There are many aspects to video marketing that can make the difference between a captivating business video, and one that consumers barely remember. With the right music selection, your marketing videos can captivate your audience, and in an age of advertisement oversaturation, can be the difference between potential future clients watching your content or not.
Even if you’re simply making a training video for employee purposes, small details such as music can help to make your content more engaging, exciting, and professional. Even after you’ve made the decision to add music to your video, many songs can charge royalty fees that when considered in context to the rest of the costs associated with running your business, may not fit the budget. We've compiled a list of 10 websites that offer budget-friendly alternatives for your music content purposes, allowing you to make impactful marketing content without breaking the bank.
1. Arlist.io
Depending on your specific need, many sites offer free-trials in addition to cheap package options that allow you to leverage access to royalty-free music. Arlist.io is one of those sites, where if you needed a song for a single purpose, you could do so for free, however broader access to their royalty-free database comes at a small affordable price ranging from $12-25/month. Artlist.io believes in the importance and power of using creative mediums to make content as engaging and captivating as possible, all for reasonable prices. Furthering their credibility, Artlist.io has aided large companies such as National Geographic, Microsoft, and Toyota to create video soundtracks.
They also believe in the importance of properly compensating the database of music creators their sight hosts. By crafting a list of real music creators from around the globe to make original tracks, their music selections are more than just ‘simple jingles,’ that can ultimately bring your video content to life for a reasonable price while still maintaining the highest of quality. Not only this, but you are able to distribute and post your video (with music) to all the most frequently used video platforms including Youtube, Social Media, and your website.
2. Soundstripe
Founded by 3 professional musicians, Soundstripe’s founders seek to ensure the highest quality music. Ranging from $11-66/month depending on your use and package choice, a subscription gives its user access to original music created by over 80 artists, as well as access to thousands of songs and sound effects, with new content selections every week. To aid you in your music selection process, Soundstripe has also procured a number of soundtracks that were made for specific industry/event purposes such as sports events or wedding songs.
Sound effects are also differentiated into 29 categories that allow the user easy access and use. Soundstripe ensures that you don’t need to deal with the ‘messiness’ that is music licensing, allowing their users unlimited access and use to their extensive database of music, sound effects, and playlists. Users are also able to create their own accounts that allow them to follow artists, like songs, and curate their own playlists to make the experience comparable to the many other music streaming platforms we’ve grown accustomed to.
3. Premium Beat
This website was created with specificity in mind, allowing users to filter through tens of thousands of music selections on basis of genre, mood, artist, instrument, beats-per-minute, and duration. Owned by the popular stock photo company Shuttersock, Premium Beat offers music selections by talented, award-winning artists that will provide the perfect content for your video production.
Premium Beat offers two different packages starting at $49, that once paid, gives you unlimited access to the entire royalty-free music database for life. An additional unique feature is a playlist of several hundred songs that are hand-selected by the editors, allowing for easy access to a top selection of high-quality songs. Premium Beat allows for safe and quick access to the songs you need for a considerably low price, which is accomplished through their unique payment process of a one-time payment, rather than ongoing monthly or yearly payments that may have you shell out more money for songs than you may be willing to pay.
4. Audiojungle
With a bit of a different structure than the previous websites considered, Audiojungle is a great option for individuals seeking to purchase single tracks or groups of tracks, as they need them. This source uses a simple interface to allow easy user engagement, and allows tracks to be seamlessly found through categorization by use. Beats-per-minute and price range filters allow you to search a selection of audio tracks, catered to your specific vision.
For those interested in unlimited access to the platform, they also offer a package at $16.50 /month billed yearly. The low-cost offering of individual track purchases makes this a particularly attractive option for less-frequent users, with costs as low as $1. Audiojungle additionally offers a small number of track selections each month that are free of cost, for use by individuals who are tight on a budget.
5. Epidemic Sound
Different from the other options listed, Epidemic Sound charges a monthly rate, however does not annualize the charge. Starting at $15 /month, this royalty-free music service provides it’s users with over 725 albums of music ranging in genre from “corporate” to “podcast” to “advertisements and promotions.” A variety of sound effect options are also available, broken down by category, meeting the need of any occasion.
The soundtracks available through Epidemic Sound can be found on streaming platforms such as Youtube and Facebook, places where videos rack up to 20 Billion view each month. Audio snippets from this website have been used by over 100,000 creators, most notably T-Mobile, Twitter, and Microsoft. A 30-day free trial of this royalty-free audio service is available through their website. Additionally, included in your access to Epidemic Sound is the ability to subscribe to particular artists and themes that you use more frequently and would like to track.
6. Music Vine
Music Vine is a UK based royalty-free music platform the prides itself on providing music and audio selections from some of the most esteemed and talented independent music artists in the world. Music Vine has a variety of style and purpose features that allow its clients to filter for the exact purpose they need, not onlying categorizing by music ‘tone,’ but also by movie genre, footage style, as well as eras and cultures. The Music Vine platform was crafted to give it’s user straightforward and intuitive access to the audio they need, when the need it.
Another unique feature to this option is that you are able to control for the exact coverage that your audio piece will need. By pre-distinguishing whether you’ll be using the audio for web purposes, broadcasting, or events, the program will tailor the pricing that you need specific to your use, and not charging a penny more. Pricing starts at $14/month billed annually, however Music Vine also offers the option of single-use purchases if you’re less frequently looking for sources of audio.
7. Filmstro
For individuals looking for a little more creative power in the process of selecting the audio that’s right for their purposes, Filmstro is a great option. In addition to choosing your royalty-free music from a broad number of categories, users are also able to dictate the exact amount of momentum, depth, and power they’d like their selected song to have. This personalizes the audio for every single user, which weeds out the possibility of your audio selection sounding generic or out of place.
With a little more hefty of a price tag, a subscription with Filmstro is accompanied by an application and plug-ins that allow you to seamlessly edit your audio to match your video, without the use of too many applications or features. With new audio tracks added weekly, the creative possibilities and option are virtually endless, and will provide wonderful sound content that your business videos will benefit from.
8. Pond5
While some royalty-free music platforms focus on the depth of their audio selections, Pond5 is largely focused on breadth. With over 500,000 audio selections, this is one of the largest royalty-free music databases in the world. Not only does it offer a large slew of music tracks and sound effects, Pond5 has a large selection of royalty-free video footage, stock images, and 3-D objects available for their subscriber’s use. Collections with all of these forms of content are also available on specific current events that are perfect for timely and specified use during the many happenings over the course of the year.
Subscription plans come in a variety of formats including pay-as-you-go, monthly packages, an annual packages, that all allow free browsing. For larger clients with more frequent and specific needs, Pond5 offers creative solution teams that include account management, research assistance, and lisense consultation.
9. StoryBlocks Audio
StoryBlocks is another platform that offers a wide range of royalty-free content including audio, video, images, and a video maker. Plans begin at $10/month for audio, extending up to $30/month for complete access to all content formats. Once you download your music, it’s yours for life, and StoryBlocks continually adds new selections that are catered to searching trends for their users. Organizational features also allow you to organize your audio selections easier, as well as providing an easy platform for collaboration with team members.
Licensing can be an overwhelming and tedious process to ensure that the audio tracks you’re including in your business content aren’t infringing upon regulations. The good news is that there’s a plethora of dynamic options available to suit the specifications of any audio your business may need. And all options can be taken advantage of for little to no cost at all. Explore some of the options listed to see some of the many resources that are available to you and your business today.
