea -

Step 6: Create an MVP

Creating an MVP for your music streaming app is the way to make the actual app successful. The following information will help you with which features to consider, the approximate time frame, and more while creating an MVP for your music app.

Step 7: Test & Build

Once you test and get user feedback on the MVP, it’s time to build and launch your music streaming app. It is a good idea to start the promotion and marketing in the pre-launch stage to create hype and reach a wide audience base.

Once the app is launched, you need to focus on support, maintenance, and marketing to achieve long-term success.

Features to Focus While Creating Music Apps

There are a lot of music apps around the world, but only few are well-known. One of the main reasons behind it is - the features of the apps that differentiate them from one another. Here we have listed out the must-have features to include to develop music apps.

1. Registration

Registration is the first stage your future customers will go through and it is the first impression that the users will get about your app. Ensure that the registration process is simple and secure, and the registration form is short. Nowadays most of the apps provide the option to sign up using social media and you must offer the options to sign up with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. to simplify the process further.

2. Navigation

Easy and fast navigation is a basic feature that a good music streaming app should have. Be it browsing through the music libraries, or searching for a specific category/ artist’s music - incomprehensible navigation is an instant turn off for most of the users. Try to keep the app navigation simple, easily understandable, and minimal. Because no one wants to spend hours figuring out how to navigate through your app. It is recommended to provide your end-users with the roadmap for your app navigation as soon as they sign up so that it becomes easier for them to navigate from the day one.

3. Playlists

We can’t think of a music app without playlists. But every app has its unique way to showcase them to the users. It’s no more the era of radios and tuning in to a particular station to listen to a particular type of music. Listeners want to keep their playlists ready-to-listen, customized, and easily accessible, and you must ensure that your app includes a flexible playlist feature. Be it creating a playlist of selected podcasts, or customizing a specific playlist by adding or deleting songs - it should be easy to accomplish by the listeners. All the leading music apps have cracked this right and you must emphasize on this feature while creating music apps.

4. Social Media Shareability

While creating music apps, an important area to focus on is - how compatible the content is to be shared on social media. This is a very basic yet important feature that can be seen in the top music streaming apps. This feature allows the users to share the audio content like songs, podcasts etc. or their links over social media.

This is a highly sought-after feature by the listeners as it gives them liberty to share the content of their choice with their social circle. But that’s not it. It is also beneficial for the business to promote their content through their existing users. Such social media sharing helps in your app promotion without spending anything extra which in turn helps you in customer acquisition or reaching out to potential prospects.

Our Portfolio: Mobile App Which Helps Users To Learn and Practice (Riyaz) Songs

5. Personalized Recommendations

Personalized recommendation implies that each of your end-users will have a personalized home page with proper recommendations. Such recommendations are based on the user behavior and interactions with the content such as likes, dislikes, ratings, and others. As a result, the users won’t need to spend hours browsing through the content and they will get customized recommendations based on their interactions, history and preferences. 74% of the customers claim that they get frustrated if the web/app content is not personalized and it’s often the key to improve the customer experience which is the ultimate goal of any business.

How does a Music Streaming App Make Money?

Once you build music streaming app, there comes the next point of concern. How to make money from it? It is better to have a clear idea before you build a music app as it will help you develop it properly.

Generally there are two ways to earn from a music app -

1. Paid Subscriptions

Paid subscriptions are the main source of income for any music streaming app. It implies that the customers take subscriptions on monthly/quarterly/annual-basis to avail your content and listen to them as and when they want. It is important to chalk out your subscription plans from the beginning like, how many subscription plans there will be(such as basic, premium, and others), what will be the pricing models, billing frequency, payment methods and others. It is always recommended to keep various subscription plans along with a variety of payment methods, currency, and payment gateway options to cater to the diverse customers. Also, make sure that the customers can upgrade/downgrade their plans, start/stop/pause their subscriptions as they want to avoid unnecessary subscription churn.

2. Ads

Let’s take the example of Spotify. One can listen to music over Spotify even without taking a subscription provided the ads will play in between and that’s another source of profit for the music streaming app businesses. It simply refers that various brands will promote their relevant products and services through sponsored ads that in turn will let you earn apart from the subscriptions. Keeping an ad-supported version is also beneficial because it often leads the users to take paid subscriptions.

Start Creating a Music Streaming App Today

The global iOS and Android apps ecosystem is on rise both in terms of volume and profit and as discussed above, the music streaming sector is a highly potential field to consider. The pointers discussed above will help you get off on the right foot and utilize the present music streaming market potential.

However, you must consider your budget, resources, and other factors while creating music apps. If you are looking for a complete solution to launch your music app, opt for Third Rock Techkno’s professional app development service. Our expert professionals provide you with an end-to-end app development solution - planning to launch and ensure strong market positioning at optimized cost. Have a look at our portfolio and get in touch to start today.