HookSounds vs Thematic 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.
Royalty-free music written in house
Music from real artists, free if you credit them
At a glance
- Only Thematic has a free tier.
Side by side
HookSounds | Thematic | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9.99 | From $9.99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
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.
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.
Our note
Read the licence scope before the price, because the cheapest tier excludes client work and that is the line most freelancers cross without noticing. Against Epidemic Sound or Artlist this is smaller and cheaper, and the trade is exactly that.
Only on this side
- Works with Podcast
Thematic
Music from real artists, free if you credit them
Thematic pairs creators with musicians who want the exposure, so the free tier is a genuine trade rather than a trial: you use the track, the artist gets credited and found. Paying removes the credit requirement and adds the trending songs. Everything is cleared for monetised video, which is the whole point of using it over a random upload.
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.