Home/Industries/How do streaming services make money

How do streaming services make money?

Streaming services charge a monthly subscription, and more of them now sell cheaper plans with ads. Together, Disney, Netflix and Spotify took in $157 billion in their latest years and kept $25.6 billion in profit, $16.33 of every $100.

From each company's latest Form 10-K. Page updated November 8, 2026.

Streaming services charge a monthly subscription, and more of them now sell cheaper plans with ads. Their biggest cost is the content itself: shows and movies for Netflix and Disney, music royalties for Spotify.

Company	Revenue	Net profit	Kept per $100	Biggest line
Disney	$94.4B	$12.4B	$13.14	Entertainment
Netflix	$45.2B	$11.0B	$24.30	—
Spotify	$17.2B	$2.2B	$12.87	Premium subscriptions

Where each company's money comes from.

Disney

Entertainment$42.5B44% of total

Parks and experiences$36.2B38% of total

Sports (ESPN)$17.7B18% of total

How Disney makes money

Spotify

Premium subscriptions$15.3B89% of total

Ads$1.8B11% of total

How Spotify makes money

Sources: Disney Form 10-K, Netflix Form 10-K, Spotify Form 20-F on SEC EDGAR.

All business models