Soundful

Free lets you generate as many tracks as you like from 25+ styles, but download only 1 MP3 a month. It carries the Personal License, which the license table limits to non-commercial projects, requires credit to Soundful and does not mark for social media, personal podcasts or videos. In practice Free is a way to audition styles, not to score a channel.

Generation is not metered on any plan, so previews and similar versions cost nothing. The help center warns that a generated track that is not saved cannot be recreated, and that a downloaded track can no longer be edited. Save candidates to My Library, finish the edit, then spend the download.

The license page sets the boundaries row by row. The Music Creator License, included with Plus and Pro, covers commercial projects such as digital ads, social media and personal videos, revenue-generating products and perpetual use without credit, for work reaching fewer than 100,000 users a month.

Only the Business License covers reach above 100,000 monthly users, film, TV and advertisement, apps and games, and API access. Business is sold to organizations with under $1M in revenue; the pricing page lists TV shows and TV ads under Enterprise. Match the license row to the final placement before buying, not to the size of the project.

• A monetized YouTube channel under 100K monthly users: Music Creator License (Plus or Pro).
• A client social ad: Music Creator License covers digital ads; a TV spot is outside it.
• A mobile game or app soundtrack: Business License.

Plus and Pro share the same Music Creator License and 150+ styles; Pro adds four times the downloads, 20 STEM packs a month and direct distribution to SoundCloud. Business scales downloads in three steps, 750, 1,500 or 3,000 a month, with 35, 100 or 300 STEM packs, and changes the license rather than the generator.

Editorial assessment

Plus suits a creator publishing a few videos a week, Pro suits producers who want stems to rework in a DAW, and Business is the answer only when the placement needs its license row. Downloads and STEM packs reset each month on the upgrade date, so a quiet month does not bank credit for a busy one.

According to the help center, one monthly download lets you take both the MP3 and the WAV of the same track. A STEM pack is a zipped folder with the individual stems, a MIDI file and the mixed and mastered file, and monthly STEM allowances can be used on loops or full tracks.

Rendering WAV and STEM files can take longer, and Soundful emails when a render is ready. Extra STEM bundles bought on a premium plan stay with the account until used, even after a downgrade. Loops are typically about 30 seconds and are non-exclusive, so other users may download the same loop.

The help center says Soundful owns the master license of downloaded tracks and grants premium members royalty-free, monetized use. Global Tracks and loops are non-exclusive. Its terms, updated January 1, 2024, are general site terms under California law and do not restate plan-level licensing.

The sources disagree on streaming releases. The license table marks commercial music releases as covered by the Music Creator License, while a help answer says a copyright purchase is required to stream on Spotify or Apple Music, and describes it under a retired plan name. Before distributing a release, get written confirmation from support@soundful.com.

The help center offers a refund only if none of the premium features of the plan have been used; starting to use them waives the withdrawal right. That makes the Free plan the place to test styles, and the first paid download the point of no return.

Before upgrading, generate and save a few candidate tracks on Free, pick the style you will actually use, and check which license row your placement needs. The help center says active discount codes are advertised on the site and entered through Plan Details at purchase.

1. Record the templates used and the date of the free download reset.
2. Generate three tracks and save each one to My Library.
3. Create one similar version of the strongest track.
4. Download it as MP3 and check length, loop point and loudness in a video editor.
5. Note which license row a published version would need and which plan includes it.

Accept a track that fits 60 seconds with a clean ending and no clipped audio. Reject a track that cannot be trimmed without an audible cut, or a download that fails. Leave the observed result blank until the exercise is run.

For voiceovers rather than background music, see ElevenLabs or Murf. To clean and level a finished podcast mix that uses these tracks, compare Auphonic and Adobe Podcast.