As a filmmaker, you know how important of a role music plays in your work. Audio brings everything together to elevate storytelling and create a truly immersive experience. But where do filmmakers and content creators find their music? One popular option you might have come across is Musicbed. But what if Musicbed doesn’t fit quite what you’re looking for? Whether you’re looking for a more affordable option, a more intuitive user experience, or a wider selection of genres, we’ve got you covered with a list of Musicbed alternatives to make sure you have the best music search experience that is suited to your needs and vision.

What is Musicbed?

Musicbed is a music licensing platform built for filmmakers. Their roster strongly emphasizes storytelling and emotional narratives. This emphasis means their music is well suited for film, television, and advertisements. Musicbed takes on a customer service focus with a responsive customer support team, a custom composition request option, and even a service offering to obtain clearance for any popular song by reaching out to the copyright holders in your place. 

Why Look for a Musicbed Alternative?

While Musicbed offers a wide variety of music and services, it may not be the perfect fit for everyone. There are a few reasons creators might want to look for a Musicbed alternative:

  • Pricing: Musicbed's pricing structure, which includes single-track purchases and subscription plans starting at $59.99 per song or $29.99 per month, might not align with some creators’ budgets. 
  • Limited Customization: While Musicbed offers a variety of tracks, some filmmakers might struggle to find the right music that they need for their project. Although they do offer a custom track option, it may not be viable for all creators.
  • User-Friendliness: For some creators, it may not be easy to browse the website and find what they’re looking for. They may want a more intuitive interface that matches their own search habits.
  • Popularity: Musicbed is a well-renowned music licensing service in the filmmaking and creator space, so it’s highly possible that the music you choose to use in your project will overlap with many others, taking away from the unique spirit of your work.

Evaluating Musicbed Alternatives

If Musicbed is not right for you, let’s explore the other options you have to license music:

1. Track Club by Marmoset

Track Club by Marmoset offers 100% customizable, high-quality tracks that are meticulously curated to showcase craftsmanship and authenticity. Additionally, Track Club is the first music licensing company to invest 10% of all profits back into community orgs, committed to making a positive impact in the world. Here's what you can expect from Track Club:

  • High-Quality, Unique, Carefully Curated Music: Marmoset is known for their award-winning music, and Track Club upholds this value of quality over quantity with a refined, small-batch catalog of the highest quality.
  • 100% Customizable: With Track Club, you don’t have to worry about lack of creative freedom. Track Club’s MixLab gives you full customization capabilities by allowing you to change the volume of individual stems, adjust BPM, and more.
  • Flexible Licensing: Track Club provides flexible licensing options to suit your project needs. From individual creators, to small businesses, large enterprises, or anyone else, Track Club works to create a perfect plan for everyone.

2. Artlist

Artlist is a well-known music licensing service that describes itself as an “all-in-one platform for video creators.” They boast a variety of royalty-free music, SFX, and other digital assets.

  • Wide Range of Digital Assets: Artlist offers an extensive library of not only royalty-free music and sound effects, but also provides stock footage, video templates, and other digital assets.
  • Full-length Song Focus: Artlist's library focuses on providing full-length, complete productions and doesn’t offer stems or segments of songs. In some cases, there will be alternative versions such as an instrumental of a track.

3. PremiumBeat

PremiumBeat is a Shutterstock company that offers stock music and sound effects agency for use in new and traditional media projects, including videos, films, apps, video games, and television programming. Here's how PremiumBeat stacks up:

  • Premium Tracks: PremiumBeat’s curated library includes, premium, exclusive tracks suitable for professional projects created by talented world-class musicians.
  • Limited Licensing: PremiumBeat only has 2 licensing options available, Standard, for web, social, and student projects, and a Premium License for everything that’s included in the Standard License, plus the choice of either broadcast ads, industrial, or broadcast entertainment. 

4. Epidemic Sound

Epidemic Sound is a popular alternative, known for its extensive library of music tracks and sound effects built specifically for content creators across various platforms. Here's how Epidemic Sound stacks up:

  • Established Reputation: Epidemic Sound is established as a popular, leading player in the music licensing industry.  
  • Easy Licensing: Epidemic Sound’s licensing models are very straightforward and tailored for creators, so you don’t have to worry about copyright strikes. However, if you choose to use their music outside of the social space, you may need to go beyond their basic plan.

5. Soundstripe

Soundstripe is not only a royalty-free music provider, but also offers a full suite of stock music tracks, sound effects, and video clips. Here's a closer look:

  • Mobile App: Soundstripe allows you to listen & license on-the-go with their very own mobile app.
  • App Extension: Integration capabilities with Premiere Pro, Twitch, and Frame.io let you preview and use their music right in the applications.

6. AudioJungle

AudioJungle is part of the Envato Market, a platform similar to Envato Elements but does not run on a subscription-based model. AudioJungle holds one of the largest libraries amongst music licensing services, with almost 2 million audio assets. Here's a breakdown of what AudioJungle offers:

  • Single Commercial License: AudioJungle provides a single license that allows for personal projects, social media, and commercial use, but not for television or broadcast purposes.
  • Community: AudioJungle users can also access Envato Forums, which allows users and creators to engage with each other, ask questions, and get the latest industry news.

7. Bensound

Bensound is a music licensing platform founded by composer Benjamin Tissot. The platform features a range of royalty-free music created by independent artists. Here’s how Bensound compares:

  • Free Music Options: Bensound offers a selection of music that is free to download and use if you give attribution. However, this music cannot be used for commercial projects.
  • Smaller Catalog: As a lesser-known licensing platform, Bensound’s music library presents a much more limited selection than others.

Comparing Sites Like Musicbed

Now that we know about the different alternatives available, let’s analyze three important factors to consider when choosing a music licensing service:

Pricing and Subscription Model

Track Club:

  • Subscription model starting at $12 per month for unlimited tracks.

Artlist: 

  • Subscription model starting at $9.99 per month for unlimited tracks.

PremiumBeat

  • Subscription model at $64.95 per month for 5 tracks.

Epidemic Sound

  • Subscription model starting at $9.99 per month for unlimited tracks.

Soundstripe

  • Subscription model starting at $9.99 per month for unlimited tracks.

AudioJungle 

  • Pay-per-track model. Price varies by individual song or bundle, starting from $1 to several hundred dollars.

Bensound

  • Pay-per-track and subscription models available. Some songs are free, but the main library starts at €34 per track or €9.99 per month.

Music Catalog and Song Selection

Track Club

Artlist

  • Large library of over 18,000 royalty-free songs of different genres and moods with around 150 new tracks added each month.

PremiumBeat

  • Extensive selection of 20,000 tracks across 25 genres and 100 subgenres.

Epidemic Sound

  • Boasts a vast music catalog with over 40,000 songs from pop to electronic, rock to ambient, classical to beats, and everything in between.

Soundstripe

  • 9,000 songs across a range of genres with 200 more added each month.

AudioJungle 

  • One of the largest libraries in the music licensing scene with 775,000 royalty-free music tracks available.

Bensound 

  • Smaller library of about 700 songs across different genres, moods, and themes.

Features and Usability

Track Club

Track Club features a clean, modern, user-friendly interface with Smart Filters that allow you to search through the catalog by mood, genres, instruments, Arc™, and more, along with curated playlists created by your favorite YouTubers. Track Club also allows for full customizability with MixLab, where you have the option to create the perfect song in-app or download individual stems to arrange your audio according to your vision.

Artlist

Artlist houses a simple interface, giving options to filter by mood, genre, themes, and more. Artlist’s search layout is consistent across their different digital offerings. However, with the focus on full-length tracks, there are limited customization features.

PremiumBeat

PremiumBeat also presents a simplistic layout and doesn’t include album artwork or audio waveforms. They offer a variety of filters and featured collections and PremiumBeat’s expanded view allows you to read detailed descriptions and characteristics of each track.

Epidemic Sound

Epidemic Sound features a sleek interface with songs mainly categorized by mood and various genres. If you hear part of a song that you like and want to hear similar songs, they have a tool where you can search by a particular isolated section of one song to find others with a similar sound.

Soundstripe

Soundstripe offers an easy-to-navigate website with a comprehensive list of different filters to sort songs. Their AI Music Search option also allows you to describe the music you're looking for in natural language and Soundstripe will provide suggestions based on the description you provide.

AudioJungle

Due to the size of its extensive library, AudioJungle prompts you to narrow down your search first to view a list of tracks that meet the criteria. Their interface is not as modern as other alternatives, but you can see how many sales each song has along with user ratings.

Bensound

Bensound keeps it simple with its interface, featuring 7 basic filters and a limited number of extra search and organization features. 

What Makes Track Club the Best Musicbed Alternative?

Ultimately, the best alternative to Musicbed depends on your specific needs and budget. All of these music licensing services have their respective pros and cons, so what matters is determining what license you need, the type of music you’re looking for, and the overall features you need to work efficiently and effectively.

That being said, we believe Track Club comes out on top for filmmakers and content creators. Track Club provides high-quality music that allows for full customization using MixLab™, legal protection through TrackID, and unlimited perpetual licenses at an affordable price. 

Track Club also gives back to the people by working with authentic artists, making sure they get paid, and investing back into non-profits working for social justice, education, houselessness, music and arts advocacy, equity and inclusion, civil rights, and more. 

With unlimited access to our meticulously curated, small-batch catalog and intuitive search functions, you’ll never have to worry about sifting through songs for hours again, since we’ve got everything you need to find and craft the perfect track for your project

Start your 30-day free trial with Track Club today!