# List of best-selling sheet music

This list contains some of the best-selling songs in terms of sheet music sales in music publishing history with reportedly copies of over 3 million. Figures on sheet music —as with record sales— reported by publishing firms were not always reliable.
In the United States, before "Oh! Susanna" (1848) no American song had sold more than five thousand copies of sheet music. Stephen Foster's "Massa's in the Cold Ground" sales of 75,000 copies by 1852, was considered "phenomenal" since music publishers did not try to promote songs. The first song to became "popular" through a national advertising campaign was "My Grandfather's Clock" in 1876. Mass production of piano in the late-19th century helped boost sheet music sales. Toward the end of the century, during the Tin Pan Alley era, sheet music was sold by dozens and even hundreds of publishing companies. Sheet music industry also suffered of music piracy with pirated reprints, as well various fake books rose considerable amount of copies sold.
Reports widely vary to confirm the first million-seller song in sheet music; examples include "When This Cruel War Is Over" (1863), "After the Ball" (by 1892 or 1893), and "Funiculì, Funiculà" in 1880. From 1900 to 1910, over one hundred songs sold more than a million copies. Various "hit songs" sold as many as two or three million copies in print. With the advent of the radio broadcasting, sheet music sales of popular songs decreased and print figures failed to make a significant recovery after the World War II (1940s). Exact figures are lacking, but in the 1950s, sheet music sales averaged 300,000 annually. By 1966, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary informed 100,000 copies of a title were "rares". "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" (1953) is believed to be the last song to sell one million of sheet music, from that era. American musicologist Barry Kernfeld, said that in the 1950s, "a million-selling sheet-music title was entirely a thing of the past".
From the album era, "Stairway to Heaven" (1971) by Led Zeppelin is the biggest selling piece of sheet music in rock history, with over one million copies sold, selling 15,000 units per year at some point. In the digital era, "My Immortal" became an early example of healthy sheet music downloads, becoming the all-time best-selling sheet music download at Musicnotes, with over 8,350 copies until June 2004, outpacing "A Thousand Miles"'s 7,137 sales. Occasionally, Billboard reported the best-selling folios and singles sheet yearly, or by music publishing companies.

## Selected million-sellers print titles

Over 5 million :
| Year | Composer / Lyricist | Title | Notable recording artist(s) | Claimed sales (in million) | Notes |
| 1937 | Harry Owens | "Sweet Leilani" | Bing Crosby | 54 | |
| 1851 | Stephen Foster | "Old Folks at Home" | | 20 | Reputed sales from 1851 to 1977. |
| 1855 | Septimus Winner Richard Milburn | "Listen to the Mocking Bird" | | 20 | |
| 1891 | Charles K. Harris | "After the Ball" | Bing Crosby; various | 10 | Sales as of 1903. |
| 1896 | John Philip Sousa | "The Stars and Stripes Forever" | | 10 | |
| 1901 | Carrie Jacobs-Bond | "I Love You Truly" | | 8 | |
| 1905 | Beth Slater Whitson | "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" | | 8 | |
| 1910 | Carrie Jacobs-Bond | "A Perfect Day" | | 8 |
| 1949 | Johnny Marks | "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" | Gene Autry | 8–7 | |
| 1910 | Leo Friedman Beth Slater Whitson | "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" | Bing Crosby; various | 6 |
| 1912 | Tell Taylor | "Down by the Old Mill Stream" | Bing Crosby; various | 6 | |
| 1942 | Irving Berlin | "White Christmas" | Bing Crosby | 6–5 | 3 million (4–5 years sales) |
| 1912 | Jack Judge Harry Williams | "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" | Various | 6 | |
3–4.9 million :
| Year | Composer / Lyricist | Title | Notable recording artist(s) | Claimed sales (in million) | Notes |
| 1902 | Paul Lincke Heinz Bolten-Backers | "The Glow-Worm" | | 4 | Sales in Europe and the United States. |
| 1917 | Billy Baskette Benny Davis | "Good Bye Broadway, Hello France" | Bing Crosby | 4 | |
| 1914 | James Royce Shannon Lee Edgar Settle | "Missouri Waltz" | Various | 3.5 | |
| 1918 | Richard A. Whiting Raymond B. Egan | "Till We Meet Again" | Various | 3.5 | |
| 1871 | William Shakespeare | "Mollie Darling" | | 3 |
| 1907 | Gus Edwards Will D. Cobb | "School Days" | | 3 | |
| 1914 | Harry Carroll Harold R. Atteridge | "By the Beautiful Sea" | American Quartet | 3 | |
| 1917 | Lee S. Roberts J. Will Callahan | "Smiles" | | 3 | |
| 1917 | George W. Meyer Edgar Leslie E. Ray Goetz | "For Me and My Gal" | | 3 |
| 1919 | Worton David Lawrence Wright | "That Old-Fashioned Mother of Mine" | | 3 |
| 1920 | Lawrence Wright | "Wyoming Lullaby" | | 3 | |

## Best-selling individuals

| Century | Composer(s) | Sales (in million) | Notes |
| 20th | Jay Livingston-Ray Evans | 46 | With eighteen songs |
| 19th | William Shakespeare Hays | 25 | Credited to 350 songs. |
| 19th | Carrie Jacobs-Bond | 20 | Credited to 200 songs. |