How much do idols get paid on tour

Previous Next Hide Grid. They didn't make any money yet, they broke even. Even EXO's maknae noticed the audience's muted reaction to his abs-less solo performance. In Social. Vertical Tabs Audio Track. Listen now. Subscribe now. You might have thought that being an idol is one of the best jobs and will give you a super high income and make you rich.

But, in reality, it is not always like that, especially for those who are from small companies and do not gain much popularity. Even though many people who became idols wanted to pursue their dream as a singer or celebrity, some of them might have other goals, such as gaining a stable income for their living expenses.

As we know, looking for a job these days is not that easy, especially when you come from the countryside or outside the capital city with an ordinary education degree. Nah, being an idol is one of the best solutions for them to earn money, although it takes years before you can debut as an idol. Well, that was from some idols and former idols who come from small companies and were not popular with the public so they had very small earnings per month.

However, for some idols who come from big companies and are popular with the public, they get a super big and fantastic amount of money per month which you cannot even dream of. For example, for BTS who is extremely popular in South Korea and internationally, the amount of money they can earn per month might be more than millions of dollars.

This fact, of course, makes many people curious about how much salary their artists get since most of them are very popular both in South Korea and internationally. With the big amount of investment and promotion that SM Entertainment puts in their artists from their training period until debut, there must be a high return per artist.

Like most Korean entertainment companies in South Korea, they have rules and agreements in the contracts with their artists where some or maybe most of the income that their artist gains will go to the company. Well, thanks to the spread of information, the income division between SM Entertainment and their artists are known to be something like this:.

From the information above, it looks kind of unfair, right? Despite the unfair benefits and salary the artist gets from SM Entertainment, still, many people want to get into SM to train and debut. This is mostly because their artists are always famous and largely promoted, leading to an increased income. These days, as more people learn about the Korean Wave, K-pop idols are getting so much attention and love from many people and fans all around the world. This means that the popularity they have is getting bigger and bigger alongside an increase in projects and jobs.

Training can last up to two years. Then they will put you into a group where you will train together for additional years. Then there is the actual making of the album. During this stage, there are ALOT more expenses that will go on the bill. Just to mention every Kpop label is different and every contract is different.

However, the vast majority of Kpop entertainment companies expect artists to recoup the expense they have incurred. This is the money the Kpop record label invested into the Kpop artist. However, it is not actually an investment but more of a loan. This is money that has to be paid back. Once their album debuts, the Kpop stars will go on tours. These tours generate money through tickets but the main goal is to sell merchandise.

This is why you will see so many signing events. The Kpop entertainment companies want Kpop fans to buy the merchandise so they can get it signed by their favorite Kpop star. It is actually brilliant! So the real question is, what is the overall split of the revenue between the Kpop Entertainment companies and the Kpop artist? Remember, Kpop artists at this point are in huge debt. They need to start making money as fast as possible to pay back their labels. Not bad right? But remember they need to use some or in some cases all of that money to pay off their bills and taxes.

This is an example of a Kpop group with only 6 members…what about NCT which has 16 members!! Kpop Entertainment companies are taking a lot of risks when investing in a Kpop artist.