As a content creator, having access to music draws interest to your content. With the addition of a short clip, it can significantly impact your audience and even make you seem a lot more professional.
However, with musicians trying to protect their own assets, content creators have to be careful about what music they use in their videos or podcasts. Royalty-free music is an excellent way for content creators to have access to music without copyright infringements. By definition, royalty-free music is tracks or sound effects that someone owns a copyright on, but they allow the music to be used.
We’ll go through a comprehensive list of sites that you can find royalty-free music on and, based on the research that we did, which ones are best for the music that you’re looking for.
Royalty-free music
Royalty-free music offers content creators a convenient way to enhance their videos without the hassle of negotiating licenses with musicians. This means creators can use music freely, avoiding copyright infringement issues and allowing them to focus on their creative process as long as the attribution rules and guidelines are followed..
Musicians invest immense time, talent, and resources into their work, and it’s crucial for others, including content creators, to respect and honor that effort. To protect their rights, musicians have legal safeguards that prevent unauthorized use of their music, and it’s our responsibility to adhere to these regulations.
Using copyrighted music requires licensing, a process that can be lengthy and expensive. Many musicians outright deny access to their music, emphasizing the importance of respecting their intellectual property.
When an artist’s copyright expires, their music enters the public domain, becoming free for anyone to use. This is a valuable resource for content creators and artists alike. For example, recently, this past year “Steam Boat Mickey Mouse” fell into public domain and movies and video games were made.
Where do content creators use royalty-free music?
Content creators use royalty-free music and sound effects in many different places of work. Their music is most frequently used in YouTube videos, podcasts, live streaming, and social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
YouTubers especially love royalty-free music for their videos because it doesn’t violate YouTube’s strict copyright laws on audio and video pieces. Using royalty-free music is also an efficient way to elevate video projects without paying royalties to artists and rights holders.
Essentially, content creators can use royalty-free music in any content that they feel would be elevated with its use – as long as it meets the requirements of the platform that they’ve acquired the royalty-free music from.
What’s the difference between copyright-free, stock music, and creative commons music?
There is a difference between the types of royalty-free music that you can use. We’ll go into each type here.
Copyright-free music
Copyright-free music are music tracks that aren’t copyrighted. The creator of the music has waived their copyright rights.
However, it’s incredibly uncommon because musicians typically want to protect their music. You’ll rarely come across copyright-free music.
Stock music
Stock music is music that is recorded and licensed for use in other creative projects. However, stock music is not always royalty-free, with some stock music subject to copyright protection. When using stock music, it is essential to read the licensing agreement carefully to understand the terms and conditions.
YouTube’s Audio Library is an example of stock music, but is sometimes restrictive and generic. An example of this is that the search feature is very restricted in that you have to go through, song by song, to see which one works best for you.
Creative commons music
Some artists will release Creative Commons music, a system allowing a content creator to use “some rights reserved” music. This often has free licensing, but the restrictions on these tracks are usually very dense, and the content creator typically must give attribution or credit to the artist. If you come across a Creative Commons license, this is often a complicated licensing program.
Sometimes, you’ll see free stock music and royalty-free music tracks being used interchangeably, but technically, they aren’t the same thing. The royalty-free websites we will discuss here are high-quality music, and you’ll be impressed with the type of tracks they feature on their websites. It used to be thought that stock tracks lacked quality, but this has largely been disproven in recent years as technology and innovation has allowed even free music to be high-quality.
Knowing the different types of music and terms in the industry can often save you from hot water, such as copyright infringement. The best thing you can do is steer clear of music you didn’t pay for in one way or another.
Best sites to find royalty-free music
When looking for royalty-free music, it’s important to differentiate which sites are best for which kinds of music. You also have to decide whether you want to use a paid or free site.
A lot of the time, you’ll find that a paid site will result in a larger grouping of royalty-free tracks to choose from, and at a higher quality. We did the research, and here are some of our recommendations.
Our top paid and free recommendations are Epidemic Sounds and Streambeats, respectively. We’ll go through them first, and after that list out some of the other sites we saw that are worth checking out.
Epidemic Sound
If you want a top-notch paid site for royalty-free music, Epidemic Sound is absolutely the way to go. It has over 50,000 tracks and more than 200,000 unique sound effects, making it a deep resource of music for content creators to use in projects.
You can sign up for a subscription to Epidemic Sound at either $9.99/month for the Personal subscription or $19.99 a month for the Commercial one, and you also get a 30-day free trial to test things out.
With these, you can:
- Publish content with their music anywhere online
- Monetize 1 channel per platform (up to 3 with Commercial)
- Have unlimited downloads
- Access to the mobile app
- Commercial: publish content for clients and businesses
You can also request a quote for the Enterprise subscription, which has everything the other two subs offer but adds multiple user accounts, customized deal terms, all rights covered for TV shows and ads, and a customer success manager and music curation.
It is important to note that Epidemic Sound does not require you to give credit to the music artist in your content. However, they highly appreciate it, and for commercial use, signing a licensing agreement that includes proper attribution to the artist is required.
Streambeats
When it comes to free royalty-free music sites, Streambeats is our choice here. Streambeats was made by a content creator (Harris Heller) for other content creators to have a free option for music tracks, and it’s a great tool.
While they don’t offer sound effects, Streambeats is a completely free service with a ton of music and while the website is currently down, you can view the complete library of music right here.
Other top paid royalty-free music sites
After Epidemic Sound Streambeats, here is a list of other paid royalty-free music sites that we found.
Soundclick
If you’re a producer looking to sell your beats for other musicians to use or a content creator looking to make your own track, Soundclick would make a lot of sense for you to use.
On Soundclick, as a buyer you pay per track, so it makes sense if you are not looking for a ton of music and maybe just using it as a one-off purchase. There are no sound effects sold on this site, just music options.
There are three subscription options: Basic, which is free, Premium, costing $10 per month, and Ultimate, costing $20 per month.
Bensound
If you’re looking for a paid option that is up near the quality tier of Epidemic Sound, Bensound could be a gamechanger for you. Despite not offering sound effects like the former and only music options, Bensound still has a wealth of options that are safe for YouTube and other spots.
Their pricing is fair, with subscription options of $9/month, $19 and $39. All three options offer unlimited downloads, with the notable differences coming in the number of channels that you can use the music on. Similar to Epidemic’s Enterprise option, the high-tier Premium option for Bensound offers the use of video production for clients as well as other audio-only ventures.
Imuno
Imuno is another paid royalty-free option that exists to grab music from. The site does not require sync licenses for radio, film, TV, or Twitch, which is nice, and simply ask that people using their music credit the track title and composer for each track they use.
A lifetime license for one social channel costs $15, and a lifetime license for all channels costs $25 and allows up to four social channels.
When using Imuno, TV & film users must complete cue sheets in accordance with their broadcaster’s rules. Social channels can buy a lifetime license to safelist their YouTube, TikTok, Instagram & Facebook channels forever. This allows monetization & bypasses any copyright checks.
Melo Tracks
MeloTracks has an extensive collection of non-copyright music that spans a wide range of musical genres and styles. They don’t offer sound effects either.
They are another pay-per-track service, with four levels of subscriptions:
- Standard: $9.99
- Premium: $14.99
- Unlimited: $19.99
- Custom Track: $199.99
Something that makes Melo unique is that they also offer custom audio projects, so if you’re looking for an exclusive track that you have full control of, they are a perfect option for you. They also offer custom beats, audio mixing, audio consulting, and song reviews.
Other top free royalty-free music sites
There are also plenty of other royalty-free music sites that are either completely free to use or have a free subscription below their paid models. Here are some of the ones we found notable.
Incompetech
Incompetech is a hobby project that lets you browse through different playlists of music (ex. Western or horror) for you to find something that matches the feeling you want to portray in your content.
Since we will mention this term multiple times throughout, we consider a hobby project is essentially a website created by someone who didn’t have a full team creating the site and basically created the site for recreational use, not intending it to be fully commercialized to the same level of a project like Epidemic Sounds.
The site is free and you can monetize videos on YouTube while using the music, but does require you to credit the site properly.
Soundscrate
Soundscrate is another royalty-free site with a number of categories to choose from. It does offer sound effects, and for a free site that’s notable.
The site also offers visual effects and motion graphics, another unique feature not found on many of these sites. It does not require users to attribute credit to the artists.
Uppbeat
Uppbeat is a free site that offers some subscription tiers as well. You can choose the Premium tier at $5.59/month or the Business tier at $14.99 a month, and upgrading will give you access to unlimited downloads, as well as no ads and access to the entire catalog of music.
On the free side of the site, you can only access 30% of the catalog and have three downloads per month.
Uppbeat is similar in quality to Bensound and Epidemic, so it definitely is worth checking out the paid version here.
NCS
NCS is a free royalty-free site that offers copyright-free music for all creators, as advertised on its homepage. It only offers music and no SFX, but is entirely free to use.
Their music catalog is in high demand because the music they release is not generic stock music from faceless composers, but are actual industry artists who tour, have global fan bases and are often household names, like Daniel Levi and Luke Alexander. If you’re looking for a more artistic take on your tracks, they are a great option for you.
SoundImage
SoundImage is a free hobby project that offers both royalty-free music and sound effects. The site is ad-free and easy to navigate. It seems to focus heavily on video game soundtracks.
You do have to attribute credit to the creator of the site in order to use any music or sound effects from the site, legally. There’s also a licensing agreement located on the website.
No Copyright Music
No Copyright Music is another free hobby project music site that offers royalty-free music, but does not offer sound effects. The creator of the site composes his own music as well, and owns all of the rights to it, so there are no worries of copyright infringements.
Attribution for this site isn’t required, but is definitely appreciated. The creator of the site does note that users cannot take credit for the creation of the music, sell it, distribute it to other sites, or place copyrights on it.
Scott Buckley
Scott Buckley was created by its namesake, an Australian composer and arranger who writes for his own library of cinematic Creative Commons music which has been used on YouTube over 1.5 million times.
Scott creates cinematic music pieces and in his own words, is known for creating atmospheric soundscapes that blend orchestral elements with electronic textures, producing music that is emotive and introspective.
This is another hobby project that does not feature sound effects, and it also requires attribution to Scott in order for users to use the content for free.
Purple Planet
Purple Planet is a hobby project that is free to use, however it is another site that offers paid subscription tiers as well. Unlike the other sites, the music is completely free to use. The paid subscription applies to purchasing either a standard ($8) or broadcast ($40) sub, which enables you to buy high-quality WAVs and also removes the attributing credit requirement.
You must still attribute credit properly if you choose to use the site without paying. Purple Planet has had some issues with third parties claiming their music, so keep note of that.
Film Music
Film Music, like Scott Buckley and No Copyright Music, is a free hobby project site that offers music created all by one person on their keyboard. This site also does not offer any sound effects.
Also available on this site is the VIP Club, which is an invite-only group that has more privileges on the site than just using it for free. You can join the waiting list and eventually be invited in.
Youtube Audio Library
Lastly, Youtube Audio Library is a free site offering licenses for music and sound effects that are specifically to be used on YouTube.
Music and sound effects from the YouTube Audio Library are copyright-safe. The Audio Library is found exclusively in YouTube Studio.
Unconventional ways to license music
There are other ways to get music for your content that can be outside of the realm of digging through royalty-free sites. If you don’t want to risk copyrighting mainstream music or spending hours digging through royalty-free websites, there are unconventional ways that you can license music and incorporate it into your content.
Reach out to smaller musicians
Smaller musicians and bands continually try to get exposure and get some traction behind their music. Most times, they just want someone to reach out and offer to give them a shot by using their music in a different medium or setting. You can reach out to the band or person and ask them for permission to use their music in your content. In the past, we’ve had great luck with reaching out to smaller artists on SoundCloud. One note to keep in mind is that with this situation is that when dealing with an up-and-coming musician, their situation and ownership over their catalog can always change, and that has a potential to impact your use.
Of course, you’ll need to give them attribution in the credits and even a shoutout. However, they’ll likely be grateful for you, and it’s a mutually beneficial transaction. Attribution is an integral part of your content creation.
Commission a Fiverr musician
Fiverr is a site where people offer and sell freelance services, and occasionally, musicians will post on there looking for opportunities to create music or sound effects.
What you can do here is reach out to one of these creators and negotiate a deal for them to create a track specifically for what you’re looking for. Fiverr can be a cost-effective option to the sites above, and you are giving a musician who might need a shot a chance to show what they’re capable of.
