Are you a content creator looking for music for advertising, vlogs or film projects? Then keep reading our Soundstripe review to see if Soundstripe is perfect for you.
Did you know that using music without a license is punishable by law as copyright infringement? If you’re a Youtuber that’s using unlicensed music, your channel could be suspended. You could lose all your ad revenue, you might even end up in court!
Soundstripe – a royalty-free music library – aims to help you avoid these problems altogether. This Soundstripe review will assess what’s on offer and help you decide: is Soundstripe worth it?
Unless you’re a musician or public domain music (published pre 1925) is appropriate for all your projects. You’ll need access to legal and safe royalty-free music. There are several choices of platforms providing this service. But today we will focus on Soundstripe – a subscription-based library of stock video, SFX and music.
We’ll be explaining what Soundstripe is, how you can use it, and how it compares to its rivals. Not forgetting the key question for any entrepreneur. What’s the Soundstripe pricing model, for both standard and Soundstripe pro plans?
We’ll also take a look at how Soundstripe can work for artists. Helping boost reach and grow your fanbase. Let’s jump straight in!
What Is Soundstripe?
Soundstripe is a company specialising in providing stock music. Members pay a monthly or yearly subscription to use music from the extensive Soundstripe catalogue. Safe in the knowledge that all music licensing and permission for tracks have been obtained.
Membership covers song license costs. Providing creators with custom licenses for the tracks they choose. With no cap on how many tracks/licenses you download. For frequent content creators, Soundstripe can be very cost-effective.
The company was founded by three professional musicians in 2015 to provide music licensing for the modern world. It is now used by prestigious clients, from Microsoft and Spotify, to Tesla and Amazon.
Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, the company has grown and expanded its portfolio to include SFX and stock video. Best of all, although the music on the platform is royalty-free for the creators, all artists submitting their tracks to Soundstripe are compensated by the broadcast platforms the music plays on.
What Does Soundstripe Do?
Soundstripe is focused on providing royalty-free music to content creators. Guaranteeing ‘radio quality music’ and unlimited licenses to members. It also has some great additional features which make it stand out.
From the intuitive search bar to curated playlists centered on a theme, mood, or genre, you can guarantee high-quality and relevant original music. With sound engineers onboard, Soundstripe also features some really nifty features. Such as access to stem files (just the bassline, drums, or vocals of a track). As well as a library of sound effects (35,000+ SFX to be exact) available to pro members.
Although Soundstripe doesn’t yet have its own editing software, it’s easy to export your royalty-free music to your favourite editing app. Recent integration with an Adobe Premiere Pro plugin, Frame.io and Twitch allows you to browse, preview and import media directly into your project or stream.
From there, you can cut the track to fit your video, shift the levels, and generally smooth those all-important edges. We particularly like the ‘intelligent track swapping’ in Adobe Premiere Pro. Where – if you decide you like the preview track – you can license directly in Premiere Pro, swap the preview for the high-resolution track, and keep all your edits. Neat.
How To Use The Soundstripe App
The Soundstripe App truly feels like a native mobile experience.
Just like all those streaming services we’re so familiar with, you can tune into the Soundstripe library and choose songs from playlists, artist pages, or the song library. You automatically hear the next song when the first finishes.
You can scrub along the song to help find the perfect choice for your project. Crucially, you can favourite, ‘add to playlist’, share and license all in-app.
Any actions on-the-go, in-app, such as licensing a track, will be waiting for you back at your desktop in your project.
How Much Is Soundstripe?
Good question! Soundstripe membership is split into three plans for music and video:
Standard Music
£9.16/month (billed yearly)
Access to unlimited licenses for 5,000+ tracks, 1,000 stem audio files, the Adobe Premiere Pro extension, and curated playlists.
Pro Music & SFX
£15.02/month (billed yearly)
Access to all the above + 50,000 sound effects and unlimited SFX licenses.
Business Music & SFX
£22.72/month (billed yearly)
This Soundstripe plan is for teams in businesses with more than fifty employees.
Access to all the above, and multiple accounts for team members. As well as shared playlists/favourites/licenses.
For video or combined packages, the costs are a little different.
Check them out below!
Video
£30.78/month (annual subscription)
Access to video licenses for 70,000+ videos in HD to 8K quality, curated playlists.
Video & Music
£36.64/month (annual subscription)
Access to all the above. As well as unlimited licenses for 5,000+ tracks, stem audio files, the Adobe Premiere Pro extension, and curated playlists.
Video, Music & SFX
£39.77/month (annual subscription)
Access to all the above + 50,000 sound effects and unlimited SFX licenses.
Soundstripe Competitors
Now that we’ve got the pricing all cleared up, let’s take a look at the competition!
Musicbed vs Soundstripe
The pricing of MusicBed depends on what you want to use the music for.
You’re required to specify if you’ll be using it for personal, not for profit, business, and wedding projects.
- Personal = £7.30/month
- NFP = £14.60/month
- Wedding = £43.90/month
- Business = £65.90/month.
The yearly cost amounts to at least double Soundstripe’s price.
Soundstripe also offers new music every week, SFX and stem tracks so you can pick out a catchy bassline and lose the heavy drums if you want to. This isn’t an option on MusicBed.
Licensing time on Soundstripe is also super speedy, whereas MusicBed requires you to download then complete the license, then sync ID: a longer process.
Sync ID requires you to copy and paste a code into the YouTube description and publicly list your video (rather than private) in order for the copyright claim to be resolved.
Musicbed, however, has stronger curated playlists and more options for cinematic or wedding style music than Soundstripe, which is better for business use. It really depends on what you need the music for.
If you would like to read more about Musicbed, check out our Musicbed Guide & Review.
Artlist vs Soundstripe
Perhaps most similar to Soundstripe out of all the platforms.
Artlist pricing is simpler, but also more expensive than Soundstripe and has no monthly payment plan option.
A year of Artlist will cost you £147, while a year of Soundstripe (Standard Music) will cost around £97/yr although its monthly payment plan or SFX/video plans add cost.
Artlist also differs in terms of catalogue. Unlike Soundstripe’s library of 5,000 tracks, Artlist has 8,000. A pretty hefty difference there, although Soundstripe’s library features mostly original music and a fair amount of music stem tracks. While Artlist provides no stem tracks.
As a creator the interface is just as important as the choice of songs. Both Artlist and Soundstripe offer curated playlists and the potential to search by genre, bpm, instrument type, mood, and track duration. Artlist offers a similar capability for its video library where you can search by theme.
The licensing for both differs. While Soundstripe covers with a single use perpetual license, which means you need to license a track more than once for different projects. Artlist has the least restrictive licensing system of the three.
It gives creatives a license for the song they choose forever, for any projects they wish to use it for. The project has to have a video component, however, as legally licensing does not apply for podcasts or other audio-only formats.
If you would like to read more about Artlist, check out our Artlist io Music Review.
Epidemic Sound vs Soundstripe
Epidemic Sound has the only genuine free trial process. While Soundstripe lets you check out three tunes from its library, the full experience of the platform is not available.
The licensing for Epidemic Sounds also allows creators unlimited license to use their downloaded tracks until their subscription becomes inactive.
The catalogue size is much stronger than Soundstripe. Epidemic Sound has a 30,000+ track library. Better than any other provider.
Furthermore, all tracks can be downloaded as a group of stem tracks or an individual mp3 file. This is compared with only about 15% of Soundstripe’s catalogue.
However, Epidemic Sound is the oldest service and you can tell. Its interface is dated and clunky. With endless scrolling a likely possibility. The basic filters don’t compare with Soundstripe’s simple ‘instrumental or vocal’ options. Or its nuanced moods and extensive instrument filters.
Мusic Gateway vs Soundstripe
So, what about us here at Мusic Gateway? We specialise in sync licensing and we work directly with agencies, broadcasters, filmmakers and production companies.
In addition, we have worked and collaborated with huge companies such as Disney, Netflix, ITV, Universal and more!
Мusic Gateway takes care of the sync revenue fees and you retain all of your royalties and copyrights. In Exclusive Agreements, we retain 20% and in Non-Exclusive Agreements, you receive 75% of the sync fee.
As we say here at Мusic Gateway: “Our mission is finding the perfect music for our clients, let’s work together.”
Мusic Gateway is for sure one of the best Soundstripe alternatives if you are a content creator looking for music for advertising, vlogs, or a film project.
Please use this link to get in touch with us to discuss any opportunities such as Sync Licensing, Music Licensing, Music Clearance, Sync Libraries or Music Libraries, etc., you may want to take further.
You can book a call with Sam – Head of Sync Licensing – as a potential lead. We are always happy to talk to musicians like you. Please do get in touch.
Soundstripe: Submit Music
Soundstripe offers a great way to get your music placed in TV commercials, films and viral YouTube vlogs.
It does not proactively pitch your tracks but provides a catalogue of music for subscribers to browse at their leisure.
It asks for up to 8 tracks from artists as part of the submission process and, given the smaller library compared with competitors, is more selective in the application process.
The opportunity to gain royalties from your tracks, however, is very real. It has already handed out over 5 million licenses. With countless track placements by serious brands like Puma, Volkswagen and WholeFoods.
Unfortunately, the panel at Soundstripe are not accepting submissions at the moment but stay tuned for future applications!
Is Soundstripe Worth It? Our Final Thoughts
To put it simply, yes.
Both for artists featuring on the platform and for personal and business subscribers, Soundstripe makes sense.
We have explained through out this Soundstripe review that it is competitively priced, has an intuitive interface, a decent size catalogue and host of effects (SFX, Adobe plugins, stem files) that many competitors cannot offer.
To really get the most for your money, it’s best to be producing media projects frequently.
Besides this, the company’s video offering, particularly for business clients is extensive. The potential to import licensed music and video content straight into Adobe Premiere Pro builds an incredibly streamlined and efficient option for media creators.
The impressive array of corporate clients Soundstripe has built up in less than five years indicates the quality of the offering it provides. Why not try it out today?
Most importantly though, don’t forget us here at Мusic Gateway!
Remember, with us, you keep 100% of all backend royalties & rights.
We work directly with music supervisors, broadcasters, TV production companies, advertising agents, and games publishers worldwide licensing music and earning our rights holders revenue.
Alongside creating helpful tools for artists, we can also help you to collaborate, store your music and find opportunities to make money from it, all under one roof!
We may be biased, but we think we have the best deal!
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