Ana Fontes · Pricing a music catalogue

01Where this came from

Why I built this

Reading the job description, I realised I could describe the analysis but not the work. So I gave myself the exercise.

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Ana Fontes

Valuation & Financial Modelling
Geneva / Paris

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I work in valuation. Companies mostly, and the part I’ve enjoyed most is the intangible side: putting a number on the IP rights behind a documentary, on a book of client relationships, on assets nobody can point at in a warehouse.

A catalogue of songs is close to that. It’s a set of contracts producing cash, priced on how long you think the cash lasts. What I couldn’t picture was the rest of the job. Talking to a manager, agreeing a perimeter, finding a problem in the paperwork, deciding what to do about it.

So I built the exercise instead of guessing at it. One invented artist, one catalogue, and every decision I would have had to make between the first call and a recommendation.

I used Duetti’s published research where it applied and invented the rest. Which parts are which is marked throughout, and listed at the bottom. I don’t know how Duetti prices catalogues internally, so I haven’t pretended to: what follows is my own reasoning against public benchmarks, and I’d expect to be corrected on parts of it.

It also answers something I would otherwise just be asserting. I want a smaller room, decisions that take days rather than quarters, and to point the same tools at something I care about. Helping independent artists get paid for work they already own seems worth doing, which is why I spent a weekend on this one rather than a generic case.

02Who I'd be buying from

Léa, and what she is asking for

She is invented, and so is every euro attached to her. The situation is ordinary enough: a working independent artist who needs cash now and does not want a loan.

LÉA

28 · Lyon · Alternative pop

French lyrics, close-mic’d vocals, live drums, no gloss

Started self-releasing in 2019, from a bedroom in Lyon.
No label. A manager since 2021, a booking agent since 2023.
Her fourth-biggest song found its audience on YouTube, two years after release.
Sells out 400-capacity rooms in France. Almost unknown outside it.

“She wants to fund the next record properly. A real band, a real campaign. She doesn’t want a loan, and she’s not selling anything she hasn’t written yet.”
Her manager, who called first

What she needs

€300k+, upfront: Enough to fund the next record in one go.
Not a loan: No recoupment, no interest, nothing to pay back.
Keep half the upside: She still earns from what she sells.
Future songs stay hers: Whatever she writes next is not in this deal.
Weeks, not quarters: Studio time is already booked.

What’s actually being sold

The recordings, not the songs underneath them. Publishing is a separate asset and trades higher, at 6.9x against 5.9x for a catalogue this age. Treating them as one asset is how a deal gets mispriced.

On the table

24 recordings

Not on the table

Everything she writes next

She keeps

50% of the income

No debtNo recoupmentNo option on future work

03Reading the statements

What the catalogue earns

Four years of royalty statements. The number I care about most is the last one, and the fact that it stopped climbing.

€118k

Royalties, last 12 months

What a multiple gets applied to

4.2 yrs

Weighted age

Squarely in the 2 to 5 band

−6%

Yearly decay

Mature songs, recent months

41%

From the top three songs

Concentrated, not fatal

Four years of royaltiesEUR · Fictional

Three years of growth, then flat. That flattening is what makes it priceable: a settled number is one you can put a multiple on.

Song by song% of royalties · Fictional

Presqu’île18%

Vitrines13%

Août10%

Demi-Tour9%

Novembreflag8%

The other 1942%

One song carries 18%, which is manageable. The flag on Novembre matters more, and I come back to it in diligence.

Who actually pays her% of royalties · Fictional

Spotify: 55%
YouTube: 20%
Apple Music: 12%
Amazon Music: 6%
Other: 7%

Half this income depends on one company’s payout rates. It is also why I have not priced any of this off stream counts. Duetti’s own data puts average earnings at $3.41 per thousand streams and stresses how much that varies by platform. Streams tell you about attention. Statements tell you about money.

In its favour

−6% a year, inside the <10% decay Duetti calls durable
38% of listeners are 35 or older. Older audiences don’t churn
It grew slowly. Barely 1% of indie tracks ever go viral, and virality rarely lasts
YouTube moved first, two months before Spotify did
4 releases last year, so she is still active

Against it

41% of the money sits in three songs
55% of it depends on one platform’s payout rates
87% of listeners in one country. No cushion if France cools
Too young for the 8.1x band. Waiting for it costs her four years

The left column comes from Duetti’s study of six million independent tracks. It describes a population and not this catalogue. Useful for knowing where to look, and not a score.

04Getting to a number

How I priced it

Duetti and Billboard publish what a panel of managers, lawyers and buyers think catalogues trade at. I started there and worked down to what the buyer would actually own.

5.9x

What the H2 2026 panel puts on 2–5 year masters, against a year of net revenue. It is a survey, not a price list.

Perceived base multiples by catalogue age and rights type, H2 2026
Age	Rec.	Pub.
6–24 months	3.8x	4.7x
2–5 years←	5.9x	6.9x
5–10 years	8.1x	9.5x
10+ years	10.2x	12.1x

Duetti × Billboard, as published

The build-up

Before diligence

A year of royaltiesAll 24 songs: €118k
She keeps: How much income the artist retains
0%25%50%
What she asked for. Half the income stays hers.
So the buyer ownsof that yearly income: €59k
At the market multiple: × 5.9x

Worth paying

€336k – €360k either side

€348k

Clears the €300k she needs. The ±0.2x either side of the anchor is my own judgement band, invented for this case. Duetti publishes no such range.

05What diligence turned up

One song has a paperwork problem

Four workstreams, one flag. Duetti’s own panel puts legal and financial diligence at 34% each among the reasons deals fail to close, and names chain of title specifically.

Money

clear

Royalty statements — complete
Revenue reconciled — complete
Spikes explained — complete

Ownership

1 flag

Song list confirmed — complete
Producer splits — complete
Prior assignments — flagged

Contracts

clear

Distribution deal — complete
Transfer consents — complete
Existing licences — complete

Admin

clear

Identifiers matched — complete
Royalty records — complete
Handover mapped — complete

Novembre, track 4 on the EP, earns €9,440 a year. One old producer assignment was never properly papered.

Nobody is disputing anything. The document is just missing, which is a different and fixable problem. But I cannot assume it away, or price it as though it were clean.

Now priced on

€108.6k of €118k

At 5.9x

€320k

I take the disputed 8% out of the base before applying the multiple, not after.

06The negotiation

Her number and mine

74% of Duetti’s panel name this as the most common reason deals fail to close: the gap between what a seller expects and what a buyer will pay.

Her ask

€360k

6.6x on what you’d own

€40k apart

Mine

€320k

5.9x, straight off the benchmark

One thing worth noting. Before the paperwork problem surfaced, her €360k looked like 6.1x. Against what can actually be bought, the same cheque is 6.6x. Her price never moved. What it buys did.

Three options I considered

I wasn’t trying to pay less than the catalogue is worth. I was trying to find a version of the deal that funds her on time without buying a right nobody can evidence yet.

07Where I landed

What I’d recommend

Recommendation

Buy 50% of the income on 23 songs for €320k. Leave Novembre and everything she writes next out of it.

Price: €320k
For: 23 recordings
She keeps: 50%
Income bought: €54.3k
Multiple: 5.9x
Excluded: Novembre

Why

Four years of documented royalties, not a bet on a release.
Slow growth, low decay, an audience that stays.
Revenue has settled, so a multiple means something.
Priced on the benchmark, not above it.

What could hurt

41% of income in three songs.
55% of it from one platform.
87% of listeners in one country.
Recorded music income is never guaranteed.

Before signing

Statements reconciled to the final song list.
Title confirmed on all 23.
Transfer consents cleared.
Documents signed, approvals in.

She walks away with

€320k in cash, this month
50% of the income, still hers
Every future song, still hers
Nothing to pay back

The buyer walks away with

23 songs with clean title
€108.6k of proven annual revenue behind them
The benchmark multiple, not a premium
A seller who would pick up the phone again

This is the kind of summary I would take into an internal review. It is not a reproduction of anyone’s template, and I have no idea what Duetti’s actually looks like. Every figure is invented. The arithmetic is written out at the bottom of the page.

08Once it is signed

What happens after signing

Path to close

Under 30 days

01Qualify
02Collect
03Price
04Negotiate
05Diligence
06Sign & pay

Illustrative. Duetti states publicly that creators can be paid in as little as 30 days.

Duetti describes itself as a company rather than a fund, with catalogue management, a playlist network, sync and marketing after the deal. So the work does not stop at the price.

For this catalogue the thing I would watch is YouTube, already 20% of her income, where growth appeared two months before Spotify. If that carries across the other services it is worth spending on. And Novembre stays on the list: if the paperwork gets cured there is a second, smaller deal to do.

No uplift claimed, modelled or promised.

Receipts

What I invented, what was published, and the arithmetic

The artist is invented. The market data is not. This is the line between them.

The arithmetic

A year of royalties: €118,000
Less Novembre (8%): (€9,440)
Clean revenue: €108,560
Buyer's share (50%): €54,280
Market multiple: × 5.9x
Price: €320,252

Whole clean catalogue at the anchor: €640,504 before the income split
My judgement band: 5.7x–6.1x → €309,396–€331,108
Her ask, as a multiple: €360,000 = 6.63x on the clean income
The gap: €39,748
Before diligence: €348,100 on €59,000

Prices round to the nearest €1,000 in the story and are exact here. The arithmetic stops at a multiple of royalty revenue on purpose. It is how this market negotiates and the basis Duetti and Billboard publish against. Building a projection on top of an invented catalogue would add precision I do not have.

Invented for this case

Léa herself: her name, city, biography, portrait and sleeve artwork, all 24 song titles, and her manager.
Every euro: the €118,000 of annual royalties, the four-year history, the platform, audience and geography splits, the song-by-song revenue.
The paperwork problem on Novembre and its 8% share.
Her €360,000 asking price.
The ±0.2x band around the benchmark. That is my judgement, not a published range and not anyone’s pricing rule.
The diligence checklist, the path to close and the memo format. General market practice, not any company’s internal process.

Published, and used as published

Every multiple in the age table, reproduced exactly from the H2 2026 Duetti × Billboard Music Finance Index, along with the panel findings on how deals reach the market and why they fall over.
Each durability threshold from Duetti’s 2025 Music Economics Report, including the under-10%-decay definition. Used as a place to look, never as a score.
Duetti’s public description of what it buys, the up-to-50% retained income on masters, the 30-day payment statement, and its catalogue services.
The scope of the Deal Executive role, from the published Paris listing.

Sources (13)

Published by Duetti

Published by Duetti and publicly accessible.

[1]
Deal Executive, Paris (job listing)
Duetti via Lever · 2026
Scope of the Deal Executive role: negotiating, signing and closing catalog acquisitions; partnering with A&R, Underwriting, Legal and Finance; supporting Investment Committee review; working with complex unstructured data and legal agreements.
[2]
What We Do
duetti.co · 2026
Rights Duetti buys (masters, publishing, royalty interests); creators may maintain up to 50% of the income stream in each master after sale; sell as much or as little as you want; payment in as little as 30 days; catalog management, distribution and marketing services; eligibility from $2,000 of annual music-rights income on tracks as young as six months.
[3]
About Us
duetti.co · 2026
Company context: 1,100+ music creators, 40+ countries, $635M+ raised to fund creators.
[4]
Music Finance Index, H2 2026
Duetti × Billboard · Published 21 July 2026
Perceived base catalog multiples by rights type and catalog age (masters 3.8x / 5.9x / 8.1x / 10.2x; publishing 4.7x / 6.9x / 9.5x / 12.1x); catalog age as the clearest driver of perceived valuation; 57% of panellists see sellers coming to market via a lawyer, manager or trusted advisor; 74% cite valuation expectations as a barrier to closing; legal and financial diligence issues at 34% each; strongest expected deal momentum in sub-$5M catalogs; Continental Europe net positive.
[5]
2025 Music Economics Report
Duetti · 2025
Durable catalog defined as less than 10% annual decay in 2025 streaming activity, across 6M+ established independent tracks (average catalog age in the sample: 4.2 years). Slow, steady six-month growth 60% more likely to lead to durability than hot, fast growth; only 1.14% of indie tracks went viral. Releasing 3+ tracks a year: 18% higher first-year revenue per track. One album a year: 16% higher. >85% of listeners in one country: 50% more likely durable. >30% of listeners aged 35+: 40% more likely durable. Two consecutive months of YouTube growth first: >16% more likely durable.
[6]
2024 Music Economics Report
Duetti · 2024
Platform payout economics differ materially; average earnings across the studied streaming mix reported at $3.41 per 1,000 streams; TikTok virality does not necessarily translate into royalty growth. Used here to justify pricing off royalty revenue rather than a universal per-stream rate.

Duetti, in public

Public interview or podcast featuring Duetti leadership.

[7]
La discrète arrivée de Duetti en France
Billboard France · 2026
Duetti positions itself as an operating company rather than only a financial fund, with post-acquisition catalog management, marketing and data infrastructure central to the model.
[8]
Lior Tibon on catalog deals (episode 254)
Modern Musician · 2026
Flexibility of deal scope: selecting individual tracks or albums, retaining part of the income stream, and selling selected rights rather than an entire catalog.
[9]
Follow the Money: Duetti and the new deal stack
Trapital · 20 February 2026
Public discussion of Duetti as a company rather than a fund, and of active catalog management after acquisition.

Market and legal practice

General music-rights transaction practice, not attributed to Duetti.

[10]
The Future of Music Catalog Deals
Loeb & Loeb · January 2026
Market context and diligence expectations in music catalog transactions for buyers and sellers.
[11]
Chain of title in entertainment transactions
Fasthoff Law Firm · 2026
Why an unbroken chain of title matters, and what an incomplete prior assignment means for a buyer acquiring rights.
[12]
Music and catalog acquisition practice overview
Nixon Peabody · 2026
Standard diligence workstreams in music rights acquisitions: ownership and splits, publishing and distribution agreements, encumbrances, royalty records.

Invented for this case

Invented for this case study. Not real transaction data.

[13]
The invented case: LÉA
Built for this case study · 2026
The artist, the catalog, all revenue and audience figures, the chain-of-title issue, the seller’s asking price and the ±0.2x judgement range around the public benchmark. None of this is real transaction data, and none of it is a Duetti pricing rule.

All accessed 2026-08-29.