The 10 Best Music Streaming Services For Your Business
Remember the good old days of the 70s and 80s when you would groove to the beat of rock music playing from the jukebox at your regular haunt? It was a liberating experience to put in a coin and dancing to the tunes of your favourite song at the pub or just move to it at a diner. Now, most businesses are looking for the best music streaming service for themselves.
Now that you own your own business, you must e wondering how to create an atmosphere with the music that will help your clients enjoy their time with you and give them a unique experience of spending time at your establishment. There is so much to explore when it comes to creating an ambience with music that all of it might get a little overwhelming.
Table of content
∘ Ranked #1 · Soundsuit
∘ Ranked #2 · Soundtrack Your Brand
∘ Ranked #3 · Pandora-DMX for Business
∘ Ranked #4 · Tunify
∘ Ranked #5 · Apple Music For Business
∘ Ranked #6 · Sound Experts
∘ Ranked#7 · MoodMix by MoodMedia
∘ Ranked #8 · Cloud Cover Music
∘ Ranked #9 · My Instore Radio
∘ Ranked #10 · Toníque (aka Radiopark)
∘ Playing Music at Businesses
∘ Why not use YouTube or Spotify?
∘ Legal Restrictions on Commercial Streaming
∘ Fair Compensation for Artists
∘ Permissions and Licenses
∘ The Effort You Need To Put In
∘ Why Do You Need Music For Your Business?
∘ How Do You Select The Best Music Streaming Service for Your Business?
∘ What are the best Music Streaming Services for Your Business?
∘ So Which Music Streaming Service For Business should you pick?
Ranked #1
Soundsuit
Soundsuit is the new-comer in the B2B streaming music industry. Their “Digital Music Assistant” has already seduced many innovative brands such as BoConcept, Lexus, Design Hotels, Nestlé, Izipizi, Best Western, Porsche, The UPS Store, Coffee-Fellows , etc. but also thousands of small independent businesses.
Designed for the busy business owners and their staff, Soundsuit does not require you to manually create nor schedule playlists. This is the beauty of it!
It simply solves the music hassle that small businesses face in a different way than competitors do. In contrast to other B2B music services, Soundsuit saves you the time and effort to:
- Search and select in a overwhelming list of 300+ moods (e.g. Weekend Brunch, Pool Party, Rainy Fall, etc.)
- Choose from an overwhelming list of music genres (e.g. Rock) and sub-genres (e.g. Nu-Folk, Dream Pop, West-Coast Hip-Hop, etc.)
- Manually look for your favourite artists and songs in an overwhelming 30+ million song catalogue
Basically, Soundsuit is not a playlist builder where you have all the options but have to do all the work. Soundsuit actually works for you: it manages the selection, scheduling and updating of a custom playlist for your store.
The app asks you who you are as a business, and what are your needs:
- your business type (e.g. café, fashion store, spa, hotel lobby, etc.)
- your customer target group (e.g. gender, age, lifestyle)
- your music genre selection (Pop, Soul, Dance, Rock, Lounge, etc.)
- and your mood preference (e.g. calm, chill, happy, exciting, etc.)
It takes no longer than one minute to set up your business profile and connect to your Sonos speakers or any sound system (amplifier, internet radio, etc).
If you would prefer using Soundsuit with a dedicated media player, to avoid any potential issues linked to the internet instability or breaks-downs that could happen at some of your locations, they have you covered. the Soundsuit Media Player is for sale at 199 USD. It is equipped with both an internal memory and an advanced buffering technology to cover internet disturbances of any type.
Other advantages of using such a dedicated media player at your location(s):
Plug & play: the media player will be delivered pre-configured for your venue. Just plug it in to your network and audio system and Soundsuit music will be playing instantly.
Tamper proof: never worry again about an employee messing up with your music settings or schedule. The Soundsuit Media Player is button free.
Lightweight and compact: designed to save you space and bandwidth, the Soundsuit Media Player is the size of a router and light on your Internet network performance.
Safe from crashes: you get peace of mind if your music never stops. Equipped with both an SD card (where a fallback playlist is stored) and an advanced buffering technology, if your internet drops (for a few seconds or for hours), the Soundsuit Media Player keeps playing.
Now regarding scheduling different music atmospheres at different times of the day or the week, Soundsuit offers three way to control the music:
a) Schedule in advance — via a manual scheduling function
b) Turn on the autopilot — via the smart (automated) scheduling
This schedules automatically for your business — according to the day of the week and the time of the day — the right music mood. In fact a quiet Monday morning is very different from a dynamic Saturday afternoon at happy-hour time when it comes to engaging customers through music. Soundsuit technology knows it, and will schedule this automatically and effortlessly for you. Simply activate their so called “SmartMood” technology, and you are covered!
Your custom playlist is auto piloted and self learning. In simpler words, this means that you are driving a smart car :-) Less work for you, more time to focus on your core business!
c) Adjust on demand — via the Mood button
The mood button helps your adjust the music atmosphere in your business in real-time. Launch an upbeat happy hour or a smooth morning start, in one simple click. At any time of the day , you can remotely control the music mood in your store. And this from anywhere.
In a nutshell:
Con
- Playlist-import function from Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon-Music or Pandora only available in the “Pro” plan.
Pro
- $24.95/mo with a yearly plan, $29.95/mo with a monthly plan (so you save $60 if your subscribe for one year)
- BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and GMR licenses included in the price in the US
- SOCAN and Re:Sound licenses included for Canada
- No receiver mandatory; compatible with all major streaming receivers
- Dedicated Soundsuit media player available on request for 199 USD.
- Compatible with Sonos, Google Chromecast, AirPlay2
- Web app and mobile apps
- The iPad app is especially well designed — with business users in mind.
- New tracks added daily.
- One minute setup — for 1 store/location. No such easy and quick setup on the market so far.
- Time-saving smart features: playlist creation, playlist scheduling, update of playlist
- Service available in 40+ countries
- 30-day free trial period, no obligation to purchase
Ranked #2
Soundtrack Your Brand
Among the most favoured music streaming services, Soundtrack Your Brand is based out of Stockholm and lets you select the matching music for your business from the 300+ pre-defined mood playlists that exist on their platform.
They give you the option to play it on your own devices (laptop, hi-fi, Sonos speakers, etc.) or to buy their proprietary hardware for 199 USD (but surprisingly for 299€ in Europe).
They also give a generous 30-day free trial (when 90% of the providers limit it to 7 or 14 days). The subscription for Soundtrack Your Brand — in its unlimited version — comes at 49.99 USD per month after your trial period is over. This is the most expensive offer on the market!
You can create your custom playlists and schedule them manually. To do this, the service features a 3 period a day, and 7 day a week calendar. You should then create 3*7=21 playlists before being able to start playing music in your business. It would take you about 40 minutes to get your curated playlists and detailed scheduling calendar up and running. No assistance per phone provided for the setup, it is all on your side.
Because of their financial connection with Spotify (which owns a few Soundtrack’s shares), you can also import a playlist you like (or build yourself with your private account) on Spotify into your SoundtrackYourBrand profile, and play it (legally this time, because Spotify is not licensed for business use). This sweet feature is only available in their most expensive plan through, billed at 49.99 USD/mo. Be aware that if you own a Deezer, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Youtube Music, Pandora or Tidal account, you will not be able to import any playlist for these B2C services.
When it comes to the Spotify playlist you imported, users often highlight as drawback that SoundtrackYourBrand will automatically add new tracks every week to your original playlist to avoid repetitions for your employees and your customers, while diluting your original playlist week after week. This makes perfect sense from a business perspective, but could frustrate a few business owners willing to re-use strictly the content of the playlists they created — without any uncontrolled title add-ons.
News from November 2020: SoundtrackYourBrand updated their subscription plans and pricing strategy accordingly. The app that they offered for 26.99 USD (34,99 EUR in Europe) since 2018 is now priced at 39.99 USD (49.99 EUR in EU) in its full version, and rebranded “UNLIMITED”. A cheaper version of the service and app, called “ESSENTIAL” is announced. The limited version is stripped down of all the cool features of the “Unlimited” offer, and offered at 34.99 USD. Which is still more than Soundsuit or Pandora-for-Business, and with less benefits and features.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- BMI and ASCAP licenses included in the price in the US
- No receiver mandatory; proprietary receiver recommended for multi-store businesses, or where internet connection is not stable enough.
- Web app and mobile apps
- Compatible with Sonos
- Service available in 70 countries
Con
- The most expensive music service among the 10 tested ones: 34.99 USD /mo for limited feature set, 49.99 USD /mo for unlimited app
- For multi-zone use-case within one store, one proprietary 199 USD device is mandatory for each music zone
- Import of your Spotify playlist(s) only. No possible to import playlists from Deezer, Pandora, YouTube, etc.
- New titles added automatically every week — to your imported playlists as well as to their pre-built playlists. You cannot deactivate this function.
- No ASCAP and GMR licenses signed in the United States. This means that you will never be able to hear artists like Pharrell Williams, Drake, Childish Gambino, Harry Styles, John Lennon, George Harrison, Prince, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond or even Adele at any of your business location(s).
- Up to 40 minutes for full set up (custom playlists, scheduling calendar, etc.) — for 1 store/location.
- Only 14 day free trial
Ranked #3
Pandora-DMX for Business
If you are located in the United States (and uniquely in the US!), Pandora and DMX partnered to deliver an interesting option to stream music in your business. With a subscription to them, you can design your station and control the same using the Controller app.
They, however, require you to get extra proprietary hardware, the Pandora ProFusion Box which costs $99. You can schedule your music manually and can easily tailor your preference for a song by using the thumbs up or down feature on the app.
Their monthly subscription costs about $26.95 after the 30-day trial period.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- $26.95/mo
- Proprietary receiver mandatory and sold for $99
- 30-day trial period
Con
- Web app only
- Not compatible with Sonos
- No playlist-import function from your private Pandora account to your business Pandora-GMX account
- Service available in US only
Ranked #4
Tunify
Headquartered in Belgium, Tunify is a music streaming service for commercial locations which is a spin-off of the KU Leuven University. They have three different subscription plans with varying features. With their academic background, Tunify’s team was able to develop a service with great control for the business owners on the music genres and sub-genres to be played. Scheduling and creation of own playlists are also top features of the service. Consequently it takes up to 80 minutes for a potential location to get set up for this service, with a support person on the phone.
Tunify has about 300 playlists from which a member can choose. These are updated every week. The membership fee for Tunify is about $28.95 a month for the top tier subscription category, with all the pro features!
In a nutshell:
Pro
- $28.95/mo
- No receiver mandatory
- Web app and mobile apps
- Very detailed interface with tons of options for customization
- Suited for music geeks
Con
- 14-day trial period only
- Up to 80 minutes for full set up (filtering, playlists, scheduling, etc.) of 1 store/location. And to be repeated for each additional location.
- Complex and not intuitive to use
- Music expertise needed in genres, sub-genres and periods
- Service only available in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Ranked #5
Apple Music For Business
To counter the rapid growth of Soundsuit and SoundtrackYourBrand on the B2B music market, Apple has joined forces with the well established music agency PlayNetwork (US) to launch in 2020 “Apple Music For Business by PlayNetwork”.
Your first thought might be that this service is simply a copy of Apple Music but with the right licensing for commercial use. However, Apple Music For Business is, in fact, “white label solution” delivered by PlayNetwork and (re-)branded by Apple.
With the great history of Apple for breakthrough and best-in-class products, in both hardware and software, I would have personally awaited a total other approach from Apple when entering this B2B music market: developing a great music service for business from scratch, with the features to compete with Soundsuit and Soundtrack, and even beat them. Much like how Apple Music surpassed Spotify in the number of users in the US after only 3 years.
But surprisingly, Apple took a quicker and easier path with a “not made here” product with the Apple branding on it. It is almost like sourcing a generic Made In China television, and only adding the “Apple TV” branding on it and then pricing it at $299 as an Apple product. Hard to believe!
Otherwise, Apple Music For Business by PlayNetwork clearly targets larger retail or restaurant chains. According to their website, PlayNetwork’s music supervisors hand-select tracks from the existing playlists available on Apple Music, and build then custom playlists for your brand. To stay current and relevant to your customers, they update their custom playlists regularly, but the frequency is not mentioned. Once a week, once a month, even less often? No transparency here.
The real and only innovation brought by this music service is the concept of “Hear a playlist, like this playlist, take it home with you”.
If you have an internet-enabled TV in your store, it looks like you can display the music that plays through your proprietary CURIOPlayer Z8 hardware in real-time. On the TV screen, next to the art cover associated with the music track playing, you can then find a QR-code. The idea is that your customers may scan this QR-code, and get a download link to sign up for Apple Music ( i.e. the B2C music service of Apple), and be able to play the same playlist as in the store they visited. If customers do this then the store will receive a financial commission for each Apple Music app downloaded.
It is a smart marketing idea from Apple! And a potential lucrative concept for the stores wanting to use this system. It is less clear how potential customers, incited to become Apple Music subscribers would react to this marketing trick.
Visiting a store to buy a pair of jeans, and leaving the venue with a new pair of pants and a new Apple Music subscription. Brands are fearless when it comes to gaining new customers, whatever the strategies they use.
Please leave a comment below at the end of this article to share your opinion about this marketing cooperation between retail brands/stores and Apple. I cannot make up my mind about it yet!
In a nutshell:
Pro
- Designed for Enterprise brands
- Marketing referral system to earn money when a customer in your store download the Apple Music app using the QR code featured on the TV screen (you must install)
Con
- Price: on request only, and custom to your use-case and business needs
- Proprietary receiver mandatory (but no price available)
- No trial period
- iOS mobile apps only
- Not compatible with Sonos
- No playlist-import function from your private Apple Music account to your business Apple-PlayNetwork account
- Service available in US only
Ranked #6
Sound Experts
Sound Experts is a German music streaming service providing both royalty-free and licensed music for small businesses. They have 38 music channels coordinated according to music genres with 1000–3000 tracks per channel that are updated every fortnight.
The service costs €45 a month with the necessary investment of €249 for the Stream Fly receiver. They have a 14-day trial period for the hardware. While this does sound enticing, they are fairly traditional in terms of technology and you can then only play music through their receiver. This could be seen as a downside in a market where many other service providers offer a web or mobile app to play their music.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- €249 for the receiver (mandatory)
Con
- €45/mo
- 14-day trial period only
- No web app
- No mobile app
- List of countries where service available and licensed: on demand
Ranked#7
MoodMix by MoodMedia
One of the bigger players in the game, Mood Media is suited for bigger businesses with over hundreds of locations in the field and their solutions go beyond just music. They have three products — Harmony Music, Custom Music and Mood Mix — which cater to the different needs different businesses might have.
Mood Mix is their streaming service designed for mid-sized businesses with over 160 readymade programs while also allowing you the liberty to create your mix. They also have scheduling available along with messaging. Their proprietary player is not mandatory either.
They do not offer the possibility to import Spotify playlists, and they are not compatible with Sonos nor Amazon Alexa. Their price starts at $34.95 a month with no trial period. In the USA, the pricing includes ASCAP and BMI licenses.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- Suited for large businesses with hundreds of locations
Con
- From $34.95/m (to much more)
- Price of the receiver: on request
- No trial period
- Not compatible with Sonos
- Not compatible with Alexa
- List of countries where service available and licensed: on demand
Ranked #8
Cloud Cover Music
This one is currently only available in the USA and Canada and offers clean, ad-free and licensed music for your business. They also have Public Performance Licenses included with the subscription which comes at $20.61 per month, starting with a 14-day trial period.
You can select songs from specific stations and play them at your location with this service. It also requires you to buy their proprietary device, CloudBox, which you can control using their Cloud Cover Music mobile app or their browser-based app called Tune.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- $20.61/m
Con
- Price of the mandatory receiver: on request
- 14-day trial period only
- Not compatible with Sonos
- Not compatible with Alexa
- Service available and licensed only in the US and Canada
Ranked #9
My Instore Radio
A favourite among supermarkets and large fast-food chains such as McDonald’s My Instore Radio is a Danish company started by the founders of a local radio channel. They provide custom radios for commercial locations. They are now available in over 35 countries!
Using this service you can:
- choose from pre-programmed channels,
- select based on the preferred genre and your brand’s demographic,
- create your playlist.
Their music can, however, get repetitive. Additionally, they also require you to get a special hardware device called the MIR Player to use the service. Both the pricing and the free trial period details are available on request.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- Service available and licensed in 35 countries
Con
- Price: only on request
- Price of the mandatory receiver: on request
- Trial period on request
- Not compatible with Sonos
- Not compatible with Alexa
- Not compatible with Chromecast
Ranked #10
Toníque (aka Radiopark)
This Hamburg-based music streaming service mainly caters to brands in the hospitality, tourism and catering. Their playlists are designed for corporates and feature for instance songs with German lyrics.
While they are classy and preferred by brands such as Porsche and Mandarin Oriental, their portfolio is quite limited with no possibility of real-time/dynamic changes of the playlist on the fly.
Additionally, their subscription is based on a price-on-request model and the team can be reached through email as mentioned on their website.
In a nutshell:
Pro
- Best for brands in hospitality, tourism and catering
- Most German-language songs
Con
- No real-time changes
- Price available only on request
- No web nor mobile apps
- Not compatible with Sonos
- No trial period
Playing Music at Businesses
Unfortunately, jukeboxes are no longer the regular choice of device to play your music at your business. They are vintage and they add to the charm but they are also expensive and don’t allow you to have control over what is being played over your speakers.
Over the years, the way music is played in shops, clubs and restaurants have changed drastically. From the classy jukeboxes and record players, we swiftly turned to the trusty cassettes and later in the 2000s, to CDs of the latest music or songs that fit your business.
But as the times changed, choosing the best music streaming service became the norm especially in the latter half of the 2010s for businesses with several apps and services making their way to the battlefield.
Needless to say, with the changes in the way music is played in public places including businesses, the copyright regulations and legal procedures have also evolved. Unlike in the 80s when you could just put on a record at a diner, you probably should not just stream music from YouTube at your business in present times.
Why not use YouTube or Spotify?
You wouldn’t be surprised to know that there are almost 40 million small businesses across the world just like yours. And while 80% of them play music at their locations, only 17% make sure that the music that is playing from their speakers are licensed for use in commercial spaces.
Legal Restrictions on Commercial Streaming
While it might be super easy to connect your personal Spotify to the Bluetooth speakers at your business location, but from a legal point of view, it might not be the best music streaming service for commercial purposes.
We did a little digging for you and found that Spotify’s terms and conditions call this out as well. If you read through the document, you won’t miss this.
“We grant you (…) a limited, non-exclusive, revocable license to have personal, non-commercial use for entertainment purposes of the Content (the “License”).”
or
“The service is for personal and non-commercial use only”
Like Spotify, YouTube’s Terms of Service also calls out the same -
“You may view or listen to Content for your personal, non-commercial use.”
Much like these other two, Amazon Music, Napster, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, and Deezer allows you to use their services for personal listening purposes. But you might be stirring up a legal storm if you are using these to stream music at your commercial location.
Fair Compensation for Artists
The primary reason for placing these restrictions on commercial streaming of music through B2C apps is to ensure that the artists and others involved in producing these tracks are compensated fairly.
When you use a B2C app to stream music in a commercial space, you end up giving more people access to this content than it is intended for, thereby denying the artist the compensation that they would be entitled to for a larger set of people.
In effect, when you use a Business to Business (B2B) streaming service for your commercial location which could be your store, gym, restaurant or even a cruise ship, the higher subscription fee goes into ensuring that the artists are compensated fairly.
Permissions and Licenses
Besides using a streaming service that allows you to legally stream music for your business, you might also need to check if your country has a Copyright Collecting Society that you need to pay a fee to acquire a streaming license from.
There’s PRS-PPL in the UK, SACEM in France, BMI and ASCAP in the USA, GEMA in Germany and SOCAN as well as Re:Sound in Canada. You might need to do your bit and find if your country requires you to go through this process as well.
Trust me, the fine that you have to pay if found streaming music illegally might not be worth the convenience of streaming music from Spotify in your store! You can learn more about the licensing process in this Practical Guide to Legally Play Music In Your Business posted by Soundsuit.fm on their website .
The Effort You Need To Put In
Putting all the legal and ethical implications to the side, finding the perfect music for your business, organizing the same and creating playlist is also not a simple task. You have a whole business to run, do you need to have another task added to your list?
A B2C streaming platform is programmed to help you discover music. But using it to put together the perfect playlist that is just the right one for the time of the day, for the specific day of the week or your customer base can be a gruelling task.
The best music streaming service can do all this work for you for an affordable subscription fee every month. With the right platform, you won’t even need to lift a finger to get your work done!
Why Do You Need Music For Your Business?
Before we head on to which is the best music streaming service for you, you must be wondering why we are so insistent that your business. If you are among the 20% of small businesses that do not play music in the background, here are 4 reasons why you should.
1. Build Your Business’s Brand
Imagine that you are a fine-dining restaurant primarily catering to a customer base of 30 years that sees the highest footfalls for dinner. In a situation like this, you might be playing mellow jazz to let your customers speak to each other while also providing a semblance of privacy.
On the other hand, if you are a cosy little cafe in a student district with a crowd mostly in their late teens and twenties crowding it up during brunch time, livelier tunes by Taylor Swift and Lizzo might be better suited!
The music that plays in your business builds its brand. You can pull in the kind of crowd that you would like to visit your space with the music along with the decor and the ambience that you provide.
2. Engaging Your Customers
The better the music the longer your customer stays with you.
Surprised? Don’t be! The music that you play is a huge factor in not only bringing customers to your business but also in making them stay. Let’s take the instance of a client who comes in to buy a basic white t-shirt at your upscale apparel store.
The pleasant, slow tunes playing through the store speakers, studies show, are likely to keep them browsing for longer and familiarizing themselves with your range of products. It might even motivate them to pick up more than that basic white t-shirt, in turn, increasing your sales.
3. Drown Out Background Noises
Imagine dining at a restaurant with no music in the background. Now, try and remember the sounds that will pierce through your ears — the sound of the forks striking the ceramic of the plate, the commotion in the busy kitchen, the loud laughter from the next table. None of these sound appealing.
And as much as you would like to mask the noisy couple fighting in the table next to yours at a restaurant with music, the members at your fitness centre might prefer to not hear the jarring noise of the heavy barbell hitting the floor or the bodybuilder’s grunts of pain as he lifts another 100 kilos!
Music helps you cover up all these unpleasant sounds that might be distracting or unsavoury while you are trying to concentrate on your workout, presentation or a first-date conversation.
If you are still intrigued as to why you playing music is a smart decision, you need to read this article on how In-Store Music boosts Sales and Customer Experience.
How Do You Select The Best Music Streaming Service for Your Business?
Now that we have established how important playing music at your commercial location is, the next step is to figure out the steps with which you can find the best music streaming service for you.
There are a few parameters that you must take into consideration while choosing a service that caters to your needs.
1. Pricing
The first and foremost criteria for selecting a service has to be the subscription value that you would need to pay for using it. Being a small enterprise, you might have your constraints when it comes to budgeting for a B2B music streaming service.
While some of these services might have high monthly subscriptions, there are reasonable options available as well. So, after doing your set of research, you should be able to find one which is the best music streaming service that your business deserves.
2. Ease of Use
You are a busy entrepreneur trying to grow your business into something big and right now, it is safe to assume that you do not want to spend hours trying to figure out how to use your streaming service.
Therefore, the best music streaming service needs to have features and facilities that would make it easy for you to manage your playlist. An ideal service would have a simple and accessible UI/UX, allow you to moderate the content such as filtering out explicit lyrics as well as have a seamless combination of manual and automated or customised music programming for your business.
3. Need for Extra Hardware
When you choose your streaming service for your business, you might want to check if it needs you to invest in specific proprietary hardware to be able to use it. Using B2B service might not always be as simple as the plug and play (or connect Bluetooth) methods of Spotify or Apple Music.
You might need extra equipment such as stereo cable or a sound system like Sonos or a device like ChromeCast to be able to make the most of the service. So, make sure that you weigh in the extra expenses that you might incur because of this before you choose one!
4. Availability of Service
There might be a service that catches your eye and it might seem like the perfect service for your business. But before you zero in on it, make sure that it caters to businesses in your country or region.
Many times, it could so happen that while the service is available locally, their music portfolio might be limited to regional or local music which might not suit your brand or your customer’s preference. So, based on the needs of your business select a service which not only allows streaming in your area but also has music that will be loved by your customers.
5. Existing customer portfolio
A good way to judge a service is researching the kind of businesses that already subscribe to their service. While some will explicitly call this out, many might not have a page dedicated to it.
But a little inspection might help you understand if a streaming service is equipped to handle the sound requirements of a business such as yours. For example, if a particular service caters to big brands like McDonald’s or Starbucks, it might not be the best fit for your cosy, little corner cafe.
Similarly, a service which provides music for a large chain of gyms in your country might not be the best music streaming service for your local yoga studio.
6. Royalty-free vs. Licensed music
Royalty-free music comprises of tracks which have no credited artists and are generic. Commonly called elevator music, they can be used as fillers before the movie starts playing in a theatre or while you go up a few floors in an elevator or wait at a hotel lobby.
On the other hand, when your customer comes to your business — be it a gym, store, restaurant, hair salon or spa, they want music that is not only filling the silence but also something engaging.
According to studies by SACEM (2016) and Nielsen (2018), 65% of customers in a retail store want to listen to music that they are familiar with or describe as high quality. 64% of them consider royalty-free music to be of low-quality or annoying and non engaging.
Therefore, as a business owner, this is a decision that you have to make — do you want your customer to enjoy every minute they spend at your location? If your answer is yes, you might want to go for licensed music.
If you do want to go for a copyright-free or royalty-free music streaming service, you do have a few options such as Jamendo (Luxemburg), Epidemicsound (USA) and Music2biz (Germany). Surprisingly, their rates are not much lower than licensed music either!
What are the best Music Streaming Services for Your Business you should know about?
When it comes to finding the best music streaming service for your business, there are options galore! From different countries to different rates, there are 8 services which are top of our list.
While each of them has its benefits and downsides, you can do a quick comparative analysis through this article to find one that works best for you!
So Which Music Streaming Service For Business should you pick?
If you have decided that you will be, after all, playing music at your business location, our analysis might nudge you a little towards making the right choice for the best music streaming service for your business.
Out of all the options available in the market, what works best for your business, and your final decision will ultimately be influenced by:
- the pricing and your budget
- your target audience
- the compatibility with your current music system (Sonos, Chromecast, etc.)
- the availability of the music service in your country (Pandora-DMX is available in US only, while Soundsuit in 40+ countries and Soundtrack in 70+)
- the access to a limited or full catalogue of well known and beloved artists, i.e. Pharrell Williams, Drake, Childish Gambino, Harry Styles, John Lennon, George Harrison, Prince, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Adele, etc.
- the preferred device when it comes to playing the music in your venue(s), e.g. iPad, dedicated streaming device, laptop, etc.
- The possibility to test the service for free or not (and for how long)
Moreover, since many of the services require you to manually create and schedule playlists, you also need to consider the time you can dedicate to the same along with your expertise in music (genres, sub-genres, moods, etc.) to facilitate the understanding of what works best for your staff, you as a manager, and at the end your customers — who should get engaged and loyal through the right music for them.
