Tested and compiled by Vincent Wesley Couey and the Rinzara editorial team · 10 music platforms checked against the same release brief · methodology & sources · all terms read from vendor pages 2026-08-12.
What each tier grants
This page compares what the platforms themselves publish about commercial use on each tier. It is not a guide to copyright law, and it does not tell you whether an AI-generated track is protectable in your jurisdiction, because those are questions for a lawyer and for courts rather than for a comparison table. What follows is what you are buying, read from the vendors' own pages on 12 August 2026.
| Platform | Free tier rights | Paid from | Grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suno | No commercial use | Pro $8/mo | New songs made |
| Udio | Limited daily quota | Standard $8/mo | Check current terms |
| Soundraw | Preview only | Subscription | Royalty-free licence |
| Mubert | Attribution tier | Subscription | Per use case |
| Beatoven | Preview only | Subscription | Royalty-free licence |
| Suno and Udio, verified in detail | |||
| Suno Free | 50 credits daily | $0 | No commercial use |
| Suno Pro | 2,500 credits/mo | $8/mo annual | Commercial, new songs |
| Suno Premier | 10,000 credits/mo | $24/mo annual | Commercial, new songs |
| Udio Free | 100 credits/mo | $0 | Check current terms |
| Udio Standard | Higher limits | $8/mo annual | Check current terms |
| Udio Pro | 6,000 credits/mo | $24/mo annual | Check current terms |
Rights attach at generation, not at publication
Suno's paid tiers grant commercial use rights for new songs made. That phrasing is doing a lot of work, and it is the single most expensive detail on this page.
It means the licence attaches to tracks generated while you hold the subscription. A back catalogue produced on the free tier does not become commercially usable when you upgrade later. If you spent three months exploring on Suno's free plan and built up fifty tracks you now want to release, those fifty tracks were made under a tier that states no commercial use, and subscribing today does not reach backwards through them.
The practical consequence for anyone building a catalogue: subscribe before you generate anything you might want to release, even if you are only experimenting. At $8 a month billed annually the subscription is cheaper than regenerating a library, and vastly cheaper than discovering the problem after a distributor has already ingested the tracks.
The same logic is worth checking on every platform you use, because the alternative framing does exist: some services licence the output file at download time rather than tying rights to the generating account's plan. Which model a platform uses determines whether "upgrade later" is a viable strategy or a trap, and it is rarely stated on the pricing page. It belongs in the terms.
Download caps arrive on 3 September 2026, and they change catalogue planning
Suno's pricing page carries a dated policy change that has not yet taken effect. From 3 September 2026, monthly song downloads become capped:
- Free: no monthly song downloads.
- Pro at $8 a month: 20 song downloads per month.
- Premier at $24 a month: 60 song downloads per month.
Credits and downloads are separate quantities, and this is where the change bites. Pro includes 2,500 credits a month, which generates far more than twenty tracks. After 3 September you will therefore be able to generate considerably more music than you can take off the platform in the same month.
For anyone planning volume output this is a real constraint on the release schedule, not on the creative process. Sixty downloads a month at Premier is roughly two finished tracks a day, which is ample for most artists and restrictive for anyone producing a production-music library or a high-volume catalogue for sync.
Because this date is in the future, it is worth re-reading before you commit to an annual plan. A dated policy on a pricing page is a statement of intent, and intent can change in either direction. This page will be re-verified in September.
Suno and Udio are priced identically, so licensing is the tiebreaker
Read on the same day with the same billing toggle, the two market leaders land on exactly the same numbers.
- Suno: Pro $8 a month and Premier $24 a month, both billed annually, saving $24 and $72 a year respectively against monthly.
- Udio: Standard $8 a month billed annually at $96, and Pro $24 a month billed annually at $288, struck through from $10 and $30 monthly.
So the monthly equivalents are $10 and $30 on both platforms. When two competing products converge on identical price points, price stops being a decision input, and the comparison moves entirely to what each tier includes and what its licence permits.
On that axis the tiers differ meaningfully. Suno Pro includes 2,500 credits a month, two stem separation types, uploads up to 30 minutes of audio and the ability to add vocals or instrumentals to existing songs. Udio Pro includes 6,000 credits a month and up to 10 simultaneous generations. Suno Premier adds Suno Studio and a third stem separation mode. Stem separation in particular is worth weighing if the AI track is a starting point rather than a finished master, because it determines whether you can take the output into a DAW and rebuild it.
And the annual billing pattern holds here too. Every headline figure above assumes a yearly commitment, exactly as with the avatar and dubbing platforms. Set the toggle to monthly on both pages before comparing against anything else.
The royalty-free platforms solve a different problem
Suno and Udio are song generators aimed at producing finished tracks. A second group of platforms exists specifically to supply licensed background music, and for a lot of commercial work they are the better answer because licensing is the product rather than a tier feature.
- Soundraw generates royalty-free tracks built for video, with the licence as the central proposition rather than a plan attribute.
- Mubert structures licensing by use case, which suits anyone who needs different terms for a podcast, an ad and an app.
- Beatoven targets background scoring for video and podcasts.
- Loudly and Stable Audio both serve creators needing cleared music at volume.
- AIVA and Boomy approach composition and quick release respectively.
One change worth knowing about: riffusion.com now redirects to Flow Music, which presents as Google Flow Music and promotes a Lyria 3.5 model. If you are following an older recommendation to try Riffusion, that is where it goes now, and its terms should be read fresh rather than assumed from anything written about Riffusion previously.
The rule of thumb: if you need a song, use a song generator and buy the tier that licenses it. If you need music underneath something else, a royalty-free platform is usually cheaper, clearer and faster to clear.
For how the two leaders compare on output rather than licence, see our Suno vs Udio vs Riffusion comparison, and for the ranked field across the whole category see best AI music generators.
Get the AI music licensing sheet
Which tier grants commercial rights on each platform, whether rights are retroactive, what happens to your catalogue if you cancel, and the download caps arriving in September.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell music made with Suno?
Suno's paid tiers state commercial use rights for new songs made, so tracks generated while you hold a Pro or Premier subscription carry that grant. The free tier states no commercial use. The important detail is timing: the grant covers songs made while subscribed, which means a back catalogue produced on the free tier does not become commercially usable by upgrading afterwards. Subscribe before generating anything you intend to release, and read Suno's own terms page before publishing.
Does upgrading my plan make my old AI songs commercial?
Not on a platform whose licence attaches at generation time, which is how Suno's tier summary is worded. The rights follow the plan you held when the track was made, not the plan you hold when you publish it. Some other services licence the downloaded file at the point of download instead, in which case upgrading later can work. Which model applies is rarely stated on the pricing page and usually lives in the terms, so check there before relying on an upgrade to fix a free-tier catalogue.
How much does commercial AI music cost per month?
Suno Pro and Udio Standard are both $8 per month billed annually, and Suno Premier and Udio Pro are both $24 per month billed annually, which works out to $96 and $288 per year on Udio. Monthly billing is $10 and $30 on both platforms. The two market leaders have converged on identical price points, which means price is no longer a useful way to choose between them and licence terms and included features are.
What changes for Suno users in September 2026?
Suno's pricing page states that from 3 September 2026 monthly song downloads become capped: none on the free tier, 20 per month on Pro at $8, and 60 per month on Premier at $24. Credits are separate from downloads, and Pro includes 2,500 credits per month, so you will be able to generate substantially more music than you can download in the same month. This constrains release schedules rather than creative work, and it matters most for high-volume catalogue and sync production.
Is Riffusion still available?
riffusion.com now redirects to flowmusic.app, which presents as Google Flow Music and promotes a Lyria 3.5 model. Anything written about Riffusion as an independent product predates that change. If you are evaluating it today, read the current terms and pricing on the Flow Music site directly rather than relying on older comparisons, including any that still list Riffusion as a standalone option.