What Is Net Publisher Share?
Net Publisher Share is the number that actually matters when you're selling a music catalog. It's your gross publishing income minus the costs that eat into it: distribution fees, admin commissions, co-publisher splits, and collection shortfalls. The gap between gross and net is where most catalog owners get surprised during a sale.
Buyers price catalogs as a multiple of NPS, not gross revenue. If your catalog earns $100,000 a year in gross publishing income but your net publisher share is only $62,000, that difference changes your valuation by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Knowing your real NPS before you go to market isn't optional. It's the baseline.
How the NPS Calculator Works
Enter your annual royalty income from all sources: mechanical royalties, performance royalties, sync fees, and streaming revenue. Then input your distribution rate, admin percentage, and any co-publishing splits. The calculator returns your net publisher share in about 30 seconds.
From there, you can apply current NPS multiples to see a valuation range. Multiples vary by genre, catalog age, and revenue trend. A catalog with stable streaming revenue and clean metadata will trade at a higher multiple than one with declining income or unresolved rights issues.
Why NPS Multiples Matter for Catalog Sales
The music catalog acquisition market prices deals on NPS multiples. Buyers, whether they're funds, publishers, or strategic acquirers, look at 3-5 years of net publisher share data to set their offer. A catalog trading at 15x NPS with $80,000 annual net income prices at $1.2 million. That same catalog at 12x prices at $960,000. Small differences in how you calculate NPS create large swings in what your catalog is worth.
Use this calculator to get a clear picture before engaging buyers. No signup required.