Business music streaming: how to pick the right service

An overview of business music streaming apps

Business music streaming refers to services designed for playing music in a commercial setting. Unlike the music apps you use to listen to music at home, background music in a business is subject to several legal requirements. Business-specific services take these considerations into account, and offer useful features that make streaming more compliant and convenient.

Music licensing rules determine how and where music can be played. The world of music licensing is highly complex, and artists deserve to be paid fairly when their musical work is used by a brand to achieve their own business goals. The big players in music streaming (think Spotify or Apple Music) have terms and conditions that prohibit customers from using their services for anything other than their own personal enjoyment. This means that streaming your music in a café isn't just against the rules; it leaves your business vulnerable to lawsuits.

Business music streaming services can take the hassle out of organizing playlists, scheduling music, and obtaining performing rights licenses, which means your business can focus on what it does best. They can be used in many different settings, including retail environments, restaurants and bars.

Thankfully, the background music market is alive and well, with plenty of ready options. The best business music streaming services provide a wealth of features that make it easy for businesses to align their soundscape with their brand, improve the customer experience and drive sales.

The ideal music streaming app for your business shouldn't just ensure legal compliance — it should be a full-service toolkit that uses music to improve your business.

What is B2B music streaming?

B2B music streaming means using a service to play licensed music in commercial environments such as stores and eateries. Music streaming for commercial use is different to personal use, as it requires different licensing and functionality.

When you are streaming music in a business, it triggers different rules than with private use. As soon as it's audible to the public, it becomes a public performance, which requires different licensing. Think about the music you hear when you visit a bar or café – anything you hear in the background must be licensed.

Fortunately, business music streaming services keep this distinction in mind, and many bundle the necessary licensing into their subscription. Check before signing up to find out which licenses are covered.

Why your business needs a music streaming service

A music streaming service can benefit your business in many ways. For a start, playing music in your business gives your visitors an immersive brand experience. Customers enjoy it, too – a 2021 study by MCR Data found that 41% of American consumers stay longer in a store when they enjoy the music. The same study also showed that music encourages repeat visits, with 39% of American respondents agreeing.

On a practical level, it also makes playing music much easier. Rather than having to choose your music each time and searching through multiple playlists, it's easy to find music curated for every mood, occasion or setting. Business streaming services know what music is appropriate for a commercial environment, and make scheduling straightforward, so you can simply press play.

As business streaming services are tailored for commercial use, they either include licensing or can advise you on how to obtain it. If you try to use, for example, Spotify, you run legal risks. What's the best way to avoid all this hassle? Opt for a music streaming app like Soundtrack that gives you the peace of mind that you're playing the right music, the right way.

Another advantage of a business streaming service is its scalability. Once you've selected an on-brand soundtrack for your business, you can play it on any of your premises, and control it easily. This simplicity means your background music stays consistent, it's effortless to control, and your customers enjoy a familiar experience every time they visit.

Do you need a streaming license for businesses?

Yes – in a public or commercial space, you need a license to stream music.

For streaming music in a customer-facing space, you'll need a public performance license. This music streaming license covers copyrighted music that plays in a public space such as a shop, restaurant or gym. When you, as a business, purchase this license, you can play the music on your premises.

Performing rights organizations (PROs) are responsible for the public performance license. In the United States, the major PROs include ASCAP, BMI and GMR. You can obtain licenses either individually — for specific songs — or you can get a blanket license which allows you to pay a fixed fee to the PRO to use all music in their catalog. For a business playing background music, blanket coverage is much more straightforward, as it's easier to ensure compliance, and you don't need to manage individual licenses.

It's essential to follow the rules on music streaming licenses — licensing organizations can audit businesses to check their music is being played legally, and if violations are found, you could face:

• Backpayments covering the period of unlicensed use

• Administrative charges or penalties

• In more serious cases, legal action.

Remember that consumer streaming terms explicitly prohibit commercial use – at best, your account could be deleted, and you could face fines. A business streaming service can reduce your risk with licenses, and if you're in the US or Canada, they can bundle licenses together so that you know all the music you're playing is legal, and you don't have to manage different licenses from different PROs.

How to choose the right music streaming service

As a business that takes your musical identity seriously, it's important to choose the right music streaming service. With so many services available, you're spoiled for choice. They can help make your music legal, easy to control, and fit your business.

Let's look at some out-of-the-box commercial music solutions and their features and see how Soundtrack matches up.

Bear in mind that it's essential to check which licenses your business music streaming service covers in their fee. To our knowledge, no business music streaming service offers every license necessary outside of the United States and Canada.

What to look for in a business music streaming service

So how do you choose a business music streaming service? Use the checklist below to assess your options — remember, size (of music catalog) isn't everything; you should also consider how well the service fits your operational needs, how reliable it is, and whether it provides licensing.

How big is the music catalog?

Having access to an extensive music catalog is essential — otherwise, you may find your creativity limited. Playing the right music is key to the ambience of your business, and that's only possible with an incredibly deep selection. A business generally needs access to enough music to build playlists that are at least 24 hours in length in order to limit repetition, which can be off-putting for regular customers and annoying for staff.

In short, you want a business music streaming service with a vast music library that offers you the freedom to play what you want, when you want.

Soundtrack leads the pack by offering the broadest choice of music. With over 125 million licensed tracks, Soundtrack offers more than twice as much music as other options like Soundsuit, with just 30 million songs. Other competitors offer significantly less.

Remember that all the songs you play in your business must be licensed for commercial use. Background music services typically have smaller catalogs than you're used to with personal music streaming apps like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube.

How user-friendly is the service?

Using a music streaming service should be easy, without a steep learning curve. You and your staff are busy, which means that any app or hardware should be intuitive, so everyone who uses it can easily do what they need to do. Scheduling music, filtering out explicit tracks and building custom playlists with AI should be a breeze.

Services like Rockbot, SiriusXM for Business and Soundsuit have only a few hundred playlists you can choose from. By comparison, Soundtrack offers nearly 2,000 handpicked playlists as well as a built-in AI playlist creator.

Some services offer more or less user control. You may want to look into the business behind the service to get an idea of how often playlists are reviewed and refreshed for quality control.

Labeling and algorithms offer the convenience of automatically generated playlists that span all the music genres the service can recommend for you. This is based on many factors, like what you've previously listened to, your business type, a particular mood, what's trending or what other local businesses play.

Not every service offers complete control, though. For some, it's all AI, and you have limited input. For others, the tools can offer an almost overwhelming level of control. Playlist building, on-demand requests, scheduled messaging and user permissions are all features you'll want to consider before making a decision.

As an example, Pandora for Business is great for setting and forgetting, but it's less ideal if you want more of a say in what's playing. Rockbot might be the right choice if your space is more collaborative, as guests can request songs to queue up.

On the other hand, Soundtrack lets you invite unlimited users, and the level of control you delegate is entirely up to you. You can give users full access to playlist editing or limit them to simply adjusting the volume.

Our tip? Book a demo with a service you like the look of, which will let you see how things work as a logged-in subscriber and give you a chance to ask questions about your use case.

How can I start streaming music in my business?

The level of freedom to play whatever you want differs from service to service. Some music streaming services let you curate playlists tailored to your business, while others don't even have a search function to find a specific song. For some businesses, it's important to have the ability to drag and drop playlists into your weekly schedule or build custom playlists so you have full control over your soundscape.

Soundtrack's plans let you play whatever you want, whenever you want. Make your own playlists from our massive catalog or customize our curated playlists to suit the vibe of your business.

Are you already a Spotify user? Soundtrack is the only business music streaming service that lets you import your Spotify playlists. Unfortunately, not every song that you can play in Spotify is available in the Soundtrack catalog, but our service automatically transforms your playlists into playlists you can use in your business without any licensing hassle.

Which devices work with the service?

Some business music streaming services require you to buy their proprietary hardware — but conveniently leave that out of the price point. To see the real costs, you need to add up all of the hardware costs to determine what you'll actually get and for how much.

Thankfully, Soundtrack offers not only free software but also optional hardware, which are both great options:

• With our free Soundtrack app, you can play and manage the music directly from your smartphone, tablet, Mac or PC.

• With the optional Soundtrack Player, you can stream music at your business without a phone, tablet or computer. The Soundtrack Player stores up to 400 hours of music that you can play offline.

If you already use Sonos in your business, just download the Soundtrack app to your Sonos controller. The Sonos integration makes it easy for every staff member to control the music in an interface they're probably already familiar with.

Can I play different music in different rooms?

You might want to stream one playlist in the bar area of a hotel while you play a completely different playlist in the hotel's restaurant. Likewise, you might opt to use one playlist at a store location across the street from a university, while going for a different playlist at a location in the suburbs.

Music streaming services have various names for the areas of a business where you might play different music. At Soundtrack, we call these zones. Legally speaking, one address can have more than one zone; but if you want to play the same music throughout the building, you only need one zone. And if your business has multiple addresses, we call those locations.

No matter how many zones and locations your business has, the important thing is that your music streaming service covers all the necessary rights and royalties. Keep in mind that adding locations and zones generally adds extra costs to your subscription.

Can I control the music remotely?

No matter the size of your business, it's important that your music streaming service offers remote access to previously curated playlists, stations and schedules — and that you can share these controls with the rest of your team. If part of your team works off-site, you need the freedom to remotely monitor what's playing, update playlists, skip songs and share what's playing with customers.

Likewise, it's crucial that you have the ability to delegate responsibilities to on-site staff members. How much freedom you give your staff over the music is up to you.

If you're looking for complete remote control, look no further than the Soundtrack apps. With a full range of remote apps for iOS, iPadOS and Android devices, it's easy to control the music from anywhere. And with our robust desktop apps, managing your business's music is a breeze from back of house, too.

Can I filter out explicit music?

An explicit music filter blocks all tracks that are marked by a record label as containing explicit lyrics. Soundtrack's explicit music filter removes these songs from playlists, as well as songs with sensitive subject matter.

Can I create my own playlists?

Creating your own playlists is one of the best ways to take full control of the mood and atmosphere of your business. For a music streaming service to offer on-demand music to business clients, it needs licenses directly from record labels. Unfortunately, not all streaming services offer this option.

Curating a custom music experience from scratch on your own can take quite a bit of time, though. Some businesses have the resources to fine-tune the music down to the minute, while others are comfortable using playlists that focus on a specific genre, energy level or business type.

Soundtrack offers you as much — or as little — control as you need. Start with our extensive collection of playlists or modify them to suit your vibe. If your business wants to set it and forget it, our music team is constantly reviewing and refreshing playlists (or you can take our AI playlist creator for a spin). If your personal record collection is big enough to make John Peel blush, Soundtrack's apps make it easy to build your own playlists track by track.

Can I import playlists from Spotify?

Even though conventional music streaming apps aren't licensed for business use, it's understandable why business owners would want to use them to create playlists that match the vibe of their business. That's why Soundtrack is the only business music streaming service that allows you to import playlists and stations directly from Spotify by making sure you have all the necessary licenses. That way, you can play your carefully curated Spotify playlists legally.

Can I play music offline?

Questionable Wi-Fi in your business? Internet issues can cause a range of problems for any company. Look for a service that can save music for a rainy day. Our hardware option, the Soundtrack Player, saves up to 400 hours of music, so you have one less thing to worry about during an internet outage.

Do the subscription costs include licensing fees?

Business music streaming services have varying agreements with PROs and record labels that differ from country to country. That's why it's difficult to compare streaming services directly: Each service might have a different set of licenses in each market.

While some providers may include licenses from more PROs than others, that doesn't necessarily mean you have more music to choose from.

The best course of action is to make sure you subscribe to a music streaming service that includes all of the licensing fees. In Canada and the United States, all Soundtrack subscription plans include licensing fees. If your business is in another country, our extensive section of guides to music licensing around the world can help. Soundtrack also provides legal documentation that the music you're playing in your business is fully compliant with licensing laws.

Does the service include audio messaging?

Having the freedom to play audio messaging or overhead promotions between songs is a great way to connect with customers. A business can target high-intent audiences with centrally managed messages about ongoing promotions or important announcements about store hours.

Ideally, a business music streaming service lets you blend these messages seamlessly into your playlists and stations. Soundtrack offers two ways to create in-store messaging:

• Using Soundtrack's text-to-speech technology, which lets you enter a script, pick the language and the speed of the message, then customize the voice's gender and pitch.

• Uploading prerecorded audio messages.

Key takeaways: choosing the best music streaming service for your business

• Business music streaming allows you to play music in a commercial space and often includes the necessary licenses.

• Consumer streaming platforms explicitly forbid playing their music in public spaces.

• If you want to play music in your business that customers can hear, you must have a public performance license, which you can get from a performing rights organization. Some business streaming services also offer these licenses in a subscription.

• B2B streaming platforms combine licensing, music and operational tools in one solution, though their exact offerings vary.

• Although catalog size is important, it's essential to choose a service that fits your business needs, is easy to use and is reliable.

Choosing the right streaming service for your business means ensuring you have access to the music you need, the right licenses in place and features that make it easy to schedule and play music.

Ready to get stuck in? Assess the leading B2B streaming services and their features side by side in our comparison of the best streaming platforms for business.