Sync license: the complete 2026 guide

When you need a sync license

The test is simple: if music plays alongside moving image, and the result is published or used commercially, you need permission. That covers far more than people assume.

• Paid social ads. The in-app music libraries on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are licensed for personal, organic posts. The moment a brand runs the same sound behind an ad, it falls outside that licence. This is the single most common mistake we see.
• Organic brand content. A business account posting to its own feed is still commercial use, even with no media spend behind it.
• YouTube videos with monetisation on. Content ID will find the track, and revenue goes to the rights-holder or the video gets blocked in some territories.
• Websites, events and in-store. A hero video on a landing page needs a sync licence. Playing recorded music in a physical space needs a separate public performance licence, usually through a PRO.
• Film, TV, games and trailers. The classic sync context, and the one where fees climb fastest.

What does not need a sync licence: music you commissioned outright with a full buyout, music you wrote and recorded yourself, and genuinely public-domain compositions — though the recording of a public-domain work is still owned by whoever made it.

What a sync license actually covers

Every licence defines its scope on four axes, and each one moves the price. Understanding them is the difference between buying what you need and overpaying for rights you will never use.

• Media. Where it can appear — paid social only, all digital, broadcast, cinema, all media. The broadest grants cost the most.
• Territory. One country, a region, or worldwide.
• Term. How long the use is permitted. Three months, a year, or perpetuity.
• Exclusivity. Whether the rights-holder can license the same track to someone else, including a competitor, during your term. Exclusivity is expensive and rarely necessary below broadcast level.

A Melody licence covers one creative concept including every cutdown and format of it, worldwide, in perpetuity, non-exclusive. A second campaign needs a second licence. Full pricing detail is on how much a sync license costs.

The three routes to getting one

Direct with the rights-holders. You identify the publisher and the label, request quotes from both, and negotiate. Necessary for well-known recordings. Slow, uncertain, and each side can decline for reasons that have nothing to do with your budget.

Through an agent or music supervisor. They know the catalogues, they know what will clear, and they handle the paperwork. Worth their fee on a big campaign. Compared in full on sync agents vs platforms.

Through a pre-cleared platform. Rights are granted in advance, prices are published, and you license in minutes. The trade-off is that you are choosing from a defined catalogue rather than any song ever recorded. For most brand work that trade-off is overwhelmingly worth making.

If you are an artist or label

Sync is one of the few places recorded music still pays properly. A single placement can be worth more than a year of streaming for an independent act, and it comes with a backend: performance royalties through your PRO whenever the ad or show airs.

What gets tracks placed is boring and practical — clean metadata, undisputed ownership splits, instrumental and edit versions ready to go, and a rights position you can clear without a committee. Submitting music for sync covers the routes, and sync royalties covers what you should expect to be paid and where artists commonly lose money.