Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover music licensing and stock footage & assets. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Soundstripe | Thematic | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9.99 | From $9.99 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | 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 | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Music Licensing, Stock Footage & Assets | Music Licensing, Stock Footage & Assets |
| Works with | YouTube | YouTube, TikTok, Instagram |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Music and effects, cleared for YouTube
Soundstripe licenses music and sound effects on a subscription and clears them against YouTube automatically, so a video does not come back with a claim on it a week after going up. The catalogue runs to 58,000 tracks and nearly 100,000 effects. Single-track licences are sold separately, for anybody who needs one song rather than a habit.
Our note
Epidemic Sound is the direct competitor and both clear YouTube automatically. Soundstripe's reference search is the better way to find a specific sound, and Epidemic's catalogue is the better place to find something nobody else has used.
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.
Our note
Start free and see whether the credit line bothers you, because for most channels it does not and the music is good. Uppbeat works the same way and has a bigger catalogue; Thematic has the better relationship with the artists on it.
Only on this side
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.