It's not always the singer that makes the money. In fact, in most cases, it's the songwriter cashing the big checks.

Finance 101 broke it down for us with the list of the 30 richest songwriters of all time. You might be surprised at some of them on the list. Here are the top 10.

10. Madonna:  $590 million. And she didn't even plan to be a songwriter! She moved to New York to be a dancer.

9. Bono: $700 million. In 1976, he and other members of U2, answered an ad to form a rock band. And the rest, as they say, is history.

8. Dr. Dre: $770 million. He started as a successful DJ and producer before becoming a solo artist.

7. John Lennon: $800 million. We all know he became incredibly successful as one of the Beatles, but he would have still made a boatload of money if all he had done was write the songs they recorded.

6. Sean Combs: $825 million. Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puff, Diddy, no matter what name he goes by, his bank account is crazy.

5. Michael Jackson. $825 million. It's estimated that he's sold over 350 million records worldwide.

4. Herb Alpert. $870 million. I'm guessing you weren't expecting this name. Did you know that he and Jerry moss founded A&M records? And he's sold over 72 million albums worldwide.

3. Jay-Z. $900 million. Also know as Mr. Beyonce. He's come a long way from selling records out of his car years ago.

2. Paul McCartney. 1.2 billion. Sir Paul is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world.

1. Andrew Lloyd Weber. 1.2 billion. He began collaborating at the age of 17 and has gone on to be only one of 15 people to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony.

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