Soundstripe is a royalty free music licensing service that looks quite familiar…
More and more of these websites keep popping up and the competition just keeps getting steeper, so the question is - what has Soundstripe done to set itself apart as the right asset library for you?
I’ve rated it on a scale of 1-10 in 4 categories - Music, Sound effects, User Experience, and Value.
Speaking of value, I told Soundstripe I’d be making this review so they gave me a 10% off code to share with you (use code JOSEPH10) This isn’t sponsored at all - the site isn’t perfect and I’m not going to try to sell you on it, but 10% off is 10% off!
Music
Currently Soundstripe has something over 9,000 songs on their platform, which honestly comes in pretty dang low compared to their competitors in the same price range - Epidemic Sound has over 40,000 songs and Artlist has roughly 25,000 to 30,000.
Is quantity everything? No. But it is an important consideration, especially if you’ll be creating a lot of YouTube videos and want to use fresh music each time.
As always, I leave judgement on the quality of the music up to you, because everyone has their own music taste.
In my opinion, some of the music here is on the same level as all the other music services, but their selection of rock and cinematic music is not my favorite.
The Music UI is quite well designed with featured playlists right at the top and popular categories below to get you started on your music search. There’s a BUNCH of filter criteria on the left side that you can narrow your search with - more than I’ve ever seen - but the dropdown menu structure keeps it from feeling overwhelming.
If filter searching isn’t your thing, you can use Soundstripe’s AI-enhanced music search bar to ask for results in a more natural way, or browse one of their many playlists — 273 to be exact. You can also create your own playlists (of course) and with the pro plan you can create projects, which allows you to save music, sound effects and footage all in one place.
My favorite thing about Soundstripe is each song comes not only with stems, but also with alternate, shorter versions of the song. These are perfect for shorter use cases. As an editor it can be a huge pain to find a good place to end a song and to make it fade out smoothly. These alternate versions are a huge help because the artist has cut the song into shorter parts and given them each a proper ending, saving you time and frustration in the edit.
Overall I love Soundstripe’s user interface and all the features provided for the music, but the tracks themselves trail behind their competitors in both quantity and quality. I’ll give them a 6/10 here.
Sound Effects
The sound effects have a much better quantity score at over 76,000 tracks, plus they sound very good! There aren’t nearly as many filter options over on this UI, as the best way to search for a sound effect is through the playlists page.
Here you’ll find dozens of pre-curated collections split into different categories, each with cover photo indicative of their content. This is my favorite way to find sound effects, but if you’re looking for something very specific you can always type it into the search bar.
Soundstripe hasn’t overcomplicated this section at all and I really appreciate that. I’ve got to give them a 10/10 here for both the quantity of tracks as well as the streamlined UI.
User Experience
When it comes to technical things, how does Soundstripe perform?
Copyright clearance is very easy — it’s just like Artlist and Epidemic Sound. You simply type in your YouTube channel on the Content ID page to clearlist it and their system takes care of the rest. This has become an industry standard but it’s nice that they’re keeping up with the times.
Soundstripe also has a mobile app, which is very responsive and great for mobile creators or editors who want to browse music options while they’re on the go. Any changes you make to your playlists through the app will update the website and vice-versa. You can also directly download songs from the app to your device files to be used in video edits on your phone.
I haven’t touched on it yet, but Soundstripe also provides stock footage for an additional fee, but it’s not at all worth it in my opinion because most of the footage looks pretty darn bad. If you want stock footage, Artlist max is a much better option.
Crappy footage aside, I give the user experience on Soundstripe a 10/10. You can’t really ask for more here
Value (and my opinion)
Finally let’s talk cash. Is Soundstripe worth the investment?
The platform has two main subscription options —
The Creator plan is good for creators with one YouTube channel and no need to license client projects. It costs $10/month.
The Pro plan (at $20/month) is for people like me - creators who have up to five YouTube channels and do client work (or freelance editing) on the side. This plan allows you to directly clear individual videos by pasting a link on the Content ID page and it also unlocks the ability to download track stems.
Like usual, the prices above are quoted as if you were buying one year in advance. Both plans can be billed monthly instead, but they cost substantially more this way ($20/month for Creator and $40/month for Pro).
These price points put Soundstripe right in competition with Epidemic Sound and Artlist, however, their music selection is substantially smaller than both of these other options, and considering that, I just don’t see enough justification for their price to be where it is, aside from one very specific customer...
Artlist doesn’t have stems and Epidemic Sound costs about $5 more per month than Soundstripe, so if you’re an editor who needs stems, commercial clearance, enjoys Soundstripe’s library and wants a cheaper option than Epidemic Sound, this is the right call for you. Otherwise, I have to give it a 4/10 in value.
If you want to see what I think of their top competitors, you should check out my other royalty free music reviews!
What did you think of my 2024 Soundstripe review? Leave a comment below!
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