Royalty-Free Podcast Music: What It Is, Why You Should Care, And Where To Find it

Music is practically a necessity in podcasts these days. Listeners expect higher production value and one of the easier ways to improve the sound of your podcast is by incorporating royalty-free podcast music and sound effects. But where you get your music matters a great deal as a copyright strike can ruin your day or potentially even cost you serious money. On this episode of the Q’d Up Podcast on Podcasting, we’re going to take a closer look at royalty-free podcast music — from its importance to a list of reputable websites where you can find high-quality tracks that won’t break your budget.

Royalty-Free Podcast Music

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Episode transcript:

You’re looking for ways to take your podcast to the next level when the idea of improving the production value pops into your head. 

“That’s an easy one” you say to yourself, “I’ll start by redoing the intro with some new music” 

You want your podcast to sound amazing but you’re an awful musician. Seriously, you couldn’t carry a tune if it was in a bucket and your friends haven’t invited you to karaoke since the “incident”. But you have really been digging the intro beat at the beginning of that one song. You only need 30 seconds and that intro goes for 45 seconds before the vocals kick in. 

“I’m gonna grab that” you think to yourself. “Its only a few seconds, what’s the worst that can happen?”

You put it all together and it sounds great! It hit the vibe you were looking for perfectly and your podcast really sounds professional now. “A little music was exactly what I needed” you think, beaming with pride.

It’s a decision you’ll come to regret as a scary letter from the legal counsel of that record label slides into your mailbox a few months later.

Music is practically a necessity in podcasts these days. Whether it’s in your intro and outro, you use it for your act breaks, or you have something going throughout the entire episode; music is a great way to promote certain emotions you want your listener to have and it’s an easy way of improving the overall production value of your podcast.

But as our hypothetical example at the beginning of the podcast shows, where you get your music matters quite a lot. While larger podcasts might have the money to license popular music, the bulk of podcasts out there will need to look at royalty-free podcast music. But what does that actually mean?

Royalty-free doesn’t actually mean the music is free. What it does mean is that you don’t have to pay royalties to the artist for its use. The price was already paid when you bought the license, so you can play the track 10 times or a million times and it’s going to be the same price.  However, that can also be a pitfall. If you don’t have a ton of downloads or it’s music you’ll use on just 1 episode, it can be pretty pricey if you break it down into the cost per download. 

The other main type, and the opposite from royalty-free is rights-managed.

Unlike royalty-free podcast music where you pay initially for the rights to use it as often as you license allows, rights-managed podcast music has you pay per download. For smaller productions, this can be a great way of getting high-quality music and sound effects for far cheaper. Though it can be far harder to find and access since a lot of companies dealing with rights-managed music tend to be focused on large productions, not smaller podcasters.

It’s also important to pay close attention to what the license allows you to do, no matter if it is rights-managed or royalty-free. Some licenses put a cap on things like downloads or your ability to monetize the project, others carve out certain uses like podcasts from featured films television, and radio. While a lot of licensing is fairly straightforward, it’s wise to buy from a reputable place and consult a lawyer if you’re unsure of where your license stands.

Now that you know how important royalty-free podcast music is, you need to find it.

There are both free and paid options available to podcasters, giving you ways to get exactly what you want at a budget nearly every podcaster should be able to afford.

Kevin MacLeod – Incompetech

Look on most YouTube videos and you’ll see a little credit to Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech because he’s just that prolific. Tracks are completely free as long as you give the composer credit. Though a small donation in addition to credit would be kind for someone that has given so much away over the years. You can also buy a license for as little as $20 if you want to skip attribution or you want to support Kevin.

With a lot of different styles and it all being free to use, most podcasters should start here.

Film Music

Just like Kevin MacLeod, these tracks are completely free as long as you give credit to the composer. You can also buy a license for any track for as little as $20, which removes the need to credit the composer.

There is a lot of music with a pretty friendly search that should allow you to narrow things down to what you’re looking for pretty quickly. With a bunch of artists on there, you can potentially even find one you like and stick with them for all your music needs.

Audio Jungle

AudioJungle is just one of the stock asset companies we’ll feature here but they’re more of a middle ground between a marketplace and a stock asset company. They allow people to submit things to be sold on their site but everything goes through a human review to ensure the quality stays high, allowing you to confidently support independent artists.

Because of that hybrid model, pricing is set by the artist and it will vary a great deal across the site. But I’ve found that most tracks are under $20, making this a pretty affordable site for great music and sound effects.

You will have to pay special attention to the licensing here, however. Standard licenses allow up to 10,000 plays with other licensing options going into the millions, so you’ll need to buy the license that fits your needs accordingly.

With nearly 2 million tracks, including both sound effects and music, you should be able to find whatever you need at AudioJungle. 

Premium Beat

Premium Beat might just be the most well-known stock asset site for music. Unfortunately, music is all they do, so if you need sound effects, you should look elsewhere. Premium Beat does boast roughly 20,000 high-quality tracks though, with a ton of different styles, instruments, and even vocals to be found. Thankfully the search and filters are outstanding so you can easily pick out what you’re looking for without having to listen to a million tracks.

Individual tracks are $49 for podcasters but if you need more or you need new music more regularly, they offer a 5-track deal for $64.99 a month.

Epidemic Sound

Just like Premium Beat, Epidemic Sound is a stock asset site, but they have both music and sound effects. Epidemic Sound claims to have more than 90,000 sound effects and more than 35,000 music tracks, with an impressive range and quality.

Single tracks start at $99. They also offer a $12 a month subscription but reading the fine print shows you only keep the licenses completely as long as you continue to pay that subscription fee. They retain the right to monetize your content when you stop the subscription.

Adobe Stock

Adobe bundles its music along with photos, video, and other stock assets creatives might need. Starting at $29.99 a month, it can be a great deal for podcasters that either need a bunch of music and sound effects every month or those that need other stock assets for social content or videos.

While Adobe is an incredibly big name in the creative space, this isn’t just them. Adobe Stock music features a lot of other companies as well, including Epidemic Sound. That means you’re getting a ton of high-quality music and sound effects from a bunch of reputable companies for a relatively low price per month.

Hopefully, I’ve helped give you a better understanding of the importance of royalty-free podcast music and a few places to begin your music and sound effect search. With that power now in your brain and at your fingertips, I want to start hearing some incredible podcasts from you all.

Now go out there and make something amazing!