When buying a CD, how much money from the purchase goes to the artist(s)?

Like others have said, it depends on the contract, if they're on a label.

Even more so, it depends on where/who you buy it from.

Buy stuff directly from the band(s) at shows when at all possible; they get a much better cut that way since there isn't all that retail stuff to pay for (shipping to a store, the store's overhead, paying the store's employees, etc.) and you also tend to pay a lot less for the same reasons, and there's no tax too.

Second best choice is directly from the band's/artist's site; that also cuts out most of that middleman expense.

Well, back in my day, the artists and writers got a total of 50 cents or so off an album that cost about 8 to 12 dollars. Check out the case with the Dixie Chix, they sold like 8 million records and didn't have more than a hundred grand to show for it at the time. Under the common contracts, the artist makes the least of all, unless they're also the writer. The artist or group makes the least, but are billed for everything, touring costs, studio time, extra musicians, food, limos, whatever the record company can get away with billing them for, even tho the artist may not have any say on how those funds are spent. That's why many artists that can keep touring way past the age when they should have retired, becaus while they pay for the tours, they also keep the bulk of the cash from tours, T shirt sales and the like. That's also a big reason the music world is changing. Why would any artist want that kind of deal, when they can produce their own product and make a profit of like ten bucks on every CD they sell? Some do it low key, others set up their own record company. Garth Brooks had to buy the rights to his own stuff from the company he was with, then he got an exclusive deal with Wal mart to distribute his material. Wannabe artists tend to think a deal with a record company is the big prize, well, it's not.

Not a lot. Most goes to the Record Company, then the management, then the writers, the Artists are right down at the bottom of the list after production costs etc. If they write their own songs they make more money, but it's still only a few pence (or cents) per CD

From Harvard Law:

It varies based on contract, but this is normally how the numbers work. An artist successfully signs a record contract. The artist goes to the studio and work diligently to create a CD that the record company fully supports. The record company via its distributor sells the CD with a suggested retail list price (SRLP) of $17.99 to a retailer for about $10.99. The distributor will take 10% - 14% of the $10.99. Therefore the record company will get about ½ the SRLP of $17.99. Independent record companies may receive less than ½ the SRLP. Major record companies will pay artist royalty as a percentage of SRLP.

Rates will vary of each artist depending on how successful their record sells. For a new artist who never had a record deal or has sold less than 100,000 albums will get a typical royalty rate of 12% to 14% of the SRLP. For an independent record label it maybe 10% to 14% of the SRLP. For established artists who have a track record of selling 200,000 to 500,000 albums

the royalty rate maybe 14% to 16%. For artists who have sold over 750,000 albums the royalty rates maybe 16% to 18%. The more successful the artist is, the higher the royalty. Additionally, royalty maybe based on how well the record sells. For instance, the record contract may state that an artist will get 12% for the first 100,000 units sold, 14% for 100,001 to 300,000 units sold, and 16% for over 300,000 units sold. ""

It depends on the terms of the artist's contract.