12 Royalty Free Background Music Sites for YouTube Videos

Before you begin your journey towards becoming the next breakout YouTube star, you need to figure out the best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos.

The thing about YouTube video bloggers like Casey Neistat is that their videos have a distinctive mood or vibe to it, which helps them to stand out from the crowd. While it’s hard to list all factors that go into creating this unique mood or vibe, the one thing that helps set the tone is Casey Neistat’s incredible choice of music. His background music tracks augment the experience of watching his videos, and with a little bit of work, you can also learn this invaluable skill set that can increase your view count and video popularity. If you want to learn a few more tricks of the trade, do check out our list of 10 Fastest Growing YouTube Channels in 2017.

But knowing this piece of information is only half the battle. The thing is, music isn’t always free, and it sure isn’t cheap. Even though you own the Drake’s latest tracks, you cannot use them in your video content without having to be obliged to pay the royalty for your use of Drake’s music to his record company. The same rule applies for using other people’s photographs as well, so you might want to check out our list of 10 Best Stock Photo Sites for Bloggers in case you are wondering where to get amazing photographs for use in your videos. So when you hear of a YouTube video being taken down for ‘copyright infringement,’ you can surmise that one of the possible reasons is that the YouTuber used background music or photographs without proper permission.

Thankfully, to make life easy for YouTubers, there exist a plethora of websites which offer background music for use in YouTube videos, without having to worry about paying royalties or copyright issues.

For our list, we snooped around on the Internet as well as within the local YouTube community to compile a list of the most popular websites for royalty free background music for YouTubers. We checked out various videos on YouTube by many people such as Roberto Blake and the Video Influencers. We also got suggestions from articles such as one from Ad Week. We filtered out this list by looking at the overall website analytics for each of these websites providing royalty free music for YouTube. The metrics we have looked at include Alexa’s global rank for websites, according to which we have ordered our list. Another metric that we included is the bounce rate, which is a percentage that indicates the number of users who exit the website after only viewing the homepage. Intuitively, you would want this number to be as low as possible, which will suggest the website is engaging and useful, such that more visitors tend to navigate beyond the homepage. We also look at the daily page views per visitor and the average daily time spent on site per visitor. All the above-mentioned statistics have been taken from Alexa and slight discrepancies may exist due to day-to-day variations in numbers. Also, in order to not misrepresent, we have deliberately given popular video and sound sites (YouTube, SoundCloud and iStockphoto) a lower ranking on our list, despite them having incredible web statistics because those statistics are primarily because of other users on these sites who go to these sites for purposes other than to get access to royalty-free music. So without further ado, let’s explore the best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos.

12. iStock photos music clips database

Global rank: 970
Bounce Rate: 47.80%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 5.42
Daily Time on Site: 3:58

The renowned iStock photo database has a subsidiary for music clips as well which can be used for getting royalty-free music. It is similar to AudioJungle, another website on our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos, in that it has a small fee attached. Because most visitors to the website are actually looking for pictures rather than music tracks, its website analytics are not much use to us in compiling our list. Once you sign up, you can download music with no copyright issues.

11. SoundCloud

Global rank: 113
Bounce Rate: 74.40%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 2.00
Daily Time on Site: 3:11

You can also use those music tracks uploaded on SoundCloud which are certified available for commercial creative commons use, which usually means that you can use the track as long as you give due credit to the original creator. A couple of problems with using SoundCloud is that firstly, some users don’t give you the option to download their tracks and secondly, as you might have noticed, some users upload songs to SoundCloud which they do not necessarily own and using such tracks means you run the risk of the original creator flagging your video for copyright or other related violations. Also, don’t be fooled by its high global ranking. That is in part because most visitors are just here to listen to tracks of their favorite indie artists. Those visitors aren’t interested in actually getting royalty free music for use in videos. These reasons combine to give SoundCloud a lower ranking on our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos.

10. YouTube Audio Library

Global rank: 2
Bounce Rate: 57.40%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 4.87
Daily Time on Site: 8:20

The great thing about YouTube, which is up next in our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos, is that it provides content creators with its own exhaustive source of royalty-free tracks and sound effects for use as background music. Its list can be filtered by instrument, mood, duration and whether or not you have to attribute the track to its original creator. We have deliberately kept this great option low on our list because this is one of the more obvious choices for YouTube creators. Of course, its high global ranking is not primarily because it’s a great place for royalty-free music, but because it is a great place to watch cool videos as well.

9. Synk.io

Global Rank: 1,657,774
Bounce Rate: 33.30%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 7.30
Daily Time on Site: 6:21

While this website also has features an option to filter playlists by mood, what makes Synkio.io unique is its value-added feature of being able to discuss the requirements for your video with their own music supervisor who can help you by recommending specific tracks which fit the style and tone of your video the best. This site is especially well-suited for those looking for free music for commercial use.

8. Purple Planet music

Global Rank: 73,890
Bounce Rate: 34.00%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 3.20
Daily Time on Site: 3:26

The stand-out feature for Purple Planet music which ranks 8th in our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos is that it curates playlists not just by genre but by mood, feel and tone which makes sifting through its database of tracks that much easier. The only thing they ask is that you credit the Purple Planet in your video’s description bar. You also have the option of editing or shortening the music track as per your requirements.

7. cc Mixter

Global rank: 61,496
Bounce Rate: 65.90%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 2.50
Daily Time on Site: 2:41

This old-school website which ranks 7th in our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos has been a long-time favorite for YouTube content creators looking for royalty-free tracks for their videos. It advertises itself as having its music tracks featured in “over a million videos and games,” and by the sheer breadth and variety of its music database, it is easy to see why this is one of the best places to go to for free royalty free music download.

6. Incompetech

Global rank: 16,812
Bounce Rate: 53.70%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 2.59
Daily Time on Site: 2:40

Ask any YouTuber about the best place to get royalty-free music for your videos and the option that comes up more often than not is Incompetech. Be warned though; due to its popularity and ubiquity, the soundtracks from this website are used by a host of aspiring YouTubers, so you run the risk of your videos sounding weirdly similar to other people’s videos.

5. Bensound

Global Rank: 16,564
Bounce Rate: 39.20%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 3.73
Daily Time on Site: 4:05

The Bensound ranks 5th in our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos. It is another great source for royalty-free tracks. It only asks that you credit the source in your videos, making it a great place for free downloads of royalty free background music. Other than that, there are paid options for those who want advanced options.

4. Epidemic Sound

Global rank: 13,330
Bounce Rate: 56.00%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 3.12
Daily Time on Site: 3:04

Next in line in our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos is Epidemic Sound which has the added benefit that users can sign up for a 30-day free trial so that you can better acquaint yourself with the website before you have to subscribe to use its database. This will give you ample time to determine whether or not this website has the sort of royalty-free tracks for your YouTube video that you are after.

3. AudioBlocks

Global rank: 12,223
Bounce Rate: 40.80%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 3.50
Daily Time on Site: 4:01

While AudioBlocks costs a little more than most options in our list, the great thing about this website is the high quality of its database which is perfect for advanced content creators who are downloading multiple music tracks every day. That’s why the site has almost 25 million music track downloads to its credit to date. You can also get to save loads if you go for one of their annual payment plans.

2. AudioJungle

Global rank: around 4,794
Bounce Rate: around 40%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: around 4.10
Daily Time on Site: around 7:50

We are continuing our list of best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos with AudioJungle which has a wide variety of music tracks and sound effects, but the catch is that there is a small fee that you will have to pay before you can access their royalty-free tracks for use in your videos. The good news is that they have amazing discounts on bundles and their prices are generally quite cheap which make it a favorite for content creators looking for hassle-free access to royalty-free music. This is why Audio Jungle has one of the highest global rankings on our list.

1. Premium Beat

Global rank:  6,796
Bounce Rate: 69.40%
Daily Pageviews per Visitor: 2.02
Daily Time on Site: 2:27

The Premium Beat is where the pros go for all their background scores and sound effects. This site takes care of all their needs for royalty-free music for videos. The obvious downside is that this website is one of the more expensive options on our list but you get what you pay for, and you can rest assured that Premium beat beats out the competition in terms of the quality of tracks on offer.

This concludes our list of the best royalty free background music sites for YouTube videos. Please keep in mind that royalty-free music doesn’t necessarily mean that the music track is ‘free’ to use. With most royalty-free music, there is a one-time fee attached which allows gives a lifetime access to use the track in your videos, without having to worry about recurring payments to the original creator of the music track. To make sure you steer clear of the danger of having your YouTube video flagged for any copyright infringements, make sure you read the fine print on the permissions granted to you for your chosen music track with regards to its commercial use. Having said that, all the best for your YouTube career!