Studio credit
Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
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Cost reference
What Custom Music for a Commercial Costs.
The price of custom music for a commercial is set less by the music than by how it will be used: the media it runs in, the territories, the term and whether it is exclusive. After usage come the number of versions and cut-downs, whether parts are played or programmed, the revision rounds and the schedule. A comparable quote names all of them.
How much does custom music for a commercial cost?
Why this is so hard to find out
Music and audio post pricing is one of the least transparent corners of production, and that is not an accident of the industry being small. Almost every quote is genuinely bespoke, because the same piece of music carries a different value depending entirely on how it will be used — and studios are reluctant to publish a number that a client will anchor to before the usage is known.
The result is that a producer trying to build a budget has very little to work from. Search for what custom music costs and the top results are largely personalised-song and wedding-song services answering a completely different question. So this page lists no prices — ours or anyone else's. It lists what sets them, in the order that matters, so a budget can be scoped before anyone is asked for a quote.
What drives the number
In rough order of how much each one moves a quote. The first four are all the same question — how much use are you buying:
- Media — online only, broadcast, cinema, out-of-home, in-store. Each additional medium is a real increment, and broadcast is the largest step.
- Territory — one country, a region, or worldwide
- Term — six months, one year, three years, or perpetuity, and whether it renews automatically
- Exclusivity and ownership — a licence within limits, or a full buyout of master and composition
- Production scale — programmed parts versus parts played live. Live playing and recording take session time, and it is the line clients most often assume costs nothing extra.
- Scope of deliverables — how many durations, how many cut-downs, whether stems are included, whether alternate mixes are needed
- Volume, on episodic work — a single spot needs a handful of cues; a serialised season needs music across every episode, and a recurring theme that survives being heard a hundred times is a different commission from a one-off. Episode count belongs in the brief, not in a later conversation.
- Revisions — how many rounds are inside the fee and what counts as a round
- Turnaround — genuine compression of a schedule displaces other work and is normally priced
The mistake that costs the most
It is not paying too much for the music. It is scoping the usage too narrowly at the start and extending it later.
A track licensed or commissioned for a six-month regional online campaign, which then performs well and gets taken to broadcast, or extended to another territory, or simply kept running, has to be re-cleared. That negotiation happens at the moment of success, when the campaign is already live and the alternative to agreeing is pulling it. The leverage is entirely one-sided and the price reflects that.
The defence is cheap and takes one line in the brief: state the widest use the campaign could plausibly reach, and price that at the start even if you commission the narrow version. Knowing what the extension would cost before you need it is worth more than the small saving from not asking.
Getting a quote that is comparable
Quotes from different studios are frequently not comparable, and the difference is rarely the music. It is what is inside the number. One quote includes stems, three durations and two revision rounds; another quotes the master alone and bills the rest.
To make them comparable, send every studio the same short list: the durations and versions you need, whether stems and an M&E are included, the revision allowance and what counts as a round, the loudness target and delivery format, and the full usage — media, territories, term, exclusivity. A studio that cannot quote against that list has not understood the job, which is itself useful information.
Get a figure, not a range.
Send the durations and versions, the platforms and territories, the term, and your deadline. You get a firm number back — normally within one working day.
Proof
Work from this service line.
Projects the studio lists under Original Music Production, the service line this guide sits under.
Questions
Frequently asked.
How much does custom music for a commercial cost?
It depends first on usage — the media it runs in, the territories, the term and whether it is exclusive — and then on the number of versions and cut-downs, whether parts are played or programmed, the revision rounds and the schedule. The usage terms move the figure more than anything about the music itself, which is why a firm quote needs them stated up front.
How is audio post production usually billed?
Either by the hour or as a project fee. Hourly billing suits open-ended editorial work where the amount of change is unknown; a project fee suits a defined deliverable list — durations, versions, stems, revision rounds — because both sides know in advance what is inside the number. Whichever is used, ask what the minimum unit is and what counts as a revision.
Why will a studio not give me a price before we talk?
Because the same piece of music has a very different value depending on where it runs and for how long, so a number quoted before the usage is known is either meaningless or wrong. The way to get a fast, firm quote is to state the usage in the first message — media, territories, term, exclusivity — rather than asking what music costs in general.
Is it cheaper to license a library track?
Almost always at the outset. Whether it stays cheaper depends on the campaign: a licence is bounded by term and territory, so a long-running or expanding campaign can need re-clearing more than once, while a commissioned buyout has nothing further to pay.
What does Elephant Audio charge?
Pricing is quoted per project, because usage rather than duration is what sets it. Send the durations and versions you need, the platforms and territories, the term, and your deadline, and you get a firm figure rather than a range — normally within one working day.
Get a figure, not a range?
Send the durations and versions, the platforms and territories, the term, and your deadline. You get a firm number back — normally within one working day.
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