The Definitive List of Sync Licensing Companies

With so many out there, how can you know which are the top sync licensing companies?

Good video content needs good music. It’s that simple. From theme songs to incidental tracks to reinforcing key dramatic moments, all that music has to come from somewhere. But if you’re a musician, how do you get your sounds into videos? That’s where sync licensing companies come in. Sync licensing companies provide the connection between a project’s music supervisor and you, setting you on the path to reach the virality levels of Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek.

What is a sync licensing company?

Sync licensing companies are there to bridge the gap between you and people who need music for their projects. While traditionally associated primarily with broadcast TV and advertising, these services now also cover streaming content, video games, and even background music in shopping malls. Strictly speaking, a licensing company isn’t required for the business arrangement; you can come directly to terms with a music supervisor yourself, but in most circumstances, a corporate liaison is a huge help. Plus most music supervisors probably don’t want you cold calling them.

Fight for your right(s) to party

Each company has its own guidelines and legal requirements to submit your music. Generally speaking, they’ll want you to have 100% of the rights to your songs, so that there are no issues down the road with a co-writer popping up and demanding part of the payments. Some services want you to upload every single song you’ve ever made, some want you to submit just one or two. Some require exclusive rights to that song, others are fine with you licensing it elsewhere, and some will have a pay differential between the two. So no matter which service you choose, make sure to read over the fine print to ensure that not only that you possess the proper rights, but that you’re comfortable with their requirements.

But let’s dive into the different types of sync licensing companies, and which ones there are:

Licensing Opportunities

Some sync licensing companies function similarly to an exclusive job board. They work with music supervisors, and then list jobs for which you can submit tracks. This type of licensing organization typically charges a yearly subscription fee, and you may also have to pay a “submission fee” for each song you send in to an application. This helps the companies keep their lights on, but also prevents music supervisors from being totally bombarded with pitches. The licensing companies tend to not take a cut of the deal with this arrangement, and often leave the exact pricing details between you and the music supervisor.

Taxi

Taxi is one of the most established names in sync licensing, and they’ve got their system down pat. Membership to Taxi runs $300 for the first year, but $200 a year after that, and gains you access to daily “music requests” lists where you can pitch songs directly to music supervisors. Taxi doesn’t take a cut of any of the arranged payouts between musician and project, but there is a $5 per song submission fee.

Music Xray 

Many sync licensing companies encourage you to upload only a handful of songs, but Music Xray goes in the opposite direction — they want you to upload your entire catalog. Music Xray doesn’t have a fixed submission fee to apply to listings, so application costs can vary;  prices tend to come in between $10 and $20 ( Music Xray levies a $5 transaction fee on top of that). Listings will already have a payout included, so you don’t have to worry as much about haggling. For $10, you can upload a song to Music Xray and have it evaluated by a panel of professionals to better understand how it’ll perform.

Broadjam

Broadjam goes a step further than most of the other licensing companies in that it also gives you space to host your music, so your songs aren’t just tucked into a Soundcloud or Dropbox folder somewhere. As with other licensing companies of this type, Broadjam charges a fee to submit your tracks to the music wanted listings. With Broadjam it’s a little more complicated because the fee varies on what sort of subscription you have: If you pay a $200 a year membership fee, submitting a song is only $5; but it’s $25 with a free membership.

Music Libraries

Some licensing organizations work to build libraries of music that are available for filmmakers, streamers, and creators to browse. These libraries tend to have complex and detailed tagging systems so a music supervisor can search for music that sounds like a track they already know in order to find exactly what they want. This style of sync licensing company tends to take a cut of each deal they help make.

Music Vine

Each track of your music has to be individually submitted and approved in order to be listed on Music Vine. Music Vine encourages, but doesn’t require, its members to work exclusively with them. They ask that 50% of your Music Vine portfolio must consist of exclusive material — and for songs that get placed, you get 60% of the fees for exclusive tracks, 35% for non-exclusive ones. Music Vine has also taken a stand against sync licensing companies that allow music directors to pay a single annual fee for unlimited licensing, and has stated “we are unable to work with artists that are associated with licensing platforms operating a one-size-fits-all subscription model”.

Crucial Music

Crucial Music is unusual in that it requires a three year contract between the company and the artist, but on the plus side, the company doesn’t require a huge amount of control. The musician retains 100% of the copyright for the music, and your deal doesn’t prevent you from doing anything with your songs. As Crucial puts it: “You are ONLY granting Crucial Music a NON-EXCLUSIVE right to pitch, negotiate and issue non-exclusive licenses for the use of your music by our clients.” Crucial Music will split the revenue with you 50/50, and then give you 100% of the writer’s performance royalties, while collecting 100% of the publisher’s share themselves. Unusually, Crucial Music requires you to submit up to three versions of each track: “a full version, an instrumental version and a clean version (if lyrics are explicit)”.

Jingle Punks

Jingle Punks is one of the largest and most well respected of the licensing companies, with a catalog of nearly 500,000 songs. Unlike other services, Jingle Punks requires exclusivity, asking for “exclusive right to place your submitted music in our client’s media content worldwide for a period of 1 year, which auto-renews unless otherwise stated...Your music cannot be represented elsewhere.” Jingle Punks also takes one of the steeper cuts of these services, with a 50/50 split on individual sync fees, and with them taking the publisher’s share on the backend. 

Hybrid

Some licensing companies offer both music request listings as well as libraries for music supervisors to look through.

Music Gateway

Music Gateway has a hybrid model which gives you access to licensing opportunities, and the company will also pitch your songs directly to music supervisors. Your revenue share runs from 50% to 80%, but depends on what sort of subscription you have and if you’re exclusive with them or not — but you keep 100% of backend royalties and rights no matter what. Subscriptions run from $7.50 a month to $37 a month. Music Gateway also runs a number of other non-licensing services, primarily designed around growing your listener count on sites like Spotify.

Songtradr

While some licensing companies are quite vague on how their platforms work, Songtradr hits you with all the information you could ever want. The company offers three levels of membership, from free to $50 a year, and at the bottom end you get 90% of distribution royalties, 60% of your sync licensing fees and 100% of your performance royalties; at the high end, it’s 100% distribution royalties, 80% sync licensing, and 100% of performance royalties (along with a number of other features). Songtradr is also able to place music using a number of different avenues: a Music Wanted board with custom and default pricing , and “AI-powered filters will automatically suggest any songs in your catalog that match the listing”. On a larger scale, there’s the Monetization Portal for “music in shops, restaurants, hotels, apps and games”, which you can opt in or out of, and you get paid for actual usage of your songs.

Royalty-Free

Royalty free music is incredibly popular for people working on creative projects because it vastly simplifies the back end of the project. You pay once for access to every song in their library, regardless of number of uses or platform. For a musician, the revenue model could be paid per download, per stream, or via individual licensing for that one song.

Epidemic Sound

Unusually, Epidemic Sound pays you up front. They offer “short, flexible, non-exclusive agreements with competitive upfront payments for your tracks,” which means money in your pocket now rather than later. The amount of an upfront payment varies from track to track, and depends on different variables such as the needs of the sync market, whether it's an instrumental or vocal track, the role of the music creator in the creation of the track (e.g. producer, composer and/or lead vocalist) and the comparative experience of the music creator. Additionally, all royalties and streaming revenues are split 50/50, with annual payouts based on your individual track’s performance.

Jamendo

Jamendo is able to place your music in a diverse array of settings, “movies, video games, TV, radio and online commercials,” as well as “more than 20,000 points of sale that subscribe to music selections from Jamendo” — so unsurprisingly, their payout system associated is complicated. As their FAQ puts it “The revenue share for Cataog [sic] licenses depends on two factors: the number of licenses you have already sold on Jamendo, whether your tracks are licensed exclusively or non-exclusively on Jamendo.” Which means the revenue share can range from 30% to 65%, depending on how prolific you are. And then for music that is licensed to be played in stores “75% of the sales amount is shared with the artists and Jamendo. The remaining 25% of the revenues is deducted to cover processing fees and admin costs. The revenue share you receive is linked to the number of your tracks that are included within the In-Store radios.”

Not accepting submissions right now (but watch this space)

Some of the biggest names in sync licensing aren’t accepting submissions right now, but will open their doors at some point in the future. Keep your eyes open for when Musicbed, Marmoset, and Soundstripe open again, as all three have track records of placements with major companies.

With so many sync licensing companies, it can be hard to know which one would work best for you. Going in, look for options that fit your current situation and goals. Are you with a PRO? Do you want to retain full rights to the music? Do you want to be able to sell it elsewhere? Are you more comfortable with a subscription or submission fee? All of these questions come into play when trying to establish what sync licensing agency is best for you. But no matter what sync licensing company you go with, know that Trqk can streamline learning where and how your music is being played.