Real-Time Royalties

Artists on UnitedMasters earn royalties from streaming across major DSPs. Historically, earnings were visible only after monthly or quarterly payout cycles - creating a black box between music release and money received.

Real-Time Royalties (RTR) gives Partner and Select tier artists live visibility into earnings as streams accumulate. The feature spans email notifications, in-app messaging, wallet integration, and achievement badges.

Artists didn't trust the payout system because they couldn't see earnings accumulating. Support tickets about royalty timing were a top-3 category. The gap between "I released music" and "I see money" was too long and too opaque.

Premium tier differentiation was weak - Select and Partner artists needed tangible features justifying their tier. Earnings visibility was the highest-value lever for engagement and retention at these tiers.

RTR is tier-gated to Partner and Select artists only - both a product constraint and a monetization lever. The real-time data pipeline had to be reliable enough that artists wouldn't see inaccurate numbers (which would destroy trust faster than no numbers).

Multi-surface delivery (email, push, in-app, wallet) required consistent messaging across channels without notification fatigue. Milestone thresholds needed calibration - too frequent feels spammy, too infrequent feels invisible.

Designed a multi-surface notification system: earnings updates flow into the wallet with live balance changes, milestone notifications trigger at meaningful thresholds, and achievement badges provide visual recognition.

Mapped the full user journey from music release through earnings celebration. Each touchpoint reinforces the connection between creative output and financial return. Discovery Hub cards surface RTR prominently for eligible artists.

Built the notification cadence around artist behavior patterns - more frequent updates in the first week after release when engagement is highest, then settling to daily summaries. Tier restriction serves as the primary conversion lever for SELECT.

Strong net activation with healthy retention. 77.9% conversion funnel from start to activation. Wallet engagement increased as artists checked earnings more frequently.

RTR became the primary value prop for SELECT tier marketing, driving tier upgrade conversations. The multi-surface notification pattern was adopted for other engagement features.

Expanding RTR to lower tiers is under evaluation - the infrastructure supports it, but the tier-gating drives meaningful conversion. Earnings forecasting (predicted royalties based on streaming velocity) is the logical next surface.