Halloween is over and her annual defrosting is finished so you’re now legally allowed to play Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I Want for Christmas is You” as loud as you want. The song has universally been accepted as the Christmas song to rule all Christmas songs, so surely this holiday banger made the big bucks for the Singer?
How much Mariah Carey makes in royalties
We all look forward to this time of year, but Mariah has even more reason to be excited than most. Right about now those sweet, sweet royalties are starting to pour in from her most well-known song. It might be turning 30 years old in 2024, but it seems the world will never tire of Carey’s timeless classic (unless you work in retail). The song sits at almost one and a half billion streams on Spotify, just to give you an idea of how universally loved this one Christmas classic is. According to Parade, Carey earns an incredible $3 million in royalties every holiday season alone.
That’s how much Mariah Carey makes a year from this song, but how much money has it made her since it was first released? Well there’s lots of factors to consider; obviously she receives royalties every year, but the song wasn’t always such an unstoppable force. In fact it’s only been in more recent years that Carey has surpassed the likes of Wham! and Shakin’ Stevens to be crowned the queen of Christmas (a name that she has actually tried to trademark). So she wasn’t making millions in royalties from the get-go.
However, when you factor in the last decade or so of mega-success the song has enjoyed, as well as sponsorship ties with advertisers and filmmakers who want to use the song, you can start to see how Mariah’s 30-year-old hit is something of a money-making machine. On top of that, you’ve got fans who buy tickets to her holiday concerts pretty much solely because of “All I Want for Christmas” and then there are covers and parodies, which all feed back to the original resulting in more royalties for Mariah.
Mariah Carey’s total earnings
Estimates have put the pop star’s earnings from this one song at about $60 million, which is more than some musicians make from their whole discography. And what’s even crazier is the thought that in less than two months that number will have increased by around $3 million. It’s like Mariah’s found some sort of infinite money glitch! Who knows how much money she’ll have made off of it by the time a better Christmas song comes along, if that’s even possible.