Artlist vs HookSounds Comparison 2026
Both cover music licensing and stock footage & assets. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
One licence covering music, footage and plugins
Royalty-free music written in house
At a glance
- HookSounds starts cheaper, at $9.99.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Artlist | HookSounds | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $19.99 | From $9.99 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Artlist
One licence covering music, footage and plugins
Artlist sells a subscription that licenses everything on it for everything you make, including the videos you monetise, and the licence survives the subscription ending for anything already published. That last clause is the one worth reading twice, because it is where most stock music libraries hedge. The catalogue leans cinematic. Somebody who needs one track this month will find a per-track shop cheaper, and Artlist does not sell that way.
Our note
The licence terms are the product here and the catalogue is secondary, which is the opposite of how these are usually sold. Compare against Epidemic Sound on what happens when you stop paying rather than on how many tracks each claims.
HookSounds
Royalty-free music written in house
HookSounds writes its own catalogue rather than aggregating other people's, which keeps it smaller than the big libraries and makes the licensing simpler to reason about. Music, sound effects and intros are covered by one subscription, cleared for as long as the track stays in the video. The cheapest tier is for personal work and does not cover clients. Anybody who needs a specific genre in depth will find the size a limit.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.