While the convenience of online streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal are hugely attractive to everyday listeners, they're not without their problems. The lack of hi-res streaming on Spotify aside, many mainstream services have come under fire for how little they tend to pay their artists. Not such a problem for Taylor Swift, but a bigger issue for artists not pulling in millions of streams per year.
That's where Presto Music comes in. Launched in 2023, the niche platform focuses predominantly on classical and jazz music, with around 200,000 albums currently listed alongside over 70,000 digital booklets. With many tracks available to stream in 24-bit/192kHz hi-res audio, Presto Music is accessible via the Presto Music app (desktop and mobile), a web player and through compatible music streamers using the BluOS platform (such as Bluesound Node or Cyrus 40 ST). The service also offers daily articles from music experts to keep you clued up on the tunes you're listening to, as well as the chance to purchase albums in both digital and physical formats.
Much of the appeal of Presto Music comes from its remuneration model. Via its 'Far Play' initiative, Presto promises to pay up to 10 times more per album than its lowest-paying competitors, paying artists per second of music streamed rather than using the ‘per play’ model of most rival platforms. That averages out at a lot more cash for artists, especially in the case of classical and jazz recordings where each individual track can be a lot longer than more mainstream pop, rock or hip-hop tunes.
A listen to Théotime Langlois de Swarte's rendition of Vivaldi's Concerti Per Una Vita, for example, highlights the disparity between pay per second and pay per play. One listen to the album on Spotify, for instance, generates £0.135 for the artist, whereas the same record played through Presto Music will recoup £1.058.
Having launched its Fair Play initiative, Presto Music also wants to ensure that higher revenues actually make it to the artists themselves. Presto is investigating the accuracy of information held by Collecting Societies – the organisations that allocate royalties to composers and performers – in a bid to ensure the money goes to the right place.
According to Chris O'Reilly, Presto Music's chief executive: “Our data makes it plain just how unfair the ‘pay per play’ model is when it comes to a big chunk of classical repertoire, especially orchestral music, which is also typically expensive to record. To ensure the future viability of our industry it needs to pay fairly. We’re doing that and hope others will start doing so as well.“
Subscriptions to a standard Presto Music streaming plan start at £11 / $11 a month, offering hi-res sound, 200,000 albums and offline listening. A 'Streaming Plus' plan, meanwhile, costs £13.99 / $13.99 per month and includes 10 per cent discounts and free delivery on all Presto purchases.
Music streaming dominates our listening habits (with 88.8% of music consumption in the UK done through streaming, according to BPI data for 2024), and any service that fairly pays the artists whose music we love listening to can only be a good thing for the industry as a whole.
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