Last updated on 10th January 2024
In this article we’re going to take a look at Epidemic Sound, covering everything from pricing, to features, customer support, and more.
Sound, particularly in marketing content, has been on somewhat of a rocky road over the past few years. Back in 2016, a widely circulated study claimed that 85% of Facebook video views happened with the sound off.
But the way people consume content has changed (as it always does). TikTok is king now, and according to them, 9/10 users view sound as being vital to the TikTok experience.
Vital.
So it’s never been more important to make sure that your content features music and sound effects that are professional and engaging.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at everything you need to know about Epidemic Sound in 2024.
Bonus: We’ve partnered with Epidemic Sound to get you 10% off for 12 months when you sign up here: Get 10% off for 12 months >>
What is Epidemic Sound?
Established in Sweden in 2009, Epidemic Sound provides royalty free soundtracks to anyone in the world who wants to create something special.
While their headquarters are still in Stockholm, the music tech company now has offices all over the globe, from New York to Seoul.
According to their About Us page, “Empowering creativity is at the heart of who we are.”
This 60 second video is a great introduction to Epidemic Sound:
Even though the company is over 10 years old, they’re still very much growing. At an equity round in 2021, the company raised $450 million, taking the valuation of Epidemic Sound to $1.4 billion and giving them the envied title of ‘soundtrack to the internet’.
Who is Epidemic Sound for?
There are over 5 million people using Epidemic Sound today, and users fall into two camps. On one side are musicians that use the platform to upload and share their tracks, and on the other side are those who want to use those tracks in their content.
On the homepage, Epidemic Sound splits tracks by their most popular use cases:
YouTube is a huge market for the platform with the co-founder and CEO Oscar Höglund sharing in an interview, “In terms of streams, YouTube videos using music from Epidemic Sound artists are played 1.5 billion times each day. And that’s before you consider the traffic for Epidemic music used across TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and other platforms.”
Epidemic Sound also caters to enterprise customers too, providing soundtracks to companies like Coca Cola and Nike. Here’s a video that features some of their more well-known clients:
So, the bottom line, and the answer to the question “Who is Epidemic Sound for?” is…everyone.
Epidemic Sound: Library size
Epidemic Sound has a pretty impressive library, with over 35,000 songs and more than 60,000 sound effects.
Taking a look at the music section first, tracks are initially split into 4 categories: featured, genres, moods, and themes.
This gives users a great starting point to find something they’re looking for. Further down the page, the library is split into smaller categories marked with genres or emotions to help users narrow down their search:
The sound effects page is very similar. Sound effects are split into different categories, probably in order of how popular they are with current users:
If users know exactly what they’re looking for, they can also easily search the library and find music or sound effects that way:
Overall, Epidemic Sound’s library is huge but is organised in such a way that it doesn’t feel overwhelming when you navigate it.
Epidemic Sound: Music quality
Epidemic Sound partners with professional producers, composers, musicians, and artists, so you can rest assured knowing that the music you source from this site is of the highest quality.
In addition to partnering with professional creators, Epidemic Sound also has an in-house team of songwriters, producers, and sound engineers that help to elevate music that is submitted into world-class tracks.
When you find a song you like, you can listen to it in full and get a comprehensive list of track details before downloading:
Tracks are downloaded as WAV or MP3 files:
So they should be perfect for any use case you have in mind, whether that’s some background music for your podcast or audio for your latest Instagram reel.
Epidemic Sound’s user experience
When looking for a royalty free music partner, user experience is really important. You want a platform that’s easy to navigate and allows you to find what you’re looking for quickly and without hassle.
So we wanted to see how Epidemic Sound holds up when it comes to user experience. The answer is: extremely well. The user experience is close to perfect. When landing on the homepage, you’ll be shown featured playlists and themes straight away. There are also 3 tabs at the top of the page: Discover, Browse, and Saved.
If you like the look of the featured tracks, you can click on a tile to instantly start sampling music from the collection. You can also quickly shuffle through these at the bottom of the page, or you can click into one of the categories to find out more:
Clicking on the Browse section allows you to explore even further. You can switch between Genres, Themes, Moods, and Sound Effects, and also get a list of search terms A-Z to see if anything catches your eye:
We clicked on ‘Disco’ as an example, and, as you can see, there are lots of tracks to choose from. These can be organised in a number of different ways. Tracks can also be favourited, saved and downloaded directly from here.
It’s easy to find tracks that sound similar by clicking the ‘Find Similar’ icon:
And you can also easily search for whatever it is you’re looking for by hitting the magnifying glass at the top of the page and entering your search term:
The platform couldn’t be easier to use. It’s really user friendly and makes finding music and sound effects completely stress free.
Epidemic Sound: Licensing
All music in the Epidemic Sound catalogue is royalty free, if you sign up for a subscription. The subscription basically covers the cost of a direct license with the platform, which means you don’t need to worry about copyright infringement or any other rights you might be concerned about.
Epidemic Sound actually likes to refer to their licensing model as not royalty free, but worry free.
As Epidemic Sound owns the rights to all of the music in their catalogue, they can offer you (as a paying subscriber) a direct license to the entire catalogue so that you can use the music and sound effects as needed and without hassle.
If you need a track for a one-off production, Epidemic Sound also offers users the opportunity to buy a Single Track License. You can find out more about that here.
Epidemic Sound: Pricing
Epidemic Sound has 3 pricing plans: personal, commercial, and enterprise.
The Personal plan is £10 per month and gives users access to unlimited downloads that they can use for their YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or Twitch channels, and also their podcasts.
However, users on this plan only have the ability to link one channel and one podcast feed. So if you wanted music for both YouTube and Facebook then you’d need to sign up for two personal plans.
This plan is aimed at non-commercial customers, like hobbyists and influencers. Basically, if you’re creating content on behalf of yourself, regardless of how large your audience is, then the personal plan will work great. If you want to create content for others then you should take a look at the commercial plan.
The personal plan covers you to use music in sponsored and branded content, but not for advertising, marketing, or promotion for a brand or company. You also can’t use the music on a standalone basis; it’s intended as background music only.
Another important point to mention is that if you cancel your subscription in the future then this will not impact the content you published while you had an active subscription. It will all still be covered!
The Commercial plan is £39 per month and gives users access to everything covered by the personal plan, plus the ability to connect to online platforms and websites, publish content for business and clients, and also use tracks in digital ads.
The only platforms that seem to be excluded are major production companies and publishers, cinema, TV networks, and streaming services.
This plan is best for business users and freelancers who need soundtracking content for advertising and commercial use, either for their own business or clients.
As with the personal plan, all content published during an active subscription will remain cleared forever.
***It’s worth pointing out that you can save money on both the Personal and Commercial plans if you sign up for an annual subscription instead of paying monthly.
The Enterprise plan includes everything the commercial plan includes, plus all rights covered for TV shows and ads, a dedicated customer success contact, the ability to add multiple user accounts, and create customised deal terms.
There’s no price available on the site and potential customers are asked to contact the sales team. This is probably because the Enterprise plan could vary depending on a company’s needs.
This plan is best for big operations. And it boasts all rights included for one monthly fee, with no legal risks and no reporting.
Epidemic Sound’s customer support
If you get stuck while using Epidemic Sound, scroll down to the bottom of any page to find the Help button:
This will take you to the Help Centre, where you can search for answers to your queries and/or read articles that answer common questions:
All of these articles are pretty comprehensive. But if you can’t find what you’re looking for then there’s also the option to contact the support team directly. You can do this by clicking the ‘Contact Us’ button at the bottom of the Help Centre page and filling out the contact form:
We did this to test out Epidemic Sound’s customer support team for the purposes of this review. And the results were pretty shocking!
We received an automatic response straight away, pretty standard for most customer support teams:
And then – just ONE MINUTE later – we received our response!
It was quick, clear, and polite. You really can’t argue with that level of service, and would be hard pressed to find it anywhere else!
Epidemic Sound: Final score
Bonus: We’ve partnered with Epidemic Sound to get you 10% off for 12 months when you sign up here: Get 10% off for 12 months >>
If you’re still undecided, no problem! Check out this article next: The 20 Best Royalty Free Music Sites.
