A podcast or an audio book often requires some music along with the content being offered. This could mean that content creator would need to allocate resources to either create or acquire the necessary music. The concept of royalty free music is quite handy in such situations especially for new entrants in the field of podcasts and audio books. Today, we would briefly explain royalty free music and suggest 20 different sources to acquire it.
What is royalty free music?
Generally, royalty free music refers to those music tracks that only need to be acquired once and then can be used multiple types without any additional cost. To elaborate further, once you have paid for the license of the music or fulfilled its conditions, you can use the music as many times as you like.
Why use royalty free music?
One reasoning for choosing the royalty free music is the cost. With protected or managed rights music, you need to pay a certain amount on every usage as royalties. This can create an undue financial strain if your setup is small and constrained for resources.
The other reason for using royalty free music is to avoid copyright infringement. If there are any copyrights violations in your audiobook or podcast due to using copyrighted music without permission, then your content may be taken down and removed from an online platform. In some cases, it could lead to legal action as well.
Types of royalty free music
Broadly speaking, there are two categories of royalty free music, free and paid. Free royalty free music often comes with a few restrictions. This normally includes attributing the artist responsible for composing the music or it may prevent commercial use of music for monetization purposes. If you want to do away with those restrictions then paid royalty free music is the way forward. For a nominal fee, you can acquire the license for the music and use it without the hassle of worrying about any restrictions.
After developing a basic understanding of what royalty free music entails, let’s look at some of the best options to acquire royalty free music. The list would include both free and paid options.
- Epidemic Sound
Epidemic Sound is one of the best sources of royalty free music available today. Many of the leading YouTubers use music from this website. This is a testament to the quality of music offered by Epidemic Sound. This store not only thrives on quality but offers quantity as well with a library of over 30,000 tracks and 60,000 sound effects. Another quality of Epidemic Sound is its transparency. Once you acquire the music, it’s yours to use without any strings attached. This is a subscription based service with 2 different packages for personal use ($15/month) and commercial use ($49/month) -
Envato Elements is another great service that offers a wide variety of royalty free music. They have accumulated over 35,000 royalty free tracks which cover a diverse set of genres. The website itself is quite intuitive and user-friendly as it allows to search your music using different filters such as tempo of the music, length of the track and the nature of the vocals in the track. It operates on a monthly subscription which is priced at $16.5 per month. Once the subscription is acquired, you can access unlimited downloads from its library. - Amazon
Amazon is one of the world’s most valuable companies and is known for their efficiency. Among the various products offered by the company, royalty free music is also one of them. They possess a library of over 1000 royalty free music tracks. Their pricing of individual tracks is $0.99 while albums are priced at $8.99 and $11.99.One downside of the website is limited search options. You would need to rely on clever search terms to locate the music of your choice as you cannot filter search results on the basis of genre. -
Premium Beat is a no-frills royalty free music store that keeps thing simple yet efficient. Owned by Shutterstock, the famous image provider, it is bound to have high-end quality. The tracks available have a professional feel to them and there are different and easy to follow ways to find the tracks of your choice. The store operates on per track basis which means you would need to buy individual tracks. If the track is purchased for non-commercial use then it costs $49. Otherwise, the premium license costs $199 which allows the music to be used for commercial purposes. -
Pond5 is one of the largest library of royalty free music you can find in the market today. With over 500,000 tracks, it covers nearly all kinds of genre and themes. The good thing about this store is that the grouping of tracks has been done appropriately so it would not take too long to find what you are looking for. However, all of this comes at a premium price as it is one of the more expensive stores out there. Monthly membership fee is $199 while annual membership fee is $999. - SoundStripe
SoundStripe is a reliable source of royalty free music. Their clients include big names like Amazon and Microsoft so one can trust them to deliver high quality work. The music tracks on offer are hand-picked and go through the necessary scrutiny before being made available on SoundStripe. The navigation of the store is similar to Spotify so it should be familiar to a larger number of users. The store offers annual subscriptions with the membership cost being $135 annually. - Audionautix
This is a royalty free music store owned by music composer Jason Shaw. He has been kind enough to provide his music for free under Creative Commons. This means that as long as you credit him for the music, you can use tracks from his library for free. He has made the website quite easy to use as you can filter music by simply ticking the necessary checkboxes. If for some reason, you are unable to find what you are looking for, you can get in touch with Jason and he could provide a custom track for a nominal fee. - Storyblocks
Storyblocks, also known as Audioblocks, is another well-stocked royalty free music store. It houses over 100,000 tracks that can meet your desired usage. The interface for searching the music is not the best. You can either search tracks manually or answer a set of questions to find the relevant tracks. It has different membership options with the monthly subscription being priced at $79 and annual subscription at $149. - Soundcloud
Soundcloud is not just a music streaming service. You can actually find royalty free music on their website. Royalty free tracks normally have the download option enabled which allows you to download the track and use it for your project. The quality of the tracks available can be varied. A good indicator for the quality of the track is the number of likes, replays and re-shares of the track. - Incompetech
Incompetech is a Creative Commons royalty free music store. The webpage is owned by musician Kevin MacLeod. He has compiled over 2000 tracks on his website that you can download and use for free as long as you credit him for the music. An additional feature of this website is that you can search tracks based on movie genres as well. Kevin also allows you download the entire music library as well but it requires the payment of a $38 one-time fee. - Bensound
Owned by the French musician, Benjamin Tissot, Bensound offers high quality royalty free music. The site is straightforward and to the point which means you can get to work right away. Bensound is flexible in terms of its business model. You can access some tracks for free by crediting Benjamin but you can get that restriction removed by paying $38.50 for the track or by paying the $157.50 annual subscription. -
Designed to facilitate new YouTubers, YouTube Audio Library is a high quality store for royalty free music. The layout of the store is quite bare but its appearance does not undermine the functionality it offers. Finding the exact track may be time consuming but given that this is a free service, it is expected to have some limitations. - Musopen
Musopen is a unique royalty free music source. This is because it caters to the niche market of classic music lovers. You can find music compositions from legendary composers such as Mozart and Beethoven. This store may not match the tastes of everyone but if you are looking for a sophisticated sound track for your project then Musopen would be your go to option. Most tracks can be downloaded for free without any restriction. There are some exceptions which are mentioned in the license details of the track. - Filmstro
Filmstro is another extensive royalty free music store that you can rely on. For the sake of helping their clients, they have provided instructional videos so that their website can be utilized properly. They offer a diverse set of payment options for their clients. For individual users, they can subscribe at either $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. For business users, the rates are $24.99 a month or $249.99 a year. - Purple Planet
A store with a unique appearance, Purple planet comes across as a great budget option. The store is not highly populated with tracks but the available library is well-organized in different genres. It operates under Creative Commons so it is free to use if the necessary credits are provided. You can get those restrictions removed if you either purchase the standard license of $5 or the premium license of $40. - Artlist
A store for art lovers, Artlist is an aesthetically pleasing royalty free music store that has a great set of indie music. The website is quite easy to navigate and they even promote upcoming artists who deserve recognition. All their tracks are pre-checked for monetization so you can use them in commercial projects without any hesitation. They offer an annual membership of $199 in return for unlimited access. - AKM Music
A simple and easy-to-use royalty free music store, AKM Music focuses on getting the job done. That is why in terms of appearance, the webpage may appear to be old fashioned which may put off users who value aesthetics as well. That does not discount its functionality in any way. The pricing of AKM Music ranges from £14.95 for individual tracks to £36 for complete albums. - Music Vine
A relatively new player on the royalty free music scene, Music Vine started out in 2015 and has developed a library of over 2000 high quality tracks. Their focus has been to gather high quality music created with love and passion. The website itself is well designed and properly organized. Their pricing is based on the per project principle. For smaller projects, they charge $40 per project while for larger projects, there is a one-time fee of $334. - TeknoAXE
A royalty free music store of a more funky variety, the music on offer focuses on modern forms of techno and upbeat music along with a good stock of rock and heavy metal. The name of the store reflects its library’s contents. The website is not the most eye pleasing but it is effective. Add in the fact that it allows music to be used for free if proper credits are given and you have a good deal. - Hooksounds
Hooksounds is a handy royalty free music store with a strong online community of over 100,000 members. It has an incredibly diverse and unique set of music tracks available in its library. You can use them for free under Creative Commons but if you wish to purchase them then licenses range from $24 to $580.
