Personal streaming costs the UK music industry £346 million a year
Most businesses use a consumer music app even though they shouldn't.
Music matters for your business. Our research highlights how essential music is for any company that wants to stand out and make a good impression.
Soundtrack commissioned the UK Music Use in Business Study 2025. It asked 1,070 decision-makers at businesses across the UK how they use music, what it's worth to rightsholders and where licensing awareness falls short.
The findings show that 93% of British consumer-facing businesses play music and 77% of them play it every single day. This equates to roughly 800,000 business locations in the UK where music is part of the daily routine.
The next finding is more striking: 86% of UK businesses are using personal music streaming apps. 58% use Spotify, 32% use Apple Music, 30% use YouTube Music and 29% use Amazon Music. None of these services are licensed for business use. In fact, using them in a business breaches their own terms of service. Soundtrack CEO Ola Sars often compares this to running a cinema with a Netflix account.
Using personal streaming in business has a real impact on music creators and rightsholders. An estimated 687,000 businesses in the UK use a personal service rather than one built for business. Soundtrack costs an average of £54 against a £12 personal subscription. The British music industry is missing out on £346 million in annual commercial music revenue.
So what's behind the gap? Our research shows this isn't a case of businesses not caring. They want to be compliant, and they want music creators compensated correctly for their work. The source of the problem is simply that most businesses don't understand that they're playing music in a way that's incompatible with music licensing rules in the UK. Sharing the full picture matters for businesses and British music creators alike.
The research also shows what businesses want from a music service. Four things came out on top: ease of use (84%), simple setup (83%), reliable playback (83%) and being able to choose the songs that play (83%). Habit plays a part, too: 78% picked their current service because they were already using it.
Many businesses simply aren't aware that music streaming services built for business exist. Soundtrack solves problems a personal music app can't: Multi-Location Control, Music Scheduling, Soundtrack Messaging, offline playback and the Explicit Song Filter. It's also licensed for business use. With Soundtrack, businesses in the UK can sign up, purchase a public performance license from TheMusicLicence and press play. A proper music setup is absolutely within reach.
It's time that every venue using music understands the hidden licensing gap and the better music streaming waiting for them. That's the gap Soundtrack was built to close.
