For Songwriters
How to Price Your Songs for Licensing
By the Starchild Music team · October 6, 2026 · 6 min read
The short answer
Price a song by deciding what you are selling: a one-time non-exclusive license (low price, can sell many times), a royalty-free buyout (one larger fee in exchange for future upside), or a time-limited exclusive (a premium for taking the song off the market). Sync fees in the wider market run from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands, but for licenses to artists recording a song, a clear fixed price per license type usually works better than negotiating each deal.
Pricing is the question most songwriters avoid until a buyer asks. It helps to see pricing as a choice about what you are selling. A song can be licensed many times, bought out once, or held for one artist for a while, and each of those deserves a different price.
This guide walks through the three main options, what the wider market charges, and a simple way to decide song by song.
The three things you can sell
Almost every song license falls into one of three shapes. Knowing which one you are offering is most of the pricing work.
- A one-time, non-exclusive license: one buyer gets permission for a defined use, and you can license the same song to other buyers too. Low price, repeatable.
- A buyout or royalty-free license: the buyer pays a larger one-time fee so they do not owe you further royalties for their use. You trade some future income for money now.
- An exclusive license: for a set period, nobody else can license the song. The buyer pays for scarcity, and you give up other sales during that window.
What the wider market charges
Sync is the most quoted part of licensing, and its range is enormous. CD Baby's DIY Musician guide puts sync fees anywhere from 'a couple hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even more depending on the placement and notoriety.' Songtrust's guide to sync deals lists what moves that number: the media type, the territory, the term, and the length and type of use. It also notes the fee is 'most often flat and upfront,' though it can be an advance or royalties only.
If you work with a music library or publisher, part of each fee goes to them. Sound on Sound's series on library music describes traditional publishers paying writers 'a share of sync fees (often 50 percent).'
There is also a floor worth knowing. Once a song has been released, anyone in the US can record a cover under a compulsory mechanical license. The Copyright Royalty Board set that rate at 13.1 cents per copy for physical formats and downloads in 2026, as Digital Music News reported. An unreleased original is a different product. A buyer licensing it is paying for access to a song nobody has heard yet, which is why recording licenses for new songs are usually priced as flat fees.
Why fixed prices work for recording licenses
Independent artists recording a single usually have a small, fixed budget. Every email about price is a chance for them to move on to another song. A posted price per license type removes that friction and lets a buyer decide without waiting on you.
On Starchild, buyers see set base license prices of $30, $40, $50 and $60, and you choose per song which licenses to offer. You keep your copyright and earn 50% of license revenue, minus payment processing fees. That structure means your pricing decisions are mostly about which options to switch on for each song, which is a better use of your time than haggling over each sale. See the full license and price list for what buyers get at each level.
Pricing the premium options: buyouts and exclusives
A buyout is the option to think hardest about, because you are selling future income. Ask what this song might earn over the next five years from repeat licenses and from recordings that get streamed and performed. If the honest answer is 'probably modest', a buyout fee in hand can be the better deal. If the song has a strong chance of being cut by artists, protect that upside. On Starchild the buyout question is a simple per-song switch: the optional $99 Royalty Free add-on, which a buyer adds on top of a base license. You keep the copyright either way.
Exclusivity is worth paying for when a buyer needs to know nobody else will release the same song at the same time. One speaker in Berklee's Music Licensing 101 roundup put it plainly for advertising: 'they don't want Buick using the same music as Chevy.' The piece suggests considering limited-term exclusivity for high-value situations like that, so the song comes back to you afterwards.
Starchild's exclusives work that way. They run for 3, 6 or 12 months at $60, $100 or $150, and the song returns to the catalog when the term ends. Our guide to how exclusive licenses work covers the details from the buyer's side.
Stems: price the production you put in
Stems let a buyer remix, re-balance or rebuild your production. They are worth more when the production is strong and the parts are clean. On Starchild you can price a stems package per song at $295, $495, $695 or $895.
A sparse guitar-and-vocal demo sits at the lower end, because there is less in it for a buyer to work with. A fully produced track with clean, clearly labeled parts can justify a higher tier. If you are unsure, start lower on a new song and revisit the price once you see whether buyers are interested in its stems at all.
A song-by-song pricing checklist
Pricing questions sometimes turn into contract questions. If a buyer sends you their own agreement, a music attorney can review it before you sign.
- Is this song likely to be recorded by artists? Keep repeat licenses open and think carefully before offering a buyout.
- Is it a strong fit for videos, podcasts or brand content? A royalty-free option may be what those buyers need.
- Would an artist want it to themselves for a release cycle? Make sure time-limited exclusivity is available.
- How polished and well-separated is the production? Let that set your stems tier.
- Do co-writers agree with the options you picked? Get it in writing before you switch anything on.
- Revisit pricing every few months, once you can see which songs draw interest.