# Top non-exclusive royalty free music libraries



## SBK (Mar 26, 2017)

Hi guys, I was wondering because they are hundreds of them..
Which are your top non exclusive music libraries for you?

I know Pond5 and Audiojungle

- Pond5 has non-exclusive 50% share
- Audiojungle on non-exclusive 35% share

This must be pretty useful to share your opinion for non exclusive mostly libraries 
Cheers!


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## Desire Inspires (Mar 26, 2017)

Forget Audiojungle. The prices are way too low. Plus you only get 35% of the payout. That is total robbery!

I would go with Pond5 since I can set my prices to a respectable level and get 50% of the payout.

Many of the other sites just don't have enough traffic, pay less than 50%, exclude other libraries, are exclusive only, or have other issues which make them a less desirable option.

I often hear about "so and so made 60K last year from such and such library, so I’m going there!". But you have to look at the whole picture.

Don't just rush and upload your music to sites with low traffic, low payouts, or awful user interfaces. I would say that an easy way to determine if a royalty free site has value is to search for music and make a purchase or two. If you as a customer have a bad experience, just imagine how the composers feel!


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## SBK (Mar 26, 2017)

Hey! Are only these two libraries out there with high traffic and have also non-exclusive? There should have been some more for sure, maybe with med traffic at least. ?


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## dannymc (Mar 26, 2017)

you could try audiosparx. i've never sold anything there but they apparently get good traffic and some composers do well here clearing 20k a year. imo though there is waaaaaaay too much content on there at this stage and its quality is all over the place. some high quality stuff some really bad stuff that shouldn't be still up there. but its a nice site and the people who run it are very nice and helpful. 

i would second looking at pond 5 they are a great RF library. 

Danny


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## SBK (Mar 27, 2017)

Are there not anymore non-exclusive libraries? I am surprised...


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## ghostnote (Mar 28, 2017)

I remember the days where it was unthinkable to mention any of those libraries here on VI Control.


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## dannymc (Mar 28, 2017)

> I remember the days where it was unthinkable to mention any of those libraries here on VI Control.



why's that? 

Danny


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## Puzzlefactory (Mar 28, 2017)

So how come tracks are sold so much cheaper on AJ? Do they get more traffic?


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## zacnelson (Mar 28, 2017)

There's really only 2 sites in the non-excl RF market, P5 and AudioJungle.


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## Desire Inspires (Mar 28, 2017)

The royalty free market is just another way for composers to make money from their music. There is nothing wrong with making money from one's music. Don't let the status of a music library fool you.


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## Puzzlefactory (Mar 29, 2017)

Looks like musicdealers.com is back up again...


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## jacobthestupendous (Mar 29, 2017)

Looking at Pond5 for the first time this morning. I see a lot of comments about long wait times after submission (2 months or more for videos - yikes!); what's a typical submission review time for submitted music?


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## Jaap (Mar 29, 2017)

jacobthestupendous said:


> Looking at Pond5 for the first time this morning. I see a lot of comments about long wait times after submission (2 months or more for videos - yikes!); what's a typical submission review time for submitted music?



My latest batch of music was reviewed in 2 days


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## zacnelson (Mar 29, 2017)

jacobthestupendous said:


> Looking at Pond5 for the first time this morning. I see a lot of comments about long wait times after submission (2 months or more for videos - yikes!); what's a typical submission review time for submitted music?


It varies; sometimes 1 day, sometimes a fortnight


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## dannymc (Mar 29, 2017)

> Looking at Pond5 for the first time this morning. I see a lot of comments about long wait times after submission (2 months or more for videos - yikes!); what's a typical submission review time for submitted music?



haven't uploaded here in 6months or so but when i did it was always about 2 days for me. maybe things have changed recently with too many submissions. 

Danny


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## mwarsell (Mar 31, 2017)

dannymc said:


> you could try audiosparx. i've never sold anything there but they apparently get good traffic and some composers do well here clearing 20k a year. imo though there is waaaaaaay too much content on there at this stage and its quality is all over the place. some high quality stuff some really bad stuff that shouldn't be still up there. but its a nice site and the people who run it are very nice and helpful.
> 
> i would second looking at pond 5 they are a great RF library.
> 
> Danny



I have some ancient tracks on Audiosparx. Haven't sent them anything in years. However, maybe 1-2 a year I get an email from them about a sale. Usually a $200-300 license, of which I get to keep the amazing 40%.

The tracks which I've sold are usually horrible imo.


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## mwarsell (Mar 31, 2017)

If you send to Audiosparx, make sure to name, describe and tag your tracks as accurately as possible. I had one track called "A tender kiss on the cheek" and I'm certain that it got sold just because of the title.


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## Valérie_D (Apr 14, 2017)

I did not send my driver's license to any member of Pond 5 when I opened my account. No one has the right to ask you that.


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## dannymc (Apr 14, 2017)

> To sell on pond 5 it asked me
> 
> Maybe their verification procedures are different now than when you opened an account?



i presume you mean you just scanned a picture of your drivers license and uploaded rather than sending your actual license that would be crazy.

anyway i had to do the same, it was a recent change early last year i think. shouldn't take too long. anyway email pond 5, might be hard to believe but they do respond to emails.

Danny


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## muk (Apr 15, 2017)

As far as I gathered there were problems with people ripping random pieces of music from the internet, and then selling them on royalty free libraries as their own. Quite a few of the royalty free libraries were/are facing litigation because of that. Maybe that's why they check the identity of new members now.


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## Puzzlefactory (Apr 15, 2017)

That's what I heard too. 

It still goes on now anyway. To put a preview track on AJ you have to put an audio watermark on it.

People have been finding YouTube videos with tracks ripped from the site, watermarks and all.


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## FrontierSoundFX (Jan 3, 2019)

AudioJungle has recently opened up the pricing system(2018) to allow contributors to set their own price, like Pond5 and many others do already. I've experimented with a couple of these stock audio libraries (AJ, Pond5, AudioMicro, ProductionTrax). I tracked the sales data from each, and its clear that Pond5 and AudioJungle are the leading two companies in terms of customers/sales.


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## FrontierSoundFX (Jan 24, 2019)

Puzzlefactory said:


> So how come tracks are sold so much cheaper on AJ? Do they get more traffic?



AudioJungle does receive a ton of traffic.


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## Desire Inspires (Jun 23, 2019)

mwarsell said:


> The tracks which I've sold are usually horrible imo.



Well, keep selling them. Don’t let “quality” stop you from getting money.


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## ReelToLogic (Jun 23, 2019)

I just went to Pond5 to check it out. It's a nice site, but in the "classical" category alone there were over 40,000 pieces of music, and the default display order was by "most popular". It must be hard for a new artist to ever get noticed.


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## Desire Inspires (Jun 23, 2019)

ReelToLogic said:


> I just went to Pond5 to check it out. It's a nice site, but in the "classical" category alone there were over 40,000 pieces of music, and the default display order was by "most popular". It must be hard for a new artist to ever get noticed.



Not really. Just upload 20,000 of those 40,000 pieces and you have a shot!

Honestly, it takes a ton of music and a ton of work to get noticed. But a composer should just buckle down and do the work to make things happen. Or a composer can just get a day job and relax.....


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## dannymc (Jun 24, 2019)

ReelToLogic said:


> I just went to Pond5 to check it out. It's a nice site, but in the "classical" category alone there were over 40,000 pieces of music, and the default display order was by "most popular". It must be hard for a new artist to ever get noticed.



i wouldn't let the amount of tracks put you off. good music with even better metadata can get you sales at these places. you can make sales at these places with a dozen tracks. obviously its not gonna amount to a career but there are only a handful of people who make their livings working at this end of the licensing business.

Danny


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## J-M (Jun 24, 2019)

ReelToLogic said:


> I just went to Pond5 to check it out. It's a nice site, but in the "classical" category alone there were over 40,000 pieces of music, and the default display order was by "most popular". It must be hard for a new artist to ever get noticed.



Don't get discouraged, obviously if you want to make proper money from places like Pond5 you need to put in the hours. I have about a dozen of tracks there (with good metadata and stems) and my page gets viewed quite often and I get a sale every now and then. I shifted my focus to bigger libraries, but if you upload (good!) music to Pond5 regularly you will get results.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 24, 2019)

ReelToLogic said:


> I just went to Pond5 to check it out. It's a nice site, but in the "classical" category alone there were over 40,000 pieces of music, and the default display order was by "most popular". It must be hard for a new artist to ever get noticed.



I have just over 50 tracks on there, and actually have a lot of activity. Like @dannymc mentioned, it pays off to get strategic with your metadata.


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