I always wondered this question.
they always work so hard and give their best and i do not want their record label to earn all the money.
i know scandal are very famous in japan and you can find their cd's in any shop, but (obviously) not all the money from cd's and concert's tickets selling goes to them.

and also, do u think the money that goes to the band members is equally divided? Cuse i think MAMI should earn more for her KAWAIINESS 

No one knows

It's the same for all the bands/artists I suppose, these things are secret in their contracts. I hope they get lot of money but I highly doubt they are rich sadly... Unless you are a superstar in music you don't win millions =P (specially nowadays in the music industry, it's not the 90/00's anymore ^^) SCANDAL is big and known but they are not THAT big or superstars.

And I suppose they all earn the same. But maybe HARUNA earns more, not sure how it works in bands in general and even less in Japan ^^ As the lead singer and the oldest she may earn a bit more, it would make sense at least for their first contract she got but now they surely signed new ones over the years.

It's an interesting question but sadly yeah no one knows (except themselves). Even for western bands that I listen to, I've never seen their earnings. The only earnings I've seen were for some AKB members (and it was from a report so maybe it wasn't accurate).

Maybe revealing their earnings is not a good idea. I don't know how is it in Japan, but for example here in France, some people will say "it's unfair, why they are earning so much", ... things like that.

haha in France yeah =P But surely in other countries too. Anyway this is never revealed and won't be and there is no reason to reveal it. As fans we are curious and it's normal but we will never get the real answer.

I just hope they earn "a lot" compared to a normal job which should be the case because they are a known and successful b(r)and. But it's really hard to know if they earn 2000$ per month, 5000, 15000... or if it depends on the sales or concert tickets or SCANDAL shop sells, etc. I suppose they have a basic salary and then bonuses (or %) on the tickets/CD sales/etc.

SCANDAL will surely exists for many more years so it's not like there is a danger for them on short term about money. But still hope they can bank a lot because they are very young and you never know what can happen in 5-10-15 years from now. They started so young so they have no real diploma I think. Well I'm sure they earn some good money now and they are smart so no problem!

Yes it is an interesting question but I doubt we will ever know the answer.
I know AKB are paid according to their senbatsu rank, for example Atsuko Maeda was earning 20 million yen a year but unranked members would probably earn less than I do.
But I should imagine the members of Scandal would earn the same amount.

No one knows specifically so we can only speak generally. Japanese bands at this stage of their careers usually don't earn all that much, at least not the amount you might expect for a popular band.

A lot of western bands don't earn much either, but there's a bit more freedom in the west in how contracts are structured, so there's more variation. It's almost more like a freelancer working on a contract basis. Japanese bands are treated more like employees until they've paid their dues (for a really long time).

I have never met Scandal but through my work I do personally know some other Japanese artists/bands who are reasonably well known and on major labels and they all have what amount to second jobs to make money, and most of them have roommates. Scandal is both too popular and too busy to have to do those things, but that just gives you an idea of the pay scale. I'm sure they're comfortable but I doubt they're rich.

@tony: 20m yen/year? That's 145.000€/year or ~12.000€/month. Not bad xD

But AKB are superstars, there is no way SCANDAL comes even close to earn as much as them. From wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48

The group is one of the highest-earning musical acts in Japan, with 2013 sales of over US$128 million.[8] It has achieved such popularity in the country[9] that it has been characterized as a social phenomenon.[10] As of March 2014, the group has sold over 30 million records,[11] including over 28.78 million singles as of May 2014,[12] which places it as the second highest musical act in Japan by number of singles sold,[12] and the most by a girl group.[13] The group's twenty-three latest singles have topped the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart, with a record eighteen singles that have sold over a million copies.[12] Its 2013 single "Sayonara Crawl" sold over 1.87 million copies.

Millions of physical CD sales... SCANDAL sold 42k of Yoake and that's their record =P So yeah no way they earn as much ^^

you can refer to this for their estimated income from official release

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t7759-scandals-income-share-per-cd?highlight=income

I just go by what fashion brands they buy xD

I agree with spacecadet that Scandal is not within the range of rich artists. From what I see, music related activity is the only thing they are doing. They are not TV drama, not in movies, not in game show and only did couple of CMs may years ago. But that is one of the main reason I love them.

I think the girls also earn from the T-shirts they designed, lyrics, and composing. Rina has just released her book so that also adds to her income and maybe the 3 other girls got also additional income from their signature signed guitars that were up for sale

alrick13 wrote:you can refer to this for their estimated income from official release

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t7759-scandals-income-share-per-cd?highlight=income

never saw that post! really interesting

but yeah, we can only try to guess how much scandal earn. also, taking their clothes/accesorice as a way to calculate how much they earn is wrong. people buy expesive things even if they are not that rich anyway and I think some of scandal's clothes might be a gift from some brands as stussy stuff and some clothes they might have receive from the gallery/exhibition sometimes haru and tomo went to (or even feedback stuff too)
scandal is not an indie band who need second job but even not that rich for owing super luxurious house at the beach lol. with all their collaborations (the fender models, feedback etc), being active part of creating their music and tour goods, touring a lot and being invited to many showes, I think their have a pretty average salary compared to many other bands, but more of just average if we talk about girlbands maybe.

mami might be the only one without soloist earning. rina had the book, haru the theater musical and tomo is still a regular act in a tv show.

alrick13 wrote:you can refer to this for their estimated income from official release

https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t7759-scandals-income-share-per-cd?highlight=income

Interesting but such a shame for the artists... Basically, unless you are a star you will earn almost nothing for the releases, think about all the artists and bands outside the top 5 or top 10... You earn a bit more for the lyrics/music so that's good they have been credited with the lyrics since their indie days (TIMO must be rich =P) and recently also more as composers.

I really wonder if they get a % of tickets (tour/arenas) and the merchandising.

hapihapi wrote:I think the girls also earn from the T-shirts they designed, lyrics, and composing. Rina has just released her book so that also adds to her income and maybe the 3 other girls got also additional income from their signature signed guitars that were up for sale

The stuff they created themselves could be a little different, but I doubt they got much of anything for those guitars. Anything done under the "Scandal" banner (as opposed to themselves personally) is mostly going to Sony, and in the guitars' case, to Fender as well. There wouldn't be much left for them and honestly, I doubt they had much to do with those guitars other than posing in pictures with them - which probably is covered under their standard contract.

As for things they themselves create, if it's done as "Scandal" then most of the money is still going to go to Sony. Though as the other thread shows, they would get more money for composing and things like that.

I'm sure they make a little money on everything they do, but that's just it - it's a little. It should add up to a decent living but even as a major label artist in Japan, if you're not basically working all the time, you're not going to live better than anyone else.

Based on the 0.9% theory (https://www.scandal-heaven.com/t7759-scandals-income-share-per-cd?highlight=income) i calculated the physical sell of all these albums with the average value of each (*studio albums 1650 yen *live albums 4000 yen *compilation 3500 yen *etc) 
It came out a total of 14 million yen... - > ÷4 = 3.500.000 yen (25.000€ since their debut). Well thats very very little. So i think their earnings are mainly from contracts with their record label and the income from selling album is just a bonus for them (and also a parameter to estimate how popular they are  
So we will Never really know...  However i bet it's almost 10.000€ a month each

*maybe i made some mistakes 




Studio albums 5;
Live albums 3;
Compilation albums 2;
EPs 2;
Singles 18;
Video albums 2;

Of course this is just a bonus, they obviously have a monthly wage as basic salary. Then at every release they get bonus because of the sales.

10k a month each? I really doubt it, as I answered to tonymiller earlier in the thread. That would be almost half a million in salary for a year for the 4 members and then you have to pay the staff too.

Regarding the salary it's really impossibile quantify exactly without real numbers.
A more Question,but The audio tecnicians and the Others members of stuff ( cook,chef,drivers),are payed by Scandal or Epic ?

schiapcom wrote:A more Question,but The audio tecnicians and the Others members of stuff ( cook,chef,drivers),are payed by Scandal or Epic ?

if with scandal you mean the band itself, I highly doubt that. all the tour (and also regular) staff is payed by their label as their salary it's part of the money they spend organizing the tour dates. (I don't think scandal have like personal chefs ahah they might go out eating after the concert so they might payed everyone for themself)

interesting topic. my guess is around 120-150k yen per month.

reasoning:

The Apartment rent alone in Tokyo costs around 40-300k yen per month depending on location, size and luxury. i guess the member's apartments go for the 70k-ish ones.

The Taxi fare easily goes 2000 yen and beyond. 

Food minimum should be around 6000 yen per day.

plus mobile phone subscription plans if they use monthly 3G/4G/LTE - 4500 - 6000yen p/m

????yen for personal spending. 

the remaining goes to their piggy bank or is sent to their family back home.

i guess the salary fluctuates when they have big shows and projects. 

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This is just a Guess based on what i know about Tokyo. i could be waay off the mark. xD

they are certainly not 'that' well off. iv'e seen a Tomomi blog featuring 2nd hand shoes or something. correct me if i'm wrong. but Omg Haru! 'the bag' that costs a couple thousand dollars. that was during the Arena Concerts Arc. lol. guess they received a pretty generous sum. xD

FACT: Tokyo is the most sleep deprived place on Earth. Averaging about 4.7hrs of sleep per night.

its kinda worrying.. *A* i hope they take care of themselves well. life is hard.

waning_moon wrote:I just go by what fashion brands they buy xD

No lie; this is totally true. haha. If they can afford to buy the fairly pricey designer brands they're buying now and buying quite often (Prada, Miu Miu, MCM, COMME des GARÇONS, etc.), as well as items from regular Japanese brands that can also be quite pricey, I'd say they're doing fairly well.

Crei, why do you link their salary with how expensive Tokyo is? It makes no sense. Or maybe I don't understand your post No even sure why you try to guess how much rent they pay Also 120k/150k yen per month is extremely low, that's 900€-1100€ per month and that would be a joke considering they are a successful band :/ That's like minimal wage...

SCANDAL's staff is obviously not paid by SCANDAL, they are employees of the label (like SCANDAL is) or people that work with linked companies.

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:

waning_moon wrote:I just go by what fashion brands they buy xD

No lie; this is totally true. haha. If they can afford to buy the fairly pricey designer brands they're buying now and buying quite often (Prada, Miu Miu, MCM, COMME des GARÇONS, etc.), as well as items from regular Japanese brands that can also be quite pricey, I'd say they're doing fairly well.

Right? Especially with the recent flurry of fashion posts (and some that I recognize) xD I agree with you~