Lissen

Music Streaminglissen.com

Lissen is a London-based music streaming platform that serves music fans and independent artists through a fan-centric royalty model routing each subscription directly to the artists streamed, priced at $4.95/month and distributed via mobile app stores worldwide.

Company typePrivate
Founded-
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
Headcount1–10
GTM typeB2C
OfferingSoftware

What Lissen does

Lissen is a London-based, privately-held music streaming platform that serves music fans and independent/mid-tier artists through a freemium and subscription product distributed exclusively via the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. The core product, the Lissen App, offers access to a catalog of 80M+ songs from 12M+ artists, alongside 15,000+ exclusive releases, early drops, and artist-only content unavailable on competing services.

The company's defining technical and commercial feature is its fan-centric royalty model, an architectural choice that divides each subscriber's monthly fee only among the artists they actually listen to, rather than pooling revenue and distributing it pro-rata by total market share as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, and SoundCloud do. Supporting features include an AI-powered Responsive Feed for real-time personalized discovery, a Fan Profile that surfaces the direct financial impact of a user's listening, free Playlist Import from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music, 1-tap Access to artist tickets, merch, and drops, and search without limits. The Premium subscription is priced at $4.95/month — less than half the price of all major competitors — while unlocking unlimited streaming, offline downloads, and exclusive artist content.

Lissen's go-to-market is product-led and direct-to-consumer, with no enterprise, B2B, or channel partner layer. Marketing is executed primarily through an editorial blog of platform reviews and head-to-head comparisons positioning Lissen as the ethical, fair-pay alternative to incumbent streamers. The company is registered as Lissen Ltd. in the United Kingdom, is privately held with no disclosed funding rounds, management team, partnerships, or financial figures in the available data.

Lissen firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Lissen
Legal name: Lissen Ltd.
Website: https://lissen.com
Company type: Private
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 1–10 employees
Short description: Lissen is a London-based music streaming platform that serves music fans and independent artists through a fan-centric royalty model routing each subscription directly to the artists streamed, priced at $4.95/month and distributed via mobile app stores worldwide.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Lissen industry classification

Industry

Product category: Music Streaming
NAICS: Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210), Music Publishers (51223)
akta.pro primary industry: On-Demand Music Streaming (Interactive) (MPAIACAA)

Keywords

Music streaming platform
Fan-centric royalties
Artist payout system
Music discovery app
Direct artist payments

Where Lissen is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: London
HQ country: United Kingdom
HQ region: Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

Lissen business model

Business model

GTM type: B2C
Offering type: Software
Cost components: Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Supply Chain, Infrastructure

Revenue model

Premium Subscription: Monthly subscription at $4.95/month providing unlimited streaming, offline downloads, and exclusive artist content. Revenue flows directly to artists based on individual listening.
Free Tier (Ad-Supported): Ad-supported free listening tier allowing users to access the platform at no cost, with fan-centric royalties still routing to artists they listen to.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Freemium	Pay-as-you-go	Free tier with ad-supported listening and fan-centric royalties
Subscription	Monthly	Premium subscription at $4.95/month with unlimited streaming and exclusives

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Lissen product offering

Product offering

Core offering

Lissen operates a consumer music streaming platform built on a fan-centric royalty model in which each subscriber's monthly fee is divided only among the artists they actually listen to, rather than pooled and distributed by market share. The service offers 80M+ songs from 12M+ artists, plus 15,000+ exclusive releases, accessed via a mobile app with free (ad-supported) and $4.95/month premium tiers.

Product overview

Lissen is a music streaming platform built on a fan-centric royalty model where user subscriptions flow directly to the artists they actually listen to. The core product is the Lissen App, complemented by a Premium subscription tier at $4.95/month. Key features include an AI-powered Responsive Feed for personalized discovery, a Fan Profile showing listening impact, 1-tap Access to artist tickets/merch/drops, and free Playlist Import from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. The platform offers 80M+ songs, 12M+ artists, and 15,000+ exclusive releases.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

Lissen App

Quantifiable outcome

Artists receive ~$0.99 per subscriber per month when listened to equally across 5 artists (vs $0.002-0.01 per stream on competitors)
+1 more outcomes

Companies that use Lissen

Customer profile

Named customers3 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Lissen technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature6 records

Lissen partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Lissen competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

Spotify: Spotify is the dominant interactive on-demand music streaming service with 600M+ users and a pro-rata royalty pool. Lissen directly competes with Spotify on streaming, catalog, and artist economics, with the fan-centric model positioned as the explicit ethical alternative.
Apple Music: Apple Music is a major subscription music streaming service with lossless and Spatial Audio features at $10.99/month. Lissen publishes head-to-head comparisons against Apple Music and competes on price, ethics, and artist payouts.
Tidal: Tidal is a music streaming service historically positioned around artist-friendly economics and hi-fi audio. Lissen directly addresses the same artist-payout value proposition Tidal was built on, with a structurally different (fan-centric vs. pooled) royalty mechanism.
SoundCloud: SoundCloud is a streaming platform with strong positioning among independent and emerging artists, including a paid Go+ tier. Lissen targets the same independent-artist segment with a stronger ethical-payout story and comparable indie catalog depth.
Deezer: Deezer is a global on-demand music streaming service operating in 180+ countries. Lissen explicitly publishes comparisons against Deezer and competes on pricing, discovery, and artist payout transparency.
Audius: Audius is a decentralized, artist-controlled music streaming platform with a similar independent-artist value proposition. Lissen targets the same artist-first listener but takes a centralized mobile app approach rather than a web3 one.
Bandcamp: Bandcamp is a digital music marketplace and streaming service famous for artist-friendly revenue shares (up to 82% to artists). Lissen targets the same ethically-minded independent artist and fan segment with streaming rather than download sales as the primary format.
Qobuz: Qobuz is a hi-res music streaming and download store with premium pricing (~$12.99/month) and a focus on audio quality and artist payouts. Lissen competes with Qobuz at the opposite end of the price-value curve via its $4.95 fan-centric subscription.

Broad incumbents

Amazon Music: Amazon Music is a major subscription streaming service bundled into Prime. It is a broad incumbent competitor that Lissen explicitly compares against on price and artist payouts, though Amazon's distribution scale dwarfs Lissen.
YouTube Music: YouTube Music is Google's streaming service bundled with YouTube Premium. It is a broad incumbent with massive catalog and video integration, and Lissen publishes comparison content positioning against it on fairness and pricing.

Market position

Strengths3 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Lissen financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Lissen leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Lissen funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Lissen M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Lissen

What does Lissen do?

Is Lissen a public or private company?

Lissen is a private company. It is classified as unknown and is currently operating.

When was Lissen founded?

Lissen was founded in -1. It employs 1 to 10 people.

Where is Lissen based?

Lissen is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.

How does Lissen make money?

Two revenue lines are on record. Premium Subscription is the primary driver. The others are free Tier (Ad-Supported).

Who are Lissen's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, SoundCloud, Deezer, Audius, Bandcamp and Qobuz. Broad incumbents are Amazon Music and YouTube Music.

Does Lissen have an API?

No public API is recorded for Lissen.

What industry is Lissen in?

Lissen's product category is Music Streaming. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAIACAA, On-Demand Music Streaming (Interactive). Its NAICS code is 516210.