Music License Pricing for YouTube
So how much?
Our pricing structure is based on the average views your recent video uploads have received. When you sign-in to Lickd with your YouTube account we fetch your latest 50 videos and take an average of the video views. This allows us to estimate your audience size and put you into a price band below. Try our price calculator to find out your channel's price.
What you get
Access to our catalog
- Thousands of songs across every genre and theme by REAL artists.
- Access to all our music is one price. You don't have to pay more for popular songs.
A legal license
- A one off license that you won't have to pay any extra for or "top-up".
- A license that is granted for the lifetime of your video and you won't have to ever take your video down.
No copyright claims & monetisation
- You won't receive a copyright claim if you upload to YouTube. You won't have to dispute and your video won't be demonetised.
- You can fully monetise your video as a YouTube Partner and keep all your earnings from the moment you upload.
What's included in our pricing
The prices listed below are per use of the song and are based on your YouTube channel's average views per video.
- This is a one off price and you won't have to pay any extra if your video should receive more views than your average video views.
- All our licenses are granted for the lifetime of your video and you don't have to take the video down*
- If you upload your video to YouTube you won't receive a copyright claim (unlike other services) and you can monetise your video from point of upload (or later when you're approved for the YouTube Partner's programme).
- All licenses come with an End User License Agreement which you can use as proof of license should you receive a copyright claim on other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, etc *
* unless the content of your video breaches your license's terms & conditions or YouTube's community guidelines.
* while your license is valid on Facebook & Instagram we cannot guarantee you won't get a copyright claim.
How our pricing is calculated
Lickd uses a pricing model based on your audience size to accurately and fairly work out what you should pay for a license.
When you create an account with us we’ll ask you to sign-in using the Google account you use to manage your YouTube Channel. During that process, YouTube will tell us about your channel and we work out an “Average Video Viewership” figure (AVV). We do this by fetching your most recent 50 videos and simply taking the total number of views across those videos and divide it by the number of videos, 50.
Why my recent videos?
We've experimented and profiled various YouTube channels to come up with a fair way to create our pricing model. By using your most recent videos your price won't include any popular videos you might have had in the past. Why should you pay more for that 1 video that went to 16 million views? Instead we base our pricing around consistency rewarding channels that upload regularly and garner consistent views.
Example
Channel A has 10 videos, and 50,000 views across all their videos.
Their AVV is 5,000 (50,000 / 10).
Channel B has 50 videos, and 2,500,000 views across all their videos.
Their AVV is 50,000 (2,500,000 / 50).
Our price points are designed to ensure Creators still take home the lion's share of their RPM (revenue per mille) whilst ensuring the music industry is fairly paid for the use of a song.
How much of a copyrighted song can I use on YouTube?
If you haven’t obtained a license or permission to use a copyrighted song, you can’t use any of it! There’s a myth that using a short snippet of copyrighted music without permission from the copyright holder is fair game, but sadly that’s just not the case.
If you add any copyrighted material to your video, even just a 10 second clip, you’ll lose any monetization from your video and potentially have your video or channel removed. It’s not worth the risk.
When you license it, you’ll be able to use as much or as little as you want!
Do you have to pay to use a song on YouTube?
You don’t have to pay to use a song on YouTube, but it’s a fairly grey area. What’s important is the license. If you can obtain a license for free, for stock music or copyrighted material, then you don’t have to pay. However, a lot of the time, to get these licenses, you’ll need to pay a fee.
Free music is often a little more generic, but you can still put it to good use. The problem you’ll have is if you try using copyrighted material without a license. If you try to use a track without getting permission, your ad revenue could go straight to the copyright holder, or you may have your video demonetized entirely.
One of the safest ways to be sure that you’re using a legit license when you add music to a YouTube video is to pay for your music licenses through a site like Lickd.
So how much does it cost to license a song for YouTube?
Honestly? This can vary depending on the song, your channel and the company you’re dealing with. That’s why we created Lickd, to make it easier for you to have music on your own YouTube channel.
If you license a song directly from record labels, you could end up paying thousands of dollars in licensing fees plus royalties on top. At Lickd we help you avoid that. All you need to do is sign up, then we’ll take your most recent 50 videos, work out your average video views and use that to estimate your audience size.
Once we know your audience size, and the number of people who’ll potentially be hearing the music in your videos, we can give you a price. If that sounds too complex, here are a couple of examples of licensing costs for songs on non-branded YouTube content:
- 50k average video views = $8 per song
- 200k average video views = $26 per song
- 1m average video views = $130 per song