royalty-free music sites + what they actually cost
the entry price for properly licensed music is $0, and the realistic price for music you can put in a client's paid ad is about $17 a month. everything between those two numbers is what this post is about. every figure below was read off the vendor's own pricing page on 16 august 2026 — not a roundup, not last year's screenshot.
we already wrote the vibes version of this: where to find royalty-free music for video editing walks the catalogues and how they feel to use. this one is the receipt. prices, licence scope, and the specific thing on each site that bites people.
the short answer, in one table
| site | price on 16 aug 2026 | covers client work? | covers paid ads? |
|---|---|---|---|
| youtube audio library | $0 | not stated | not stated |
| pixabay | $0 | yes, with limits | yes, with limits |
| uppbeat free | $0 | no | no |
| uppbeat pro | $14.99/mo | yes | yes |
| artlist music & sfx | from $9.99/mo | yes | yes |
| epidemic sound creator | $9.99/mo, billed $119.88/yr | no | no |
| epidemic sound pro | $16.99/mo, billed $203.88/yr | yes | yes |
| storyblocks unlimited all access | $30/mo, billed yearly | yes | yes |
| soundstripe pro | "as low as $9.99/mo" | yes | yes |
now the detail, because "covers client work" is doing an enormous amount of work in that table.
the free ones
youtube audio library — $0, and it lives in youtube studio
the audio library is inside youtube studio and costs nothing. google's own help page says music and sound effects from the audio library are copyright-safe, and that partner-programme creators can monetise videos that use them.
the part people miss: the licence is not uniform across the catalogue. some tracks carry a creative commons licence and require attribution in your description; others sit under the standard audio library licence and require none. the library has a filter for exactly this — "attribution required" versus "attribution not required" — and the licence type shows in its own column when you browse.
the catch. google's wording is about tracks being copyright-safe on youtube, where the content id system already knows them. it does not read as a general commercial clearance you can carry into a client deliverable or a broadcast spot. for a personal channel it is genuinely fine. for work someone is paying you for, this is the wrong tool.
source: youtube audio library help, read 16 august 2026.
pixabay — $0, unusually generous, one sharp edge
pixabay's content licence allows free use without attribution, allows you to modify and adapt the content into new works, and allows commercial use of those modified works.
the catch, and it is a real one. the licence forbids selling or distributing pixabay content on a standalone basis without meaningful creative modification. so cutting a track into your video is fine; re-uploading the track as "the audio" is not. it also carves out content featuring recognisable trademarks, logos or brands from commercial use, and it puts the burden on you to check whether third-party rights, moral rights or privacy rights attach to a specific file. that last clause matters more for music than people expect, because pixabay is contributor-uploaded and an uploader can hand you a track containing a sample they never cleared.
source: pixabay licence summary, read 16 august 2026.
free music archive — $0, and the most homework
fma is free to play, download and share, and hosts real indie artists rather than stock composers. its licences vary track by track — several creative commons flavours with different conditions, some requiring credit, some forbidding commercial use, some forbidding edits at all. "it was on a free site" is not a licence. read the per-track terms. we go deeper on why those three words get confused in royalty-free vs copyright-free vs public domain.
the paid ones
uppbeat — free tier $0, pro $14.99/mo
uppbeat's own pricing page on 16 august 2026 lists four tiers: free $0, essentials $6.99/mo, creator $8.99/mo, and pro $14.99/mo, with yearly billing advertised as saving 20%, 30% and 40% on the three paid tiers respectively. the free tier gives 3 downloads renewed monthly and 25% catalogue access.
the catch, in the user agreement rather than the marketing page. clause 6.3 says that if you are a free user, you must ensure the appropriate credit is given whenever you use any music track — and the agreement calls that a material term. each credit is specific to that track in that video; reuse the same track elsewhere and you need a new one. paid subscribers do not have to credit.
the second catch is scope. the licence covers open distribution platforms (youtube, tiktok, instagram, facebook, patreon, twitch), your own or your client's website, downloadable podcasts and e-courses, public events, and web games. paid advertising is uppbeat pro only. if you are on essentials or creator and you put a track behind a paid ad, you are outside your plan.
sources: uppbeat pricing and uppbeat user agreement, both read 16 august 2026.
epidemic sound — creator $9.99/mo, pro $16.99/mo
epidemic's pricing page on 16 august 2026: creator at $9.99/month, billed $119.88 yearly, and pro at $16.99/month, billed $203.88 yearly. a third tier, pro plus, is custom-priced, annual billing only, and adds ott and tv broadcasting plus indemnification.
the comparison table on that page is the useful part, because it draws the line most creators guess wrong:
- creator covers social platforms, websites and podcasts, and lets you monetise 1 channel per platform. it does not include digital ads, and it does not include business or client work.
- pro adds licensing for digital ads, protection for freelance client work, and monetisation on 3 channels per platform.
- indemnification and liability cover appears only on pro plus.
the catch. the coverage is a subscription, not a purchase. the plan you are on when you publish determines what you were allowed to do — and going from "my channel" to "my client's channel" is a tier change, not a technicality.
source: epidemic sound pricing, read 16 august 2026.
artlist — music & sfx from $9.99/mo, max $50.66/mo
on artlist's pricing page, under the stock catalog tab (the page opens on an ai-tools tab by default, which is its own small trap), on 16 august 2026:
- music & sfx, starting at $9.99/month, licence described as covering all personal and commercial use of music and sound effects, with stems and a premiere pro extension.
- max, $50.66/month billed annually, adding footage, templates, luts, plugins and ai tooling under a "pro licence" covering all personal and commercial use of the stock catalogue.
- max business, $399/month billed annually, which is the tier that names client projects and legal indemnification explicitly.
the catch. artlist's long-standing selling point is that a track you download while subscribed stays licensed for that project after you cancel. that is the reputation; it is not printed on the pricing page. if it matters to your business, read the current licence document itself and keep a copy of it — do not take my word or a 2024 blog post's word for a term that decides whether your back catalogue is covered.
source: artlist pricing, stock catalog tab, read 16 august 2026.
storyblocks — music only from $30/mo
storyblocks sells unlimited downloads, and on 16 august 2026 its individual plans read: essentials $21/month annual, unlimited all access $30/month annual, small business $40/month annual.
the catch is which tier has music at all. essentials is footage, templates, photos and vectors. music and sound effects appear at the unlimited all access tier, not below it. so the honest music price at storyblocks is $30/month, and you are buying a video library that happens to include audio. small business adds licensing for companies under 50 employees. the $1 million indemnification sits on the enterprise tier.
source: storyblocks pricing, read 16 august 2026.
soundstripe — subscription "as low as $9.99/mo", or buy one track
soundstripe's pricing page on 16 august 2026 advertises pro plans "as low as $9.99/mo" and lists per-tier permissions rather than per-tier prices for most tiers. its personal tier is scoped to personal social media, blogs and life events. pro is the one that names paid social and digital ads, podcasts, film festival submissions, a client licensing option and indemnification. pro plus adds stock video. business covers a single market with up to 3 seats. enterprise is quote-only and is the tier that names tv, streaming, film and radio.
soundstripe also sells single-use licences: personal $49, digital $199, expanded from $399, all media from $1,249. that is the option worth remembering when you need one track for one campaign and a subscription makes no sense.
the catch. the page states that lifetime licences are no longer available, and it does not publish a clean monthly number for every tier — you have to go through the flow. treat "as low as $9.99" as the floor of a range, not the price of the plan you will end up on.
source: soundstripe pricing, read 16 august 2026.
how to pick, in four lines
- not monetised, posting to your own channel? youtube audio library or uppbeat free. $0. credit properly on uppbeat, because that credit is the licence.
- monetised, your own channels only? epidemic creator at $9.99/mo is the cheapest thing that clearly names monetisation.
- you edit for other people? you need a tier that says client work out loud — epidemic pro at $16.99/mo, uppbeat pro at $14.99/mo, or artlist. the cheap tiers do not cover you.
- one track, one campaign, no subscription? soundstripe's single-use licences start at $49.
if you are still weighing free against paid at all, the argument is not catalogue size — it is who absorbs the risk when a claim lands. we did that maths in free vs paid music libraries.
a note on where this goes wrong for editors
three of these libraries let you build a whole video around a track that can later be pulled from the catalogue. subscriptions lapse, contracts expire, contributor uploads get taken down. your "saved" list inside a web app is a bookmark pointing at someone else's server.
keep the file. when you license something you love, put the actual audio in a folder you own, tagged with the title and artist so you can find it in eight months. that is exactly the habit Sound Cache automates — your audio filed locally with title, artist and artwork attached, searchable by what it sounds like rather than by track_final_v2.mp3. keep the licence receipt in the same folder while you are at it.
and if the track you want is not on any of these lists because you heard it on someone's edit, that is a different job: how to find the original song behind a sound.
related reading on this site
- sounds you took off a platform are a separate question — are tiktok sounds royalty-free?
- if your editor already ships music, check what it actually covers — video editors that include royalty-free music
- planning to chop, pitch or remix a licensed track? read derivative works: the danger zones for editors first.
tl;dr
$0 gets you the youtube audio library and pixabay, with attribution rules that vary per track and a standalone-distribution ban you have to respect. uppbeat free is $0 if you paste the credit code, because that credit is a material term of the agreement. the cheapest tier that clearly names monetisation is epidemic creator at $9.99/month. the cheapest tiers that name client work and paid ads are uppbeat pro at $14.99/month and epidemic pro at $16.99/month. storyblocks only includes music from $30/month. soundstripe will sell you one track for $49 if a subscription is silly for the job. all figures read from vendor pages on 16 august 2026 — check them again before you sign anything. ✦
