Musicbed vs Soundstripe vs Artlist: Music Licensing Companies in 2021
We are doing a quick review of three main current music licensing companies for wedding videographers, filmmakers, & creative industry professionals – and how you can get a discount on all of them. (Yes, there will be affiliate links in this article, but don’t worry – any of these 3 options will be just fine for you and your business.)
All of these companies provide a great service and content, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s the best fit for YOU and your business.
First, I want to say, what makes amazing music licensing companies in 2021 is content availability, style of the content, price/subscription model, and the licensing terms.
Artlist, Soundstripe, and Musicbed are all great options, it’s just a matter of choosing the best one for you. The best music licensing company for YOU is highly dependent on your unique business, the videos you create, the content you aim to put out, the clients you reach, etc.
Now, let’s talk about the 3 different companies: Musicbed vs Soundstripe vs Artlist. I will be breaking each down into Library, Licensing Terms, Pricing
Musicbed
Library
Musicbed is known as one of the premier, if not the premier music licensing company with over 10,000 songs available in their library, with new music, added weekly. They have amazing filters to sort and find the perfect track for your project. They even have custom-curated playlists by leading filmmakers.
Licenses
Musicbed’s licensing is based on the subscription tier you pay for, or the price you pay for the song. In their subscription model, you pay a monthly fee and get unlimited licenses from their library. Good thing is, the majority of these licenses are single-use perpetual licenses. But please note, not all songs are available in the subscription model. They are working to make more and more songs available every single week. The subscription tier and price per song determine the terms of usage for that song. For example, in the basic tier, you can post on Youtube, but can’t advertise on Facebook. See their terms for the full details!
Pricing
Musicbed offers a subscription-based model as well as a pay-per-song model ($49.99+ at the time of writing this article). I’ve included the full pricing can be table here:
Musicbed has integration with Spotify playlists to find and follow Musicbed artists!
Get one month free off any Musicbed subscription with this discount link!
Soundstripe
Library
Soundstripe is fairly new to the music licensing world, and as of January (2020) has over 4,000 songs, 35,000 sound effects, and over 1,000 audio stem files. They even offer filters to find the perfect track for your project! Soundstripe also has libraries that sort music by style and hot tracks for specifics types of projects, such as advertising, wedding filmmaking
Licenses
Soundstripe grants you unlimited music licenses from the songs in our audio library with your subscription. Each license is a single-use, perpetual license, meaning you have permission to use each individual song in a project forever. The license doesn’t expire — even if you cancel your membership. In this way, Soundstripe is different from Musicbed because they have no restrictions on how you can use your licenses. You can use the tracks on broadcast TV, social media, advertising, Youtube, and more!
Soundstripe offers a subscription-based model as well as a pay per song model ($39.95). The full pricing can be found here:
Finally, one thing that really makes Soundstripe Unique is a Plug-ins through Premiere Pro and Fram.io. The Premiere Pro plug-in makes finding, downloading, and licensing music for your projects even easier.
Get 10% off your Soundstripe subscription with this discount or the code: morganfilmco
Artlist
Library
Another great place to find that perfect music track for your next big project is Artlist. Artlist’s library is constantly growing daily, and it consists of over 15,000 songs and focuses on full-length tracks and sound effects!
Licenses
Artlist is a subscription-based model where you get unlimited song downloads. The subscription provides you a lifetime license for the songs you download. The License is a royalty-free one worldwide license, so the company’s licensing terms of use only allow the music for video production and audio elements. This includes TV, podcasts, VR, video games, commercials, and personal projects. It covers every platform and every country in the world and it’s not limited (user can use it on multiple platforms, multiple times with no limitations), and this applies to their SFX options as well. They are the only music licensing company that gives a license like this.
Pricing
Artlist offers a sound effects option, a music-only option, and a subscription that includes both sound effects and music! I included the full pricing breakdown below:
Artlist doesn’t offer any additional integrations like Musicbed or Soundstripe.
Sign up for your Artlist subscription and receive two months free!
A Review of the Music Licensing Companies
Which company is the right choice for you? That ultimately is something you will need to decide. Personally, we have tried each company and we like certain aspects of each. However, we love Musicbed for the consistent quality of music, from the overall production to the large library. Soundstripe and Artlist are both amazing companies with fantastic libraries. We encourage you to check out each company, dig through the library, and choose the music licensing company that works best for you!
Did you find this comparison between Musicbed, Artlist, and Soundstripe helpful? You can find more tools we use for our business on our business resources page!
