6 Places to Find Royalty-Free Music for Your Videos

As a content creator, we know you’ve got your hands full. There are so many moving parts that go into making a high-quality video — it can feel overwhelming to pull all of those pieces together into one fantastic piece of video content. And a great video isn’t just about the visuals… the right music can elevate a video to a whole new level. But where can you find the best royalty-free music for your videos?

Well, we’re here to take at least one element of video creation off your plate. We’ve rounded up our favorite places to find royalty-free music (both free and paid). Let’s get started!

6 Places to Find Royalty-Free Music for Your Videos

1. PremiumBeat

PremiumBeat is a royalty-free music website owned by Shutterstock, and it has one of the largest collections of exclusive, high-quality tracks and sound effects. You can search through their over 10,000 tracks by mood, genre, instruments, artists, duration, and beats per minute. They also offer curated sections (if you need some inspiration) like “Trending Tracks”, “New Releases”, and “Curated By Experts”.

They also offer a blog with tons of gear suggestions, industry insights, and tips for video creators. When you subscribe to PremiumBeat, you can get 5 tracks per month for $12.99 per track. Since all of their tracks are royalty-free, you can use the music you’ve purchased as many times as you wish after paying the one-time fee.

2. Epidemic Sound

If you’re looking for the perfect royalty-free track for your video, Epidemic Sound is another great library to check out. Their collection includes 35,000 tracks and 90,000 sound effects and features unique, specific genres (like “Corporate” and “First Snow”). Tracks and sounds from Epidemic Sound are featured on extremely popular Facebook and YouTube videos — some of which rack up more than 20 billion views per month. 

Like PremiumBeat, Epidemic Sound is subscription-based. If you’re regularly churning out video content, a subscription to Epidemic Sound is probably a good investment, since it gives you full access to all of their tracks and sound effects, as well as unlimited downloads and use. Their free trial even lets you give it a try for 30 days without paying anything.

3. Artlist

Artlist is the filmmaking industry’s go-to library of high-quality, royalty-free music and sound effects created by inspiring indie artists. Major companies like National Geographic, Microsoft, and Toyota use Artlist for their video soundtracks. You can filter your searches on Artlist by vocal & instruments, tempo, duration, genre, staff picks, and more. They also offer curated collections with tracks from their partner artists.

This is another subscription-based source for royalty-free music. They have a few different options, depending on whether you want access to music, sound effects, or both. Their best value subscription plan provides unlimited access to music and sound effects for $25/month.

4. SoundCloud

If you want to find royalty-free music for your videos without paying for a subscription, SoundCloud is one of your best options. One of the greatest advantages that SoundCloud has over other free options is that their tracks tend to sound more like real music and less like the “elevator music” sound that you often find in marketing videos.

While their search function isn’t quite as intuitive as some other sites, it’s not too tricky once you mess around with it. To get started, try searching keywords like “ambient beat” or “uplifting background music”. And don’t forget to pay attention to the social element of SoundCloud! On this site, users can “like” tracks, so you can show some love to the music you like and see what songs in your search results are the most popular.

And if you’re looking for a truly free music option, keep in mind that not all of the tracks on SoundCloud are copyright-free. To make sure your searches only return results that you can actually use for free, follow the steps below:

1. Once you’ve searched your keywords, select Tracks from the menu on the left.
2. Click © To listen to under Filter Results.
3. Here, you’ll find the option to select different licenses. Select To use commercially.
4. Your search results will now refine to show only the tracks that are available for free download and commercial use.

As for attribution, any track you select should offer specific instructions for attribution from the creator. Just make sure you follow those, and you’re good to go!

5. Incompetech

Incompetech is an artist-run site with tons of royalty-free music for your videos. Their collection includes around 2,000 tracks, all of which can be used for free as long as you properly credit the musician and link back to the site. 

You can search for music through genres (like Hip Hop or Classic Rock) and by specific criteria like Mood (angry/aggressive, epic/powerful, funny/quirky, etc.), Instrument, Tempo, Length, and more. The best part is that Incompetech makes it easy to credit the artist correctly. When you select a song, the site will also give you the full attribution you need to use. All you have to do is copy and paste.

6. YouTube Search

Perhaps the easiest way to find royalty-free music for your videos without paying a cent is simply by utilizing the world’s second-largest search engine: YouTube. All you have to do is search whatever keywords are appropriate for the type of music you want (always making sure to include the words “copyright-free” or “royalty-free”). There are even entire YouTube channels dedicated to providing royalty-free music. Audio Library and Royalty Free Music are both good ones to check out!

What is your favorite source for royalty-free music for your videos?

Tell us in the comments how you find and use music in your videos! 

And don’t forget to use Zubtitle for all of your video editing and optimizing needs. Sign up for a free account today and start creating instantly.