Cutting-Edge Royalty-Free Music Platforms for Content Makers

15 Best Sites to Find & Download Royalty-Free Music for YouTube

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Choosing great royalty-free music for your YouTube videos will help put your audience in the right frame of mind, cover up flaws in your background audio, and help viewers feel more engaged with your content.

YouTube provides a free audio library, but since a lot of creators use it everyone’s videos can start to sound the same. Here are 15 alternative places where you can get royalty-free music for free! It’ll say at the beginning of every section whether they require attribution or allow commercial use.

Best Sites for Royalty-Free Music for YouTube Creators [Free Download]

If you are using Wondershare Filmora video editor , you will find there are some royalty-free music tracks and sound effects already pre-programmed in the Audio library. You will find different styles of music tacks, varying from Young & Bright to Electronic. Download Filmora, and you will get the royalty-free audio library and powerful video editing tools.

1. Audionautix

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the site with ‘music by audionautix.com’ if you want to use this music (if you have a website, they ask that you include a link back to them).

Paid Options? No. All of the music on this site is free.

One of the first things you’ll see when you arrive on Audiionautix is a ‘YouTube Friendly’ button. They know that most people browsing their music library are looking for songs for YouTube videos, and that want you to know their music is safe from copyright claims.

All of the music in the Audionautix collection was created by one man, Jason Shaw, but there’s still a huge variety of tracks.

On the front page of Audionautix, there are three selections you can make to start your music search – genre, mood, and tempo. Genres range from hard rock to bluegrass to techno (there are 28 genres in total), and the moods include things like ‘uplifting’, ‘evil’, and ‘bouncy’ (there are 37 of those). The tempos are fast, medium, and slow. So, if you want a medium-tempo acoustic song with a calming mood, you can easily find all of the songs that meet those qualifications.

Not every combination will deliver results, so it can be easier to just choose two of the three search parameters.

2. Bensound

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must include one of the following in your video description: “Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music” or “Music: Song title - Bensound.com”

Paid Options? Yes. If you don’t want to credit Bensound (or can’t for some reason) then you need to purchase a license. Licensing starts at about $28 USD (price listed as €24) per track.

The most popular music from Bensound is displayed on the first page. Beyond the titles of the tracks, each has a short description that will give you a good idea of what to expect from the song before you listen. You’ll need to listen to a song to know if you want it, but the descriptions are a fast way to figure out if you don’t want something. For example, ‘A New Beginning’ could be anything based on that title, but the description lets you know it’s ‘punk rock’ with an ‘epic/achievement’ feeling.

You can narrow down the music you are shown by choosing a genre from the menu near the top of your page (there are 8 genres including cinematic, electronica, and corporate/pop). There’s also a search bar, and you can choose whether to display popular or new songs first.

All of the music on Bensound was created by Benjamin TISSOT, a composer based in France. He has been creating music for over 10 years.

3. dig.ccMixter

Commercial Use? Depends. Some songs are available for commercial use, some are not. It is easy to search only for songs which are.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the musicians.

Paid Options? Yes. You can purchase licenses to get around commercial use or attribution restrictions. Personal licenses are $22 USD.

Musicians upload their work to ccMixter and make it available to creators like you at dig.ccMixter. Over 45,000 musicians have participated and this has resulted in a huge variety of music for you to discover.

Clicking ‘tag search’ at the top of the page is probably the best way to start your search. The ‘tags’ are displayed in three categories – genre, instrument, and style. You can click as many tags as you want from each category (i.e. you can check off ‘classical’ for the genre and then both bass and cello for instruments).

By default, your search will return results that have even just one of the tags you selected, but you can click ‘match all’ to see results that include all of your selected tags.

To the right of the screen, there’s a button called ‘filters’ and if you click it it’ll let you narrow your results by license (you can choose to only browse music that is free for commercial use). You can also specify if you only want instrumental songs.

If you do not use the ‘free for commercial use’ filter then you will need to click on songs to see whether their creative commons licenses allow commercial use.

If you’re an indie game developer, they have a Music for Video Games section for you too.

4. Free Music Archive

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

There is a huge selection on Free Music Archive (they include songs curated by other sites, including other sites on this list), but using this site can be a bit trickier than using other sites because there are so many different licenses at play. There are even several licenses that do not allow songs to be used in YouTube videos (any Creative Commons license with ‘ND / No Derivatives’ will not allow for use in a video). You should read this page before downloading anything from the Free Music Archive to use on YouTube.

To start browsing Free Music Archive for music you can use for your videos, go to ‘Curators’ in the top menu, and select ‘Music for Video’. There’s no point in browsing music you might not be allowed to use for YouTube, and so the site has made it easy to find the music you can.

By default this screen will not include music you can use commercially, so you need to check ‘allows for commercial use’ in the side menu if that’s important to you. You can also select a genre and specify if you only want instrumental songs.

5. Free Stock Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

Simply choose a genre from the ‘Free Music’ drop-down menu to start browsing Free Stock Music’s collection. There are 10 genres including Pop, Hip Hop, and Corporate.

There are not a lot of ways to customize your search results on this site. You just can search for a keyword, like ‘happy’, but you can’t narrow your results down by things like instrument or mood like you can on some other sites. You just have to scroll through either your search results or the chosen genre until you find something.

To make it a bit easier, Free Stock Music has included detailed descriptions of each song you can read while your browsing and these descriptions do tend to include details about instruments and the moods of the songs.

You need to create a free account on Free Stock Music to access their songs.

6. Incompetech

Commercial Use? YouTube monetization allowed. Other kinds of commercial use may be restricted.

Attribution Required? Yes. You can put the attribution in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot (or do not want to) credit Incompetech then you can purchase a license instead. Licensing 1 piece of music costs $30.

Incompetech allows you to browse one of three ways. The ‘Full Search’ will be best for most people, but if you want to see every song in alphabetical order you can click on ‘Full List’, or you can browse collections like ‘Comedic’ in ‘View Collections’ (but not every piece of music on the site can be found in a collection).

If you go into ‘Full Search’ you’ll see a list of all the music and be able to filter it by feel, tempo, genre, and length. For example, you could set ‘Feels’ to ‘Grooving’ or ‘Length’ to ‘3:00-3:29’.

You can also use the search bar to look for an instrument or song title.

Clicking Expand All will reveal descriptions of all the songs and a ‘listen now’ button, but it will stretch the page a lot. You can see more details about individual songs, and listen to them, by clicking on the title. You won’t be taken to a new page, which is convenient.

You can also download all the music at once (by clicking ‘download all the music on this site at once’).

7. Josh Woodward

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Attribution goes in your description box and it should look like this: Music - “SONG TITLE HERE” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot give Josh credit for some reason you can buy a single-song license for $30.

Josh Woodward is a singer-songwriter who has chosen to allow the free use of all his music (although he does appreciate donations).

You’ll immediately see a list of music on Josh’s site (not everything, there are over 200 songs on this site), and you can change what is displayed by using the filters on the right of the page. The filters available are Playlist, Genre, Album, Tags, Tempo, and Length.

The playlists are songs that have been bundled together around a theme like ‘fun and fast’ or ‘popular in videos’.

There are nine genres to choose from including ‘dark acoustic’ and ‘Americana’.

The albums are albums that Josh has released.

You can also search the song titles and lyrics by typing keywords into the search bar.

At the top of the page, there’s a player you can use to preview the songs, and you can choose whether to browse vocal songs or songs with lyrics (the results below may not appear to change, but if you use the player you’ll hear the instrumental version instead of the version with vocals).

8. Looperman

Commercial Use? Allowed for loops, but they make no guarantees.

Attribution Required? Unclear. The site doesn’t address attribution so it may be up to whoever has uploaded the loop you want to use.

Paid Options? No.

Looperman is a community for musicians. The goal is to provide instrumental loops and acapella vocals to other musicians for their own projects. In theory, all of the music loops and sounds are completely free to use in your projects, but since it’s a community they cannot guarantee that a user hasn’t uploaded something they don’t own (they aren’t allowed to, so in theory you should be safe, but the site doesn’t make any guarantees).

If you want to use vocals it seems like you have to talk to the person who owns the vocals about whether you can use them commercially or whether you need to include attribution.

9. Moby Gratis

Commercial Use? Never allowed. You cannot make money from the project you use this music in any way, including YouTube monetization or through a service like Patreon.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put this in your video description: Music: [Track Name] by Moby courtesy of Mobygratis.com

Paid Options? No.

Moby is a Grammy-nominated, VMA-winning, artist whose work you have probably heard on the radio. Even if you aren’t familiar with Moby himself, he has co-written, produced, and remixed music for other major artists like David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses, and Daft Punk.

Moby has chosen to make a catalog of his work available to independent filmmakers for non-commercial projects. Not all of the music provided on the site is available for YouTube, only the music marked Unreleased (if it has been released, then it will be flagged by YouTube’s copyright system). There is a lot of music under the ‘Unreleased’ category, though.

In order to download songs, you will need to make an account, and it takes about 24 hours for your account to be approved.

10. Musopen

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song

Paid Options? No.

Musopen provides music that is either in the ‘public domain’, or protected by Creative Commons licenses. If it’s in the public domain that means that nobody owns the copyright and anyone can use it for anything (however, Musopen does warn that they do not review uploads from their users so it is possible that someone could upload something they claim is public domain and be lying or wrong).

Creative Commons licenses all have their own conditions. Some may block commercial use, some may require attribution. The ones you need to watch out for as a video creator are the ones marked ‘No Derivatives’, because you can’t use songs licensed this way in videos.

You can start using Musopen by typing a keyword into the search bar on the main page, or scrolling down to select ‘Browse royalty free music recordings’. Besides music recordings, Musopen provides sheet music. If you have some musical talent and want to record your own music for your videos then this might be useful. If not, you probably want to stick to the recordings.

If you click on the Music Discovery Tool you’ll be able to search the recordings not only by instrument, but by license (so you can make sure you’re only looking at music that is in the public domain, or make sure you’re not looking at anything with that ‘No Derivatives’ condition.

11. TeknoAXE

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes.

Paid Options? No.

All of the music on TeknoAXE is covered under a CC4.0 license, which means you can share and adapt the music for any purpose so long as you provide attribution.

TeknoAXE’s music is divided into four categories: electronic dance music, rock and metal music, orchestra and soundtrack, and miscellaneous. There are several sub-categories under every category.

Once you’ve clicked into subcategory you’ll see thumbnails for every song in the category. Click on one to be taken to the song’s page, where you can listen to it before you decide if you want to download.

There are tons of places where you can find great royalty-free music you can use on YouTube, so start hunting! Finding the perfect song for that cool montage you’ve got planned, your intro sequence, or the background of your vlog will take your content to a new level of quality.

12. PacDV

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Music by <www.pacdv.com/sounds/>

Paid Options? No.

PacDV is primarily a sound effects site, but they have a music section as well (just click Music in the menu to the left under Sound Effects. ‘Free Music’ under resources is a completely different site). There is no way to filter down the music, and there is no search function.

There is a column in the list of music for ‘moods/emotions’, so you can get an idea of which songs you might want to listen to before you click to their pages.

13. Partners In Rhyme

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Credit them in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. You can’t buy a license for free songs to get around attribution, but they do offer paid music. At $100 or more per song, their paid music is outside the budget of most YouTubers.

Partners In Rhyme is mostly a paid site, and they’re at the pricier end of the spectrum for paid sites. The reason they’re included on this list is that they have kindly curated a selection of free music for use on YouTube or in projects like podcasts (the link above will take you to the free page, not the site in general).

There isn’t a search function for the free music, or a way to narrow down what’s displayed, but you can click the play button next to any title to hear what the song sounds like. To download, just right click and choose ‘save file’ or ‘save target as’.

14. Purple Planet Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put ‘Music: http://www.purple-planet.com’ in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you want to use the music for anything besides YouTube, or if you don’t want to give them credit, then you can buy a license for $5.

Purple Planet Music is a team of three people, two of whom compose, perform, record, and produce all of the music you’ll find on this site (the third is the studio manager).

From the home page of Purple Planet choose one of the categories listed under ‘Royalty Free Music’. The categories are more related to moods than genres and include things like ‘cute’, ‘sneaky’, and ‘reflective’. Because they know you may want to use this music in film projects, you can even find categories like ‘dark backgrounds’.

Once you click into a category everything is listed, you can’t narrow your results. There’s not an overwhelming number of songs in each category, though, so it’s easy to choose something just by reading descriptions and listening to what’s there.

15. Sounds Crate

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? Yes. You can upgrade to a Pro account for $49 per year to access more content.

Sounds Crate has music and sound effects. After you click into music, you’ll see thumbnails for sections related to a number of themes such as action music, corporate music, and hip hop. You’ll be able to preview and download all the songs in the category once you’re on the category page.

You are only allowed 5 downloads per day while you’re using Sounds Crate for free. They also request a $10 annual donation from free users, but it’s optional.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Choosing great royalty-free music for your YouTube videos will help put your audience in the right frame of mind, cover up flaws in your background audio, and help viewers feel more engaged with your content.

YouTube provides a free audio library, but since a lot of creators use it everyone’s videos can start to sound the same. Here are 15 alternative places where you can get royalty-free music for free! It’ll say at the beginning of every section whether they require attribution or allow commercial use.

Best Sites for Royalty-Free Music for YouTube Creators [Free Download]

If you are using Wondershare Filmora video editor , you will find there are some royalty-free music tracks and sound effects already pre-programmed in the Audio library. You will find different styles of music tacks, varying from Young & Bright to Electronic. Download Filmora, and you will get the royalty-free audio library and powerful video editing tools.

1. Audionautix

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the site with ‘music by audionautix.com’ if you want to use this music (if you have a website, they ask that you include a link back to them).

Paid Options? No. All of the music on this site is free.

One of the first things you’ll see when you arrive on Audiionautix is a ‘YouTube Friendly’ button. They know that most people browsing their music library are looking for songs for YouTube videos, and that want you to know their music is safe from copyright claims.

All of the music in the Audionautix collection was created by one man, Jason Shaw, but there’s still a huge variety of tracks.

On the front page of Audionautix, there are three selections you can make to start your music search – genre, mood, and tempo. Genres range from hard rock to bluegrass to techno (there are 28 genres in total), and the moods include things like ‘uplifting’, ‘evil’, and ‘bouncy’ (there are 37 of those). The tempos are fast, medium, and slow. So, if you want a medium-tempo acoustic song with a calming mood, you can easily find all of the songs that meet those qualifications.

Not every combination will deliver results, so it can be easier to just choose two of the three search parameters.

2. Bensound

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must include one of the following in your video description: “Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music” or “Music: Song title - Bensound.com”

Paid Options? Yes. If you don’t want to credit Bensound (or can’t for some reason) then you need to purchase a license. Licensing starts at about $28 USD (price listed as €24) per track.

The most popular music from Bensound is displayed on the first page. Beyond the titles of the tracks, each has a short description that will give you a good idea of what to expect from the song before you listen. You’ll need to listen to a song to know if you want it, but the descriptions are a fast way to figure out if you don’t want something. For example, ‘A New Beginning’ could be anything based on that title, but the description lets you know it’s ‘punk rock’ with an ‘epic/achievement’ feeling.

You can narrow down the music you are shown by choosing a genre from the menu near the top of your page (there are 8 genres including cinematic, electronica, and corporate/pop). There’s also a search bar, and you can choose whether to display popular or new songs first.

All of the music on Bensound was created by Benjamin TISSOT, a composer based in France. He has been creating music for over 10 years.

3. dig.ccMixter

Commercial Use? Depends. Some songs are available for commercial use, some are not. It is easy to search only for songs which are.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the musicians.

Paid Options? Yes. You can purchase licenses to get around commercial use or attribution restrictions. Personal licenses are $22 USD.

Musicians upload their work to ccMixter and make it available to creators like you at dig.ccMixter. Over 45,000 musicians have participated and this has resulted in a huge variety of music for you to discover.

Clicking ‘tag search’ at the top of the page is probably the best way to start your search. The ‘tags’ are displayed in three categories – genre, instrument, and style. You can click as many tags as you want from each category (i.e. you can check off ‘classical’ for the genre and then both bass and cello for instruments).

By default, your search will return results that have even just one of the tags you selected, but you can click ‘match all’ to see results that include all of your selected tags.

To the right of the screen, there’s a button called ‘filters’ and if you click it it’ll let you narrow your results by license (you can choose to only browse music that is free for commercial use). You can also specify if you only want instrumental songs.

If you do not use the ‘free for commercial use’ filter then you will need to click on songs to see whether their creative commons licenses allow commercial use.

If you’re an indie game developer, they have a Music for Video Games section for you too.

4. Free Music Archive

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

There is a huge selection on Free Music Archive (they include songs curated by other sites, including other sites on this list), but using this site can be a bit trickier than using other sites because there are so many different licenses at play. There are even several licenses that do not allow songs to be used in YouTube videos (any Creative Commons license with ‘ND / No Derivatives’ will not allow for use in a video). You should read this page before downloading anything from the Free Music Archive to use on YouTube.

To start browsing Free Music Archive for music you can use for your videos, go to ‘Curators’ in the top menu, and select ‘Music for Video’. There’s no point in browsing music you might not be allowed to use for YouTube, and so the site has made it easy to find the music you can.

By default this screen will not include music you can use commercially, so you need to check ‘allows for commercial use’ in the side menu if that’s important to you. You can also select a genre and specify if you only want instrumental songs.

5. Free Stock Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

Simply choose a genre from the ‘Free Music’ drop-down menu to start browsing Free Stock Music’s collection. There are 10 genres including Pop, Hip Hop, and Corporate.

There are not a lot of ways to customize your search results on this site. You just can search for a keyword, like ‘happy’, but you can’t narrow your results down by things like instrument or mood like you can on some other sites. You just have to scroll through either your search results or the chosen genre until you find something.

To make it a bit easier, Free Stock Music has included detailed descriptions of each song you can read while your browsing and these descriptions do tend to include details about instruments and the moods of the songs.

You need to create a free account on Free Stock Music to access their songs.

6. Incompetech

Commercial Use? YouTube monetization allowed. Other kinds of commercial use may be restricted.

Attribution Required? Yes. You can put the attribution in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot (or do not want to) credit Incompetech then you can purchase a license instead. Licensing 1 piece of music costs $30.

Incompetech allows you to browse one of three ways. The ‘Full Search’ will be best for most people, but if you want to see every song in alphabetical order you can click on ‘Full List’, or you can browse collections like ‘Comedic’ in ‘View Collections’ (but not every piece of music on the site can be found in a collection).

If you go into ‘Full Search’ you’ll see a list of all the music and be able to filter it by feel, tempo, genre, and length. For example, you could set ‘Feels’ to ‘Grooving’ or ‘Length’ to ‘3:00-3:29’.

You can also use the search bar to look for an instrument or song title.

Clicking Expand All will reveal descriptions of all the songs and a ‘listen now’ button, but it will stretch the page a lot. You can see more details about individual songs, and listen to them, by clicking on the title. You won’t be taken to a new page, which is convenient.

You can also download all the music at once (by clicking ‘download all the music on this site at once’).

7. Josh Woodward

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Attribution goes in your description box and it should look like this: Music - “SONG TITLE HERE” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot give Josh credit for some reason you can buy a single-song license for $30.

Josh Woodward is a singer-songwriter who has chosen to allow the free use of all his music (although he does appreciate donations).

You’ll immediately see a list of music on Josh’s site (not everything, there are over 200 songs on this site), and you can change what is displayed by using the filters on the right of the page. The filters available are Playlist, Genre, Album, Tags, Tempo, and Length.

The playlists are songs that have been bundled together around a theme like ‘fun and fast’ or ‘popular in videos’.

There are nine genres to choose from including ‘dark acoustic’ and ‘Americana’.

The albums are albums that Josh has released.

You can also search the song titles and lyrics by typing keywords into the search bar.

At the top of the page, there’s a player you can use to preview the songs, and you can choose whether to browse vocal songs or songs with lyrics (the results below may not appear to change, but if you use the player you’ll hear the instrumental version instead of the version with vocals).

8. Looperman

Commercial Use? Allowed for loops, but they make no guarantees.

Attribution Required? Unclear. The site doesn’t address attribution so it may be up to whoever has uploaded the loop you want to use.

Paid Options? No.

Looperman is a community for musicians. The goal is to provide instrumental loops and acapella vocals to other musicians for their own projects. In theory, all of the music loops and sounds are completely free to use in your projects, but since it’s a community they cannot guarantee that a user hasn’t uploaded something they don’t own (they aren’t allowed to, so in theory you should be safe, but the site doesn’t make any guarantees).

If you want to use vocals it seems like you have to talk to the person who owns the vocals about whether you can use them commercially or whether you need to include attribution.

9. Moby Gratis

Commercial Use? Never allowed. You cannot make money from the project you use this music in any way, including YouTube monetization or through a service like Patreon.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put this in your video description: Music: [Track Name] by Moby courtesy of Mobygratis.com

Paid Options? No.

Moby is a Grammy-nominated, VMA-winning, artist whose work you have probably heard on the radio. Even if you aren’t familiar with Moby himself, he has co-written, produced, and remixed music for other major artists like David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses, and Daft Punk.

Moby has chosen to make a catalog of his work available to independent filmmakers for non-commercial projects. Not all of the music provided on the site is available for YouTube, only the music marked Unreleased (if it has been released, then it will be flagged by YouTube’s copyright system). There is a lot of music under the ‘Unreleased’ category, though.

In order to download songs, you will need to make an account, and it takes about 24 hours for your account to be approved.

10. Musopen

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song

Paid Options? No.

Musopen provides music that is either in the ‘public domain’, or protected by Creative Commons licenses. If it’s in the public domain that means that nobody owns the copyright and anyone can use it for anything (however, Musopen does warn that they do not review uploads from their users so it is possible that someone could upload something they claim is public domain and be lying or wrong).

Creative Commons licenses all have their own conditions. Some may block commercial use, some may require attribution. The ones you need to watch out for as a video creator are the ones marked ‘No Derivatives’, because you can’t use songs licensed this way in videos.

You can start using Musopen by typing a keyword into the search bar on the main page, or scrolling down to select ‘Browse royalty free music recordings’. Besides music recordings, Musopen provides sheet music. If you have some musical talent and want to record your own music for your videos then this might be useful. If not, you probably want to stick to the recordings.

If you click on the Music Discovery Tool you’ll be able to search the recordings not only by instrument, but by license (so you can make sure you’re only looking at music that is in the public domain, or make sure you’re not looking at anything with that ‘No Derivatives’ condition.

11. TeknoAXE

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes.

Paid Options? No.

All of the music on TeknoAXE is covered under a CC4.0 license, which means you can share and adapt the music for any purpose so long as you provide attribution.

TeknoAXE’s music is divided into four categories: electronic dance music, rock and metal music, orchestra and soundtrack, and miscellaneous. There are several sub-categories under every category.

Once you’ve clicked into subcategory you’ll see thumbnails for every song in the category. Click on one to be taken to the song’s page, where you can listen to it before you decide if you want to download.

There are tons of places where you can find great royalty-free music you can use on YouTube, so start hunting! Finding the perfect song for that cool montage you’ve got planned, your intro sequence, or the background of your vlog will take your content to a new level of quality.

12. PacDV

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Music by <www.pacdv.com/sounds/>

Paid Options? No.

PacDV is primarily a sound effects site, but they have a music section as well (just click Music in the menu to the left under Sound Effects. ‘Free Music’ under resources is a completely different site). There is no way to filter down the music, and there is no search function.

There is a column in the list of music for ‘moods/emotions’, so you can get an idea of which songs you might want to listen to before you click to their pages.

13. Partners In Rhyme

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Credit them in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. You can’t buy a license for free songs to get around attribution, but they do offer paid music. At $100 or more per song, their paid music is outside the budget of most YouTubers.

Partners In Rhyme is mostly a paid site, and they’re at the pricier end of the spectrum for paid sites. The reason they’re included on this list is that they have kindly curated a selection of free music for use on YouTube or in projects like podcasts (the link above will take you to the free page, not the site in general).

There isn’t a search function for the free music, or a way to narrow down what’s displayed, but you can click the play button next to any title to hear what the song sounds like. To download, just right click and choose ‘save file’ or ‘save target as’.

14. Purple Planet Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put ‘Music: http://www.purple-planet.com’ in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you want to use the music for anything besides YouTube, or if you don’t want to give them credit, then you can buy a license for $5.

Purple Planet Music is a team of three people, two of whom compose, perform, record, and produce all of the music you’ll find on this site (the third is the studio manager).

From the home page of Purple Planet choose one of the categories listed under ‘Royalty Free Music’. The categories are more related to moods than genres and include things like ‘cute’, ‘sneaky’, and ‘reflective’. Because they know you may want to use this music in film projects, you can even find categories like ‘dark backgrounds’.

Once you click into a category everything is listed, you can’t narrow your results. There’s not an overwhelming number of songs in each category, though, so it’s easy to choose something just by reading descriptions and listening to what’s there.

15. Sounds Crate

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? Yes. You can upgrade to a Pro account for $49 per year to access more content.

Sounds Crate has music and sound effects. After you click into music, you’ll see thumbnails for sections related to a number of themes such as action music, corporate music, and hip hop. You’ll be able to preview and download all the songs in the category once you’re on the category page.

You are only allowed 5 downloads per day while you’re using Sounds Crate for free. They also request a $10 annual donation from free users, but it’s optional.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Choosing great royalty-free music for your YouTube videos will help put your audience in the right frame of mind, cover up flaws in your background audio, and help viewers feel more engaged with your content.

YouTube provides a free audio library, but since a lot of creators use it everyone’s videos can start to sound the same. Here are 15 alternative places where you can get royalty-free music for free! It’ll say at the beginning of every section whether they require attribution or allow commercial use.

Best Sites for Royalty-Free Music for YouTube Creators [Free Download]

If you are using Wondershare Filmora video editor , you will find there are some royalty-free music tracks and sound effects already pre-programmed in the Audio library. You will find different styles of music tacks, varying from Young & Bright to Electronic. Download Filmora, and you will get the royalty-free audio library and powerful video editing tools.

1. Audionautix

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the site with ‘music by audionautix.com’ if you want to use this music (if you have a website, they ask that you include a link back to them).

Paid Options? No. All of the music on this site is free.

One of the first things you’ll see when you arrive on Audiionautix is a ‘YouTube Friendly’ button. They know that most people browsing their music library are looking for songs for YouTube videos, and that want you to know their music is safe from copyright claims.

All of the music in the Audionautix collection was created by one man, Jason Shaw, but there’s still a huge variety of tracks.

On the front page of Audionautix, there are three selections you can make to start your music search – genre, mood, and tempo. Genres range from hard rock to bluegrass to techno (there are 28 genres in total), and the moods include things like ‘uplifting’, ‘evil’, and ‘bouncy’ (there are 37 of those). The tempos are fast, medium, and slow. So, if you want a medium-tempo acoustic song with a calming mood, you can easily find all of the songs that meet those qualifications.

Not every combination will deliver results, so it can be easier to just choose two of the three search parameters.

2. Bensound

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must include one of the following in your video description: “Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music” or “Music: Song title - Bensound.com”

Paid Options? Yes. If you don’t want to credit Bensound (or can’t for some reason) then you need to purchase a license. Licensing starts at about $28 USD (price listed as €24) per track.

The most popular music from Bensound is displayed on the first page. Beyond the titles of the tracks, each has a short description that will give you a good idea of what to expect from the song before you listen. You’ll need to listen to a song to know if you want it, but the descriptions are a fast way to figure out if you don’t want something. For example, ‘A New Beginning’ could be anything based on that title, but the description lets you know it’s ‘punk rock’ with an ‘epic/achievement’ feeling.

You can narrow down the music you are shown by choosing a genre from the menu near the top of your page (there are 8 genres including cinematic, electronica, and corporate/pop). There’s also a search bar, and you can choose whether to display popular or new songs first.

All of the music on Bensound was created by Benjamin TISSOT, a composer based in France. He has been creating music for over 10 years.

3. dig.ccMixter

Commercial Use? Depends. Some songs are available for commercial use, some are not. It is easy to search only for songs which are.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the musicians.

Paid Options? Yes. You can purchase licenses to get around commercial use or attribution restrictions. Personal licenses are $22 USD.

Musicians upload their work to ccMixter and make it available to creators like you at dig.ccMixter. Over 45,000 musicians have participated and this has resulted in a huge variety of music for you to discover.

Clicking ‘tag search’ at the top of the page is probably the best way to start your search. The ‘tags’ are displayed in three categories – genre, instrument, and style. You can click as many tags as you want from each category (i.e. you can check off ‘classical’ for the genre and then both bass and cello for instruments).

By default, your search will return results that have even just one of the tags you selected, but you can click ‘match all’ to see results that include all of your selected tags.

To the right of the screen, there’s a button called ‘filters’ and if you click it it’ll let you narrow your results by license (you can choose to only browse music that is free for commercial use). You can also specify if you only want instrumental songs.

If you do not use the ‘free for commercial use’ filter then you will need to click on songs to see whether their creative commons licenses allow commercial use.

If you’re an indie game developer, they have a Music for Video Games section for you too.

4. Free Music Archive

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

There is a huge selection on Free Music Archive (they include songs curated by other sites, including other sites on this list), but using this site can be a bit trickier than using other sites because there are so many different licenses at play. There are even several licenses that do not allow songs to be used in YouTube videos (any Creative Commons license with ‘ND / No Derivatives’ will not allow for use in a video). You should read this page before downloading anything from the Free Music Archive to use on YouTube.

To start browsing Free Music Archive for music you can use for your videos, go to ‘Curators’ in the top menu, and select ‘Music for Video’. There’s no point in browsing music you might not be allowed to use for YouTube, and so the site has made it easy to find the music you can.

By default this screen will not include music you can use commercially, so you need to check ‘allows for commercial use’ in the side menu if that’s important to you. You can also select a genre and specify if you only want instrumental songs.

5. Free Stock Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

Simply choose a genre from the ‘Free Music’ drop-down menu to start browsing Free Stock Music’s collection. There are 10 genres including Pop, Hip Hop, and Corporate.

There are not a lot of ways to customize your search results on this site. You just can search for a keyword, like ‘happy’, but you can’t narrow your results down by things like instrument or mood like you can on some other sites. You just have to scroll through either your search results or the chosen genre until you find something.

To make it a bit easier, Free Stock Music has included detailed descriptions of each song you can read while your browsing and these descriptions do tend to include details about instruments and the moods of the songs.

You need to create a free account on Free Stock Music to access their songs.

6. Incompetech

Commercial Use? YouTube monetization allowed. Other kinds of commercial use may be restricted.

Attribution Required? Yes. You can put the attribution in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot (or do not want to) credit Incompetech then you can purchase a license instead. Licensing 1 piece of music costs $30.

Incompetech allows you to browse one of three ways. The ‘Full Search’ will be best for most people, but if you want to see every song in alphabetical order you can click on ‘Full List’, or you can browse collections like ‘Comedic’ in ‘View Collections’ (but not every piece of music on the site can be found in a collection).

If you go into ‘Full Search’ you’ll see a list of all the music and be able to filter it by feel, tempo, genre, and length. For example, you could set ‘Feels’ to ‘Grooving’ or ‘Length’ to ‘3:00-3:29’.

You can also use the search bar to look for an instrument or song title.

Clicking Expand All will reveal descriptions of all the songs and a ‘listen now’ button, but it will stretch the page a lot. You can see more details about individual songs, and listen to them, by clicking on the title. You won’t be taken to a new page, which is convenient.

You can also download all the music at once (by clicking ‘download all the music on this site at once’).

7. Josh Woodward

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Attribution goes in your description box and it should look like this: Music - “SONG TITLE HERE” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot give Josh credit for some reason you can buy a single-song license for $30.

Josh Woodward is a singer-songwriter who has chosen to allow the free use of all his music (although he does appreciate donations).

You’ll immediately see a list of music on Josh’s site (not everything, there are over 200 songs on this site), and you can change what is displayed by using the filters on the right of the page. The filters available are Playlist, Genre, Album, Tags, Tempo, and Length.

The playlists are songs that have been bundled together around a theme like ‘fun and fast’ or ‘popular in videos’.

There are nine genres to choose from including ‘dark acoustic’ and ‘Americana’.

The albums are albums that Josh has released.

You can also search the song titles and lyrics by typing keywords into the search bar.

At the top of the page, there’s a player you can use to preview the songs, and you can choose whether to browse vocal songs or songs with lyrics (the results below may not appear to change, but if you use the player you’ll hear the instrumental version instead of the version with vocals).

8. Looperman

Commercial Use? Allowed for loops, but they make no guarantees.

Attribution Required? Unclear. The site doesn’t address attribution so it may be up to whoever has uploaded the loop you want to use.

Paid Options? No.

Looperman is a community for musicians. The goal is to provide instrumental loops and acapella vocals to other musicians for their own projects. In theory, all of the music loops and sounds are completely free to use in your projects, but since it’s a community they cannot guarantee that a user hasn’t uploaded something they don’t own (they aren’t allowed to, so in theory you should be safe, but the site doesn’t make any guarantees).

If you want to use vocals it seems like you have to talk to the person who owns the vocals about whether you can use them commercially or whether you need to include attribution.

9. Moby Gratis

Commercial Use? Never allowed. You cannot make money from the project you use this music in any way, including YouTube monetization or through a service like Patreon.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put this in your video description: Music: [Track Name] by Moby courtesy of Mobygratis.com

Paid Options? No.

Moby is a Grammy-nominated, VMA-winning, artist whose work you have probably heard on the radio. Even if you aren’t familiar with Moby himself, he has co-written, produced, and remixed music for other major artists like David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses, and Daft Punk.

Moby has chosen to make a catalog of his work available to independent filmmakers for non-commercial projects. Not all of the music provided on the site is available for YouTube, only the music marked Unreleased (if it has been released, then it will be flagged by YouTube’s copyright system). There is a lot of music under the ‘Unreleased’ category, though.

In order to download songs, you will need to make an account, and it takes about 24 hours for your account to be approved.

10. Musopen

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song

Paid Options? No.

Musopen provides music that is either in the ‘public domain’, or protected by Creative Commons licenses. If it’s in the public domain that means that nobody owns the copyright and anyone can use it for anything (however, Musopen does warn that they do not review uploads from their users so it is possible that someone could upload something they claim is public domain and be lying or wrong).

Creative Commons licenses all have their own conditions. Some may block commercial use, some may require attribution. The ones you need to watch out for as a video creator are the ones marked ‘No Derivatives’, because you can’t use songs licensed this way in videos.

You can start using Musopen by typing a keyword into the search bar on the main page, or scrolling down to select ‘Browse royalty free music recordings’. Besides music recordings, Musopen provides sheet music. If you have some musical talent and want to record your own music for your videos then this might be useful. If not, you probably want to stick to the recordings.

If you click on the Music Discovery Tool you’ll be able to search the recordings not only by instrument, but by license (so you can make sure you’re only looking at music that is in the public domain, or make sure you’re not looking at anything with that ‘No Derivatives’ condition.

11. TeknoAXE

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes.

Paid Options? No.

All of the music on TeknoAXE is covered under a CC4.0 license, which means you can share and adapt the music for any purpose so long as you provide attribution.

TeknoAXE’s music is divided into four categories: electronic dance music, rock and metal music, orchestra and soundtrack, and miscellaneous. There are several sub-categories under every category.

Once you’ve clicked into subcategory you’ll see thumbnails for every song in the category. Click on one to be taken to the song’s page, where you can listen to it before you decide if you want to download.

There are tons of places where you can find great royalty-free music you can use on YouTube, so start hunting! Finding the perfect song for that cool montage you’ve got planned, your intro sequence, or the background of your vlog will take your content to a new level of quality.

12. PacDV

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Music by <www.pacdv.com/sounds/>

Paid Options? No.

PacDV is primarily a sound effects site, but they have a music section as well (just click Music in the menu to the left under Sound Effects. ‘Free Music’ under resources is a completely different site). There is no way to filter down the music, and there is no search function.

There is a column in the list of music for ‘moods/emotions’, so you can get an idea of which songs you might want to listen to before you click to their pages.

13. Partners In Rhyme

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Credit them in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. You can’t buy a license for free songs to get around attribution, but they do offer paid music. At $100 or more per song, their paid music is outside the budget of most YouTubers.

Partners In Rhyme is mostly a paid site, and they’re at the pricier end of the spectrum for paid sites. The reason they’re included on this list is that they have kindly curated a selection of free music for use on YouTube or in projects like podcasts (the link above will take you to the free page, not the site in general).

There isn’t a search function for the free music, or a way to narrow down what’s displayed, but you can click the play button next to any title to hear what the song sounds like. To download, just right click and choose ‘save file’ or ‘save target as’.

14. Purple Planet Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put ‘Music: http://www.purple-planet.com’ in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you want to use the music for anything besides YouTube, or if you don’t want to give them credit, then you can buy a license for $5.

Purple Planet Music is a team of three people, two of whom compose, perform, record, and produce all of the music you’ll find on this site (the third is the studio manager).

From the home page of Purple Planet choose one of the categories listed under ‘Royalty Free Music’. The categories are more related to moods than genres and include things like ‘cute’, ‘sneaky’, and ‘reflective’. Because they know you may want to use this music in film projects, you can even find categories like ‘dark backgrounds’.

Once you click into a category everything is listed, you can’t narrow your results. There’s not an overwhelming number of songs in each category, though, so it’s easy to choose something just by reading descriptions and listening to what’s there.

15. Sounds Crate

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? Yes. You can upgrade to a Pro account for $49 per year to access more content.

Sounds Crate has music and sound effects. After you click into music, you’ll see thumbnails for sections related to a number of themes such as action music, corporate music, and hip hop. You’ll be able to preview and download all the songs in the category once you’re on the category page.

You are only allowed 5 downloads per day while you’re using Sounds Crate for free. They also request a $10 annual donation from free users, but it’s optional.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Choosing great royalty-free music for your YouTube videos will help put your audience in the right frame of mind, cover up flaws in your background audio, and help viewers feel more engaged with your content.

YouTube provides a free audio library, but since a lot of creators use it everyone’s videos can start to sound the same. Here are 15 alternative places where you can get royalty-free music for free! It’ll say at the beginning of every section whether they require attribution or allow commercial use.

Best Sites for Royalty-Free Music for YouTube Creators [Free Download]

If you are using Wondershare Filmora video editor , you will find there are some royalty-free music tracks and sound effects already pre-programmed in the Audio library. You will find different styles of music tacks, varying from Young & Bright to Electronic. Download Filmora, and you will get the royalty-free audio library and powerful video editing tools.

1. Audionautix

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the site with ‘music by audionautix.com’ if you want to use this music (if you have a website, they ask that you include a link back to them).

Paid Options? No. All of the music on this site is free.

One of the first things you’ll see when you arrive on Audiionautix is a ‘YouTube Friendly’ button. They know that most people browsing their music library are looking for songs for YouTube videos, and that want you to know their music is safe from copyright claims.

All of the music in the Audionautix collection was created by one man, Jason Shaw, but there’s still a huge variety of tracks.

On the front page of Audionautix, there are three selections you can make to start your music search – genre, mood, and tempo. Genres range from hard rock to bluegrass to techno (there are 28 genres in total), and the moods include things like ‘uplifting’, ‘evil’, and ‘bouncy’ (there are 37 of those). The tempos are fast, medium, and slow. So, if you want a medium-tempo acoustic song with a calming mood, you can easily find all of the songs that meet those qualifications.

Not every combination will deliver results, so it can be easier to just choose two of the three search parameters.

2. Bensound

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must include one of the following in your video description: “Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music” or “Music: Song title - Bensound.com”

Paid Options? Yes. If you don’t want to credit Bensound (or can’t for some reason) then you need to purchase a license. Licensing starts at about $28 USD (price listed as €24) per track.

The most popular music from Bensound is displayed on the first page. Beyond the titles of the tracks, each has a short description that will give you a good idea of what to expect from the song before you listen. You’ll need to listen to a song to know if you want it, but the descriptions are a fast way to figure out if you don’t want something. For example, ‘A New Beginning’ could be anything based on that title, but the description lets you know it’s ‘punk rock’ with an ‘epic/achievement’ feeling.

You can narrow down the music you are shown by choosing a genre from the menu near the top of your page (there are 8 genres including cinematic, electronica, and corporate/pop). There’s also a search bar, and you can choose whether to display popular or new songs first.

All of the music on Bensound was created by Benjamin TISSOT, a composer based in France. He has been creating music for over 10 years.

3. dig.ccMixter

Commercial Use? Depends. Some songs are available for commercial use, some are not. It is easy to search only for songs which are.

Attribution Required? Yes. You must credit the musicians.

Paid Options? Yes. You can purchase licenses to get around commercial use or attribution restrictions. Personal licenses are $22 USD.

Musicians upload their work to ccMixter and make it available to creators like you at dig.ccMixter. Over 45,000 musicians have participated and this has resulted in a huge variety of music for you to discover.

Clicking ‘tag search’ at the top of the page is probably the best way to start your search. The ‘tags’ are displayed in three categories – genre, instrument, and style. You can click as many tags as you want from each category (i.e. you can check off ‘classical’ for the genre and then both bass and cello for instruments).

By default, your search will return results that have even just one of the tags you selected, but you can click ‘match all’ to see results that include all of your selected tags.

To the right of the screen, there’s a button called ‘filters’ and if you click it it’ll let you narrow your results by license (you can choose to only browse music that is free for commercial use). You can also specify if you only want instrumental songs.

If you do not use the ‘free for commercial use’ filter then you will need to click on songs to see whether their creative commons licenses allow commercial use.

If you’re an indie game developer, they have a Music for Video Games section for you too.

4. Free Music Archive

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

There is a huge selection on Free Music Archive (they include songs curated by other sites, including other sites on this list), but using this site can be a bit trickier than using other sites because there are so many different licenses at play. There are even several licenses that do not allow songs to be used in YouTube videos (any Creative Commons license with ‘ND / No Derivatives’ will not allow for use in a video). You should read this page before downloading anything from the Free Music Archive to use on YouTube.

To start browsing Free Music Archive for music you can use for your videos, go to ‘Curators’ in the top menu, and select ‘Music for Video’. There’s no point in browsing music you might not be allowed to use for YouTube, and so the site has made it easy to find the music you can.

By default this screen will not include music you can use commercially, so you need to check ‘allows for commercial use’ in the side menu if that’s important to you. You can also select a genre and specify if you only want instrumental songs.

5. Free Stock Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? No. Everything is free.

Simply choose a genre from the ‘Free Music’ drop-down menu to start browsing Free Stock Music’s collection. There are 10 genres including Pop, Hip Hop, and Corporate.

There are not a lot of ways to customize your search results on this site. You just can search for a keyword, like ‘happy’, but you can’t narrow your results down by things like instrument or mood like you can on some other sites. You just have to scroll through either your search results or the chosen genre until you find something.

To make it a bit easier, Free Stock Music has included detailed descriptions of each song you can read while your browsing and these descriptions do tend to include details about instruments and the moods of the songs.

You need to create a free account on Free Stock Music to access their songs.

6. Incompetech

Commercial Use? YouTube monetization allowed. Other kinds of commercial use may be restricted.

Attribution Required? Yes. You can put the attribution in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot (or do not want to) credit Incompetech then you can purchase a license instead. Licensing 1 piece of music costs $30.

Incompetech allows you to browse one of three ways. The ‘Full Search’ will be best for most people, but if you want to see every song in alphabetical order you can click on ‘Full List’, or you can browse collections like ‘Comedic’ in ‘View Collections’ (but not every piece of music on the site can be found in a collection).

If you go into ‘Full Search’ you’ll see a list of all the music and be able to filter it by feel, tempo, genre, and length. For example, you could set ‘Feels’ to ‘Grooving’ or ‘Length’ to ‘3:00-3:29’.

You can also use the search bar to look for an instrument or song title.

Clicking Expand All will reveal descriptions of all the songs and a ‘listen now’ button, but it will stretch the page a lot. You can see more details about individual songs, and listen to them, by clicking on the title. You won’t be taken to a new page, which is convenient.

You can also download all the music at once (by clicking ‘download all the music on this site at once’).

7. Josh Woodward

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Attribution goes in your description box and it should look like this: Music - “SONG TITLE HERE” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/

Paid Options? Yes. If you cannot give Josh credit for some reason you can buy a single-song license for $30.

Josh Woodward is a singer-songwriter who has chosen to allow the free use of all his music (although he does appreciate donations).

You’ll immediately see a list of music on Josh’s site (not everything, there are over 200 songs on this site), and you can change what is displayed by using the filters on the right of the page. The filters available are Playlist, Genre, Album, Tags, Tempo, and Length.

The playlists are songs that have been bundled together around a theme like ‘fun and fast’ or ‘popular in videos’.

There are nine genres to choose from including ‘dark acoustic’ and ‘Americana’.

The albums are albums that Josh has released.

You can also search the song titles and lyrics by typing keywords into the search bar.

At the top of the page, there’s a player you can use to preview the songs, and you can choose whether to browse vocal songs or songs with lyrics (the results below may not appear to change, but if you use the player you’ll hear the instrumental version instead of the version with vocals).

8. Looperman

Commercial Use? Allowed for loops, but they make no guarantees.

Attribution Required? Unclear. The site doesn’t address attribution so it may be up to whoever has uploaded the loop you want to use.

Paid Options? No.

Looperman is a community for musicians. The goal is to provide instrumental loops and acapella vocals to other musicians for their own projects. In theory, all of the music loops and sounds are completely free to use in your projects, but since it’s a community they cannot guarantee that a user hasn’t uploaded something they don’t own (they aren’t allowed to, so in theory you should be safe, but the site doesn’t make any guarantees).

If you want to use vocals it seems like you have to talk to the person who owns the vocals about whether you can use them commercially or whether you need to include attribution.

9. Moby Gratis

Commercial Use? Never allowed. You cannot make money from the project you use this music in any way, including YouTube monetization or through a service like Patreon.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put this in your video description: Music: [Track Name] by Moby courtesy of Mobygratis.com

Paid Options? No.

Moby is a Grammy-nominated, VMA-winning, artist whose work you have probably heard on the radio. Even if you aren’t familiar with Moby himself, he has co-written, produced, and remixed music for other major artists like David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses, and Daft Punk.

Moby has chosen to make a catalog of his work available to independent filmmakers for non-commercial projects. Not all of the music provided on the site is available for YouTube, only the music marked Unreleased (if it has been released, then it will be flagged by YouTube’s copyright system). There is a lot of music under the ‘Unreleased’ category, though.

In order to download songs, you will need to make an account, and it takes about 24 hours for your account to be approved.

10. Musopen

Commercial Use? Depends on the song.

Attribution Required? Depends on the song

Paid Options? No.

Musopen provides music that is either in the ‘public domain’, or protected by Creative Commons licenses. If it’s in the public domain that means that nobody owns the copyright and anyone can use it for anything (however, Musopen does warn that they do not review uploads from their users so it is possible that someone could upload something they claim is public domain and be lying or wrong).

Creative Commons licenses all have their own conditions. Some may block commercial use, some may require attribution. The ones you need to watch out for as a video creator are the ones marked ‘No Derivatives’, because you can’t use songs licensed this way in videos.

You can start using Musopen by typing a keyword into the search bar on the main page, or scrolling down to select ‘Browse royalty free music recordings’. Besides music recordings, Musopen provides sheet music. If you have some musical talent and want to record your own music for your videos then this might be useful. If not, you probably want to stick to the recordings.

If you click on the Music Discovery Tool you’ll be able to search the recordings not only by instrument, but by license (so you can make sure you’re only looking at music that is in the public domain, or make sure you’re not looking at anything with that ‘No Derivatives’ condition.

11. TeknoAXE

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes.

Paid Options? No.

All of the music on TeknoAXE is covered under a CC4.0 license, which means you can share and adapt the music for any purpose so long as you provide attribution.

TeknoAXE’s music is divided into four categories: electronic dance music, rock and metal music, orchestra and soundtrack, and miscellaneous. There are several sub-categories under every category.

Once you’ve clicked into subcategory you’ll see thumbnails for every song in the category. Click on one to be taken to the song’s page, where you can listen to it before you decide if you want to download.

There are tons of places where you can find great royalty-free music you can use on YouTube, so start hunting! Finding the perfect song for that cool montage you’ve got planned, your intro sequence, or the background of your vlog will take your content to a new level of quality.

12. PacDV

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Music by <www.pacdv.com/sounds/>

Paid Options? No.

PacDV is primarily a sound effects site, but they have a music section as well (just click Music in the menu to the left under Sound Effects. ‘Free Music’ under resources is a completely different site). There is no way to filter down the music, and there is no search function.

There is a column in the list of music for ‘moods/emotions’, so you can get an idea of which songs you might want to listen to before you click to their pages.

13. Partners In Rhyme

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Credit them in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. You can’t buy a license for free songs to get around attribution, but they do offer paid music. At $100 or more per song, their paid music is outside the budget of most YouTubers.

Partners In Rhyme is mostly a paid site, and they’re at the pricier end of the spectrum for paid sites. The reason they’re included on this list is that they have kindly curated a selection of free music for use on YouTube or in projects like podcasts (the link above will take you to the free page, not the site in general).

There isn’t a search function for the free music, or a way to narrow down what’s displayed, but you can click the play button next to any title to hear what the song sounds like. To download, just right click and choose ‘save file’ or ‘save target as’.

14. Purple Planet Music

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? Yes. Put ‘Music: http://www.purple-planet.com’ in your video description.

Paid Options? Yes. If you want to use the music for anything besides YouTube, or if you don’t want to give them credit, then you can buy a license for $5.

Purple Planet Music is a team of three people, two of whom compose, perform, record, and produce all of the music you’ll find on this site (the third is the studio manager).

From the home page of Purple Planet choose one of the categories listed under ‘Royalty Free Music’. The categories are more related to moods than genres and include things like ‘cute’, ‘sneaky’, and ‘reflective’. Because they know you may want to use this music in film projects, you can even find categories like ‘dark backgrounds’.

Once you click into a category everything is listed, you can’t narrow your results. There’s not an overwhelming number of songs in each category, though, so it’s easy to choose something just by reading descriptions and listening to what’s there.

15. Sounds Crate

Commercial Use? Allowed.

Attribution Required? No.

Paid Options? Yes. You can upgrade to a Pro account for $49 per year to access more content.

Sounds Crate has music and sound effects. After you click into music, you’ll see thumbnails for sections related to a number of themes such as action music, corporate music, and hip hop. You’ll be able to preview and download all the songs in the category once you’re on the category page.

You are only allowed 5 downloads per day while you’re using Sounds Crate for free. They also request a $10 annual donation from free users, but it’s optional.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

A Comprehensive Tutorial for Transforming Vids Into Dollars

Monetize YouTube Videos | The Ultimate Guide to Ad Revenue

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to make money on YouTube? There are qualifications you have to meet before you can monetize your videos with ads, but you don’t have to have a huge channel.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the YouTube Partner Program and start earning ad revenue:

1. Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program
2. How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube
3. What is Ad Friendly Content?
4. How to Get Paid Through AdSense
5. Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?
6. Useful Terminology (CPM, CPV, CPC)

What is the YouTube Partner Program

YouTube’s Partner Program, or YPP, allows creators to monetize their YouTube videos through ads. If you are a YouTube Partner, that means you are earning revenue from the ads being shown before and during your videos.

Before you dive into the below guide, you may need a video editor to start your monetizing on Youtube. Filmora video editor will be the best choice.

Becoming a skilled video editor takes years of practice, but with Wondershare Filmora video editor, you can produce YouTube videos that have a professional look and feel, even if you are new to the world of video editing. This YouTube Video Creator has big icons and an intuitive interface, so those YouTubers who edit videos for the first time can quickly make a video.

Free Download

Free Download

Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program

In order to qualify for YPP, you need to prove that you’re creating consistent, original, content and that people are watching your content. YouTube believes that has been proven when you reach these qualifications:

1. 1000 Subscribers
2. 4000 Hours of Watch Time (over the past 12 months)

Not quite there yet? Here’s a list of actionable tips that can help you grow your channel.

If you meet these requirements and are approved for monetization, but then drop below them, your channel will not be automatically demonetized. YouTube may review your content and demonetize you if you seem to have stopped posting videos, but this will not be automatic.

Remember: meeting these milestones does not grant you automatic monetization.

You can apply for YPP when you reach the milestones above, but your channel will still need to be reviewed by a human working for YouTube. Reviewers will be watching for:

1. Nudity or sexual content
2. Harmful, dangerous, threatening, or hateful content
3. Violent or graphic content
4. Harassment or cyberbullying
5. Spam, scams, and misleading metadata
6. Copyright infringement or impersonation
7. Privacy violations
8. Fake subscribers
9. Other guidelines violations

If your content violates any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines you may be denied monetization. Learn more about YouTube’s Community Guidelines here.

How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube

Once you qualify for YPP, applying for monetization is easy.

1. In the Creator Studio, select Channel > Status and features.
2. Under ‘Monetization’, click Enable and follow the steps that appear to accept YouTube’s terms.
3. Wait to be approved.

If you’re approved, you can start earning money as soon as your AdSense account is set up!

If you’re not approved, you can apply again in 30 days.

To make sure you’re approved the next time you apply, review all of YouTube’s related policies (Partner Program policies , Terms of Service , spam policies , and Community Guidelines ) and remove the content that might be holding you back.

In order to start monetizing, you’ll need to link your channel with an AdSense account. You must be over 18 to create an AdSense account. YouTube creators under 18 can link to the AdSense accounts of their parents or guardians.

Here’s how to sign up for AdSense through YouTube:

1. Under Channel > Status and features in your Creator Studio, look for Paid content. Click where it says ‘active AdSense account’.
2. On the following ‘Monetization’ screen, click Next to go to AdSense.
3. You will be asked whether you want to use the Google account you’re already signed in to for AdSense, or if you want to use a different account.
4. The next step is ‘Your Website’. This will automatically be filled in with your channel. Click Accept association if it’s right.

Note: you can only have one AdSense account. Do not make a second one if you already have one. Duplicate accounts may be banned, which will stop you from monetizing your videos.

What is Ad Friendly content?

Not all content that meets YouTube’s Community Guidelines will be considered ‘advertiser-friendly’. Companies don’t want to run ads alongside content that doesn’t match the values of their brands.

YouTube may disable ads on any video it doesn’t think is ad-friendly. Videos which may be flagged as inappropriate for ads include (but are not limited to):

1. Videos that cover controversial or sensitive subjects.
2. Videos depicting the use of drugs or dangerous products.
3. Videos may encourage harmful or dangerous behavior.
4. Videos with swearing (but not ALL videos with swearing – quantity and context are factors).
5. Videos which contain hate speech.
6. Videos that depict family entertainment characters (i.e. Disney princesses) engaged in inappropriate behavior (even if you’re being satirical).

If you want to make sure all of your content is advertiser-friendly, here are some best practices suggested by YouTube:

1. Be respectful of your viewers and any people or groups you may include or mention in your video.
2. Extend this respectful tone to your thumbnails and video titles, and make sure your thumbnails and metadata accurately depict your video’s content.
3. Don’t try to monetize videos that already contain ads (i.e. paid product placement ).

How to Get Paid Through AdSense

In order to receive a payment from AdSense, you need to earn at least $100.

For example, if you only earn $10 in a month, you will not receive a payment that month. You will not lose that $10 – you will receive it when your total earnings reach or exceed $100.

You will also need to provide AdSense with tax information and verify your identity and address in order to start being paid.

The most popular way to get paid through AdSense is via an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). To receive your payments this way, you’ll need to link your bank account to your AdSense account.

Here’s how:

1. Log in to AdSense.
2. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then select Payments.
3. On the Payments page, click Manage payment options.
4. Click the Add payment method.
5. You’ll be prompted to add your bank account details.
6. Make sure the name on your AdSense account matches the name on your bank account (if you’re under 18 and cannot make your own AdSense account, this may mean you’re using your parent or guardian’s bank account).

Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?

Not all ads pay the same, and not all videos will be able to attract the ads that pay the most.

How much money your video has the potential to earn depends on:

1. The size of your channel
2. Your niche on YouTube
3. The specific topic of the video

That the size of your channel matters probably isn’t a surprise. The biggest brands want to run their ads beside videos that are getting more views.

Whether or not your YouTube niche has a high potential for profit will depend on a couple things:

1. How many other channels are in your niche?

The more people there are making similar videos to you, the thinner the available ads are spread.

1. How many cheap or expensive products are being advertised in your niche?

If the products are free or inexpensive (i.e. free online games) then that limits your earning ability. In large niches like gaming, the few higher paying ads will go to the most popular channels and the low-paying ads will be spread amongst everyone else.

If you have a very specific niche, i.e. luxury cars, then you will have less competition and the ads available will likely be for more expensive products (and thus the ads themselves will be higher paying).

Even if you are in a large niche, you can still make videos on specific topics designed to attract higher-paying ads and more revenue. Pay attention to the analytics in your Creator Studio to learn which of your videos earn the most. Then, make more videos on similar topics to boost your earnings.

Another factor that can affect what ads appear alongside your videos is the viewing habits of individual viewers. People are shown ads that YouTube believes are more relevant to their interests.

Useful Terminology (CPM, CPC, CPV)

A lot of people think your ad revenue is determined by your view count. This isn’t true – it’s determined by ad impressions.

How much revenue you earn from the ads running around your videos depends on these three things:

CPC: ‘cost per click’. Most of the ads on YouTube are CPC, meaning that an ad impression is only recorded when an ad is clicked on.

CPV: ‘cost per view’. Skippable pre-roll ads are the only ads on YouTube which record ad impressions without clicks. These ads record ad impressions when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad instead of skipping it.

CPM: ‘cost per mille’ or ‘cost per thousand’. This refers to how much money gets paid out for 1000 ad impressions.

Your CPM will be affected by a multitude of things including the ads themselves and the size of your channel. AdSense has made it a rule that you cannot disclose your CPM to anyone, which makes it difficult to determine what you should expect.

Note: never click on ads near your own videos or instruct your viewers/friends to do so. If your clicks are higher than what AdSense considers normal they may ban you.

Sites like Social Blade provide estimated earnings for any channel you want to look up. Looking up channels that are where you plan to be in the near future could help you set your own expectations.

Are you able to monetize your videos? How many more subscribers or hours of watch time do you need?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to make money on YouTube? There are qualifications you have to meet before you can monetize your videos with ads, but you don’t have to have a huge channel.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the YouTube Partner Program and start earning ad revenue:

1. Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program
2. How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube
3. What is Ad Friendly Content?
4. How to Get Paid Through AdSense
5. Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?
6. Useful Terminology (CPM, CPV, CPC)

What is the YouTube Partner Program

YouTube’s Partner Program, or YPP, allows creators to monetize their YouTube videos through ads. If you are a YouTube Partner, that means you are earning revenue from the ads being shown before and during your videos.

Before you dive into the below guide, you may need a video editor to start your monetizing on Youtube. Filmora video editor will be the best choice.

Becoming a skilled video editor takes years of practice, but with Wondershare Filmora video editor, you can produce YouTube videos that have a professional look and feel, even if you are new to the world of video editing. This YouTube Video Creator has big icons and an intuitive interface, so those YouTubers who edit videos for the first time can quickly make a video.

Free Download

Free Download

Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program

In order to qualify for YPP, you need to prove that you’re creating consistent, original, content and that people are watching your content. YouTube believes that has been proven when you reach these qualifications:

1. 1000 Subscribers
2. 4000 Hours of Watch Time (over the past 12 months)

Not quite there yet? Here’s a list of actionable tips that can help you grow your channel.

If you meet these requirements and are approved for monetization, but then drop below them, your channel will not be automatically demonetized. YouTube may review your content and demonetize you if you seem to have stopped posting videos, but this will not be automatic.

Remember: meeting these milestones does not grant you automatic monetization.

You can apply for YPP when you reach the milestones above, but your channel will still need to be reviewed by a human working for YouTube. Reviewers will be watching for:

1. Nudity or sexual content
2. Harmful, dangerous, threatening, or hateful content
3. Violent or graphic content
4. Harassment or cyberbullying
5. Spam, scams, and misleading metadata
6. Copyright infringement or impersonation
7. Privacy violations
8. Fake subscribers
9. Other guidelines violations

If your content violates any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines you may be denied monetization. Learn more about YouTube’s Community Guidelines here.

How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube

Once you qualify for YPP, applying for monetization is easy.

1. In the Creator Studio, select Channel > Status and features.
2. Under ‘Monetization’, click Enable and follow the steps that appear to accept YouTube’s terms.
3. Wait to be approved.

If you’re approved, you can start earning money as soon as your AdSense account is set up!

If you’re not approved, you can apply again in 30 days.

To make sure you’re approved the next time you apply, review all of YouTube’s related policies (Partner Program policies , Terms of Service , spam policies , and Community Guidelines ) and remove the content that might be holding you back.

In order to start monetizing, you’ll need to link your channel with an AdSense account. You must be over 18 to create an AdSense account. YouTube creators under 18 can link to the AdSense accounts of their parents or guardians.

Here’s how to sign up for AdSense through YouTube:

1. Under Channel > Status and features in your Creator Studio, look for Paid content. Click where it says ‘active AdSense account’.
2. On the following ‘Monetization’ screen, click Next to go to AdSense.
3. You will be asked whether you want to use the Google account you’re already signed in to for AdSense, or if you want to use a different account.
4. The next step is ‘Your Website’. This will automatically be filled in with your channel. Click Accept association if it’s right.

Note: you can only have one AdSense account. Do not make a second one if you already have one. Duplicate accounts may be banned, which will stop you from monetizing your videos.

What is Ad Friendly content?

Not all content that meets YouTube’s Community Guidelines will be considered ‘advertiser-friendly’. Companies don’t want to run ads alongside content that doesn’t match the values of their brands.

YouTube may disable ads on any video it doesn’t think is ad-friendly. Videos which may be flagged as inappropriate for ads include (but are not limited to):

1. Videos that cover controversial or sensitive subjects.
2. Videos depicting the use of drugs or dangerous products.
3. Videos may encourage harmful or dangerous behavior.
4. Videos with swearing (but not ALL videos with swearing – quantity and context are factors).
5. Videos which contain hate speech.
6. Videos that depict family entertainment characters (i.e. Disney princesses) engaged in inappropriate behavior (even if you’re being satirical).

If you want to make sure all of your content is advertiser-friendly, here are some best practices suggested by YouTube:

1. Be respectful of your viewers and any people or groups you may include or mention in your video.
2. Extend this respectful tone to your thumbnails and video titles, and make sure your thumbnails and metadata accurately depict your video’s content.
3. Don’t try to monetize videos that already contain ads (i.e. paid product placement ).

How to Get Paid Through AdSense

In order to receive a payment from AdSense, you need to earn at least $100.

For example, if you only earn $10 in a month, you will not receive a payment that month. You will not lose that $10 – you will receive it when your total earnings reach or exceed $100.

You will also need to provide AdSense with tax information and verify your identity and address in order to start being paid.

The most popular way to get paid through AdSense is via an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). To receive your payments this way, you’ll need to link your bank account to your AdSense account.

Here’s how:

1. Log in to AdSense.
2. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then select Payments.
3. On the Payments page, click Manage payment options.
4. Click the Add payment method.
5. You’ll be prompted to add your bank account details.
6. Make sure the name on your AdSense account matches the name on your bank account (if you’re under 18 and cannot make your own AdSense account, this may mean you’re using your parent or guardian’s bank account).

Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?

Not all ads pay the same, and not all videos will be able to attract the ads that pay the most.

How much money your video has the potential to earn depends on:

1. The size of your channel
2. Your niche on YouTube
3. The specific topic of the video

That the size of your channel matters probably isn’t a surprise. The biggest brands want to run their ads beside videos that are getting more views.

Whether or not your YouTube niche has a high potential for profit will depend on a couple things:

1. How many other channels are in your niche?

The more people there are making similar videos to you, the thinner the available ads are spread.

1. How many cheap or expensive products are being advertised in your niche?

If the products are free or inexpensive (i.e. free online games) then that limits your earning ability. In large niches like gaming, the few higher paying ads will go to the most popular channels and the low-paying ads will be spread amongst everyone else.

If you have a very specific niche, i.e. luxury cars, then you will have less competition and the ads available will likely be for more expensive products (and thus the ads themselves will be higher paying).

Even if you are in a large niche, you can still make videos on specific topics designed to attract higher-paying ads and more revenue. Pay attention to the analytics in your Creator Studio to learn which of your videos earn the most. Then, make more videos on similar topics to boost your earnings.

Another factor that can affect what ads appear alongside your videos is the viewing habits of individual viewers. People are shown ads that YouTube believes are more relevant to their interests.

Useful Terminology (CPM, CPC, CPV)

A lot of people think your ad revenue is determined by your view count. This isn’t true – it’s determined by ad impressions.

How much revenue you earn from the ads running around your videos depends on these three things:

CPC: ‘cost per click’. Most of the ads on YouTube are CPC, meaning that an ad impression is only recorded when an ad is clicked on.

CPV: ‘cost per view’. Skippable pre-roll ads are the only ads on YouTube which record ad impressions without clicks. These ads record ad impressions when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad instead of skipping it.

CPM: ‘cost per mille’ or ‘cost per thousand’. This refers to how much money gets paid out for 1000 ad impressions.

Your CPM will be affected by a multitude of things including the ads themselves and the size of your channel. AdSense has made it a rule that you cannot disclose your CPM to anyone, which makes it difficult to determine what you should expect.

Note: never click on ads near your own videos or instruct your viewers/friends to do so. If your clicks are higher than what AdSense considers normal they may ban you.

Sites like Social Blade provide estimated earnings for any channel you want to look up. Looking up channels that are where you plan to be in the near future could help you set your own expectations.

Are you able to monetize your videos? How many more subscribers or hours of watch time do you need?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to make money on YouTube? There are qualifications you have to meet before you can monetize your videos with ads, but you don’t have to have a huge channel.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the YouTube Partner Program and start earning ad revenue:

1. Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program
2. How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube
3. What is Ad Friendly Content?
4. How to Get Paid Through AdSense
5. Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?
6. Useful Terminology (CPM, CPV, CPC)

What is the YouTube Partner Program

YouTube’s Partner Program, or YPP, allows creators to monetize their YouTube videos through ads. If you are a YouTube Partner, that means you are earning revenue from the ads being shown before and during your videos.

Before you dive into the below guide, you may need a video editor to start your monetizing on Youtube. Filmora video editor will be the best choice.

Becoming a skilled video editor takes years of practice, but with Wondershare Filmora video editor, you can produce YouTube videos that have a professional look and feel, even if you are new to the world of video editing. This YouTube Video Creator has big icons and an intuitive interface, so those YouTubers who edit videos for the first time can quickly make a video.

Free Download

Free Download

Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program

In order to qualify for YPP, you need to prove that you’re creating consistent, original, content and that people are watching your content. YouTube believes that has been proven when you reach these qualifications:

1. 1000 Subscribers
2. 4000 Hours of Watch Time (over the past 12 months)

Not quite there yet? Here’s a list of actionable tips that can help you grow your channel.

If you meet these requirements and are approved for monetization, but then drop below them, your channel will not be automatically demonetized. YouTube may review your content and demonetize you if you seem to have stopped posting videos, but this will not be automatic.

Remember: meeting these milestones does not grant you automatic monetization.

You can apply for YPP when you reach the milestones above, but your channel will still need to be reviewed by a human working for YouTube. Reviewers will be watching for:

1. Nudity or sexual content
2. Harmful, dangerous, threatening, or hateful content
3. Violent or graphic content
4. Harassment or cyberbullying
5. Spam, scams, and misleading metadata
6. Copyright infringement or impersonation
7. Privacy violations
8. Fake subscribers
9. Other guidelines violations

If your content violates any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines you may be denied monetization. Learn more about YouTube’s Community Guidelines here.

How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube

Once you qualify for YPP, applying for monetization is easy.

1. In the Creator Studio, select Channel > Status and features.
2. Under ‘Monetization’, click Enable and follow the steps that appear to accept YouTube’s terms.
3. Wait to be approved.

If you’re approved, you can start earning money as soon as your AdSense account is set up!

If you’re not approved, you can apply again in 30 days.

To make sure you’re approved the next time you apply, review all of YouTube’s related policies (Partner Program policies , Terms of Service , spam policies , and Community Guidelines ) and remove the content that might be holding you back.

In order to start monetizing, you’ll need to link your channel with an AdSense account. You must be over 18 to create an AdSense account. YouTube creators under 18 can link to the AdSense accounts of their parents or guardians.

Here’s how to sign up for AdSense through YouTube:

1. Under Channel > Status and features in your Creator Studio, look for Paid content. Click where it says ‘active AdSense account’.
2. On the following ‘Monetization’ screen, click Next to go to AdSense.
3. You will be asked whether you want to use the Google account you’re already signed in to for AdSense, or if you want to use a different account.
4. The next step is ‘Your Website’. This will automatically be filled in with your channel. Click Accept association if it’s right.

Note: you can only have one AdSense account. Do not make a second one if you already have one. Duplicate accounts may be banned, which will stop you from monetizing your videos.

What is Ad Friendly content?

Not all content that meets YouTube’s Community Guidelines will be considered ‘advertiser-friendly’. Companies don’t want to run ads alongside content that doesn’t match the values of their brands.

YouTube may disable ads on any video it doesn’t think is ad-friendly. Videos which may be flagged as inappropriate for ads include (but are not limited to):

1. Videos that cover controversial or sensitive subjects.
2. Videos depicting the use of drugs or dangerous products.
3. Videos may encourage harmful or dangerous behavior.
4. Videos with swearing (but not ALL videos with swearing – quantity and context are factors).
5. Videos which contain hate speech.
6. Videos that depict family entertainment characters (i.e. Disney princesses) engaged in inappropriate behavior (even if you’re being satirical).

If you want to make sure all of your content is advertiser-friendly, here are some best practices suggested by YouTube:

1. Be respectful of your viewers and any people or groups you may include or mention in your video.
2. Extend this respectful tone to your thumbnails and video titles, and make sure your thumbnails and metadata accurately depict your video’s content.
3. Don’t try to monetize videos that already contain ads (i.e. paid product placement ).

How to Get Paid Through AdSense

In order to receive a payment from AdSense, you need to earn at least $100.

For example, if you only earn $10 in a month, you will not receive a payment that month. You will not lose that $10 – you will receive it when your total earnings reach or exceed $100.

You will also need to provide AdSense with tax information and verify your identity and address in order to start being paid.

The most popular way to get paid through AdSense is via an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). To receive your payments this way, you’ll need to link your bank account to your AdSense account.

Here’s how:

1. Log in to AdSense.
2. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then select Payments.
3. On the Payments page, click Manage payment options.
4. Click the Add payment method.
5. You’ll be prompted to add your bank account details.
6. Make sure the name on your AdSense account matches the name on your bank account (if you’re under 18 and cannot make your own AdSense account, this may mean you’re using your parent or guardian’s bank account).

Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?

Not all ads pay the same, and not all videos will be able to attract the ads that pay the most.

How much money your video has the potential to earn depends on:

1. The size of your channel
2. Your niche on YouTube
3. The specific topic of the video

That the size of your channel matters probably isn’t a surprise. The biggest brands want to run their ads beside videos that are getting more views.

Whether or not your YouTube niche has a high potential for profit will depend on a couple things:

1. How many other channels are in your niche?

The more people there are making similar videos to you, the thinner the available ads are spread.

1. How many cheap or expensive products are being advertised in your niche?

If the products are free or inexpensive (i.e. free online games) then that limits your earning ability. In large niches like gaming, the few higher paying ads will go to the most popular channels and the low-paying ads will be spread amongst everyone else.

If you have a very specific niche, i.e. luxury cars, then you will have less competition and the ads available will likely be for more expensive products (and thus the ads themselves will be higher paying).

Even if you are in a large niche, you can still make videos on specific topics designed to attract higher-paying ads and more revenue. Pay attention to the analytics in your Creator Studio to learn which of your videos earn the most. Then, make more videos on similar topics to boost your earnings.

Another factor that can affect what ads appear alongside your videos is the viewing habits of individual viewers. People are shown ads that YouTube believes are more relevant to their interests.

Useful Terminology (CPM, CPC, CPV)

A lot of people think your ad revenue is determined by your view count. This isn’t true – it’s determined by ad impressions.

How much revenue you earn from the ads running around your videos depends on these three things:

CPC: ‘cost per click’. Most of the ads on YouTube are CPC, meaning that an ad impression is only recorded when an ad is clicked on.

CPV: ‘cost per view’. Skippable pre-roll ads are the only ads on YouTube which record ad impressions without clicks. These ads record ad impressions when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad instead of skipping it.

CPM: ‘cost per mille’ or ‘cost per thousand’. This refers to how much money gets paid out for 1000 ad impressions.

Your CPM will be affected by a multitude of things including the ads themselves and the size of your channel. AdSense has made it a rule that you cannot disclose your CPM to anyone, which makes it difficult to determine what you should expect.

Note: never click on ads near your own videos or instruct your viewers/friends to do so. If your clicks are higher than what AdSense considers normal they may ban you.

Sites like Social Blade provide estimated earnings for any channel you want to look up. Looking up channels that are where you plan to be in the near future could help you set your own expectations.

Are you able to monetize your videos? How many more subscribers or hours of watch time do you need?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to make money on YouTube? There are qualifications you have to meet before you can monetize your videos with ads, but you don’t have to have a huge channel.

Here’s everything you need to know to join the YouTube Partner Program and start earning ad revenue:

1. Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program
2. How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube
3. What is Ad Friendly Content?
4. How to Get Paid Through AdSense
5. Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?
6. Useful Terminology (CPM, CPV, CPC)

What is the YouTube Partner Program

YouTube’s Partner Program, or YPP, allows creators to monetize their YouTube videos through ads. If you are a YouTube Partner, that means you are earning revenue from the ads being shown before and during your videos.

Before you dive into the below guide, you may need a video editor to start your monetizing on Youtube. Filmora video editor will be the best choice.

Becoming a skilled video editor takes years of practice, but with Wondershare Filmora video editor, you can produce YouTube videos that have a professional look and feel, even if you are new to the world of video editing. This YouTube Video Creator has big icons and an intuitive interface, so those YouTubers who edit videos for the first time can quickly make a video.

Free Download

Free Download

Qualifying for the YouTube Partner Program

In order to qualify for YPP, you need to prove that you’re creating consistent, original, content and that people are watching your content. YouTube believes that has been proven when you reach these qualifications:

1. 1000 Subscribers
2. 4000 Hours of Watch Time (over the past 12 months)

Not quite there yet? Here’s a list of actionable tips that can help you grow your channel.

If you meet these requirements and are approved for monetization, but then drop below them, your channel will not be automatically demonetized. YouTube may review your content and demonetize you if you seem to have stopped posting videos, but this will not be automatic.

Remember: meeting these milestones does not grant you automatic monetization.

You can apply for YPP when you reach the milestones above, but your channel will still need to be reviewed by a human working for YouTube. Reviewers will be watching for:

1. Nudity or sexual content
2. Harmful, dangerous, threatening, or hateful content
3. Violent or graphic content
4. Harassment or cyberbullying
5. Spam, scams, and misleading metadata
6. Copyright infringement or impersonation
7. Privacy violations
8. Fake subscribers
9. Other guidelines violations

If your content violates any of YouTube’s Community Guidelines you may be denied monetization. Learn more about YouTube’s Community Guidelines here.

How to Apply for Monetization on YouTube

Once you qualify for YPP, applying for monetization is easy.

1. In the Creator Studio, select Channel > Status and features.
2. Under ‘Monetization’, click Enable and follow the steps that appear to accept YouTube’s terms.
3. Wait to be approved.

If you’re approved, you can start earning money as soon as your AdSense account is set up!

If you’re not approved, you can apply again in 30 days.

To make sure you’re approved the next time you apply, review all of YouTube’s related policies (Partner Program policies , Terms of Service , spam policies , and Community Guidelines ) and remove the content that might be holding you back.

In order to start monetizing, you’ll need to link your channel with an AdSense account. You must be over 18 to create an AdSense account. YouTube creators under 18 can link to the AdSense accounts of their parents or guardians.

Here’s how to sign up for AdSense through YouTube:

1. Under Channel > Status and features in your Creator Studio, look for Paid content. Click where it says ‘active AdSense account’.
2. On the following ‘Monetization’ screen, click Next to go to AdSense.
3. You will be asked whether you want to use the Google account you’re already signed in to for AdSense, or if you want to use a different account.
4. The next step is ‘Your Website’. This will automatically be filled in with your channel. Click Accept association if it’s right.

Note: you can only have one AdSense account. Do not make a second one if you already have one. Duplicate accounts may be banned, which will stop you from monetizing your videos.

What is Ad Friendly content?

Not all content that meets YouTube’s Community Guidelines will be considered ‘advertiser-friendly’. Companies don’t want to run ads alongside content that doesn’t match the values of their brands.

YouTube may disable ads on any video it doesn’t think is ad-friendly. Videos which may be flagged as inappropriate for ads include (but are not limited to):

1. Videos that cover controversial or sensitive subjects.
2. Videos depicting the use of drugs or dangerous products.
3. Videos may encourage harmful or dangerous behavior.
4. Videos with swearing (but not ALL videos with swearing – quantity and context are factors).
5. Videos which contain hate speech.
6. Videos that depict family entertainment characters (i.e. Disney princesses) engaged in inappropriate behavior (even if you’re being satirical).

If you want to make sure all of your content is advertiser-friendly, here are some best practices suggested by YouTube:

1. Be respectful of your viewers and any people or groups you may include or mention in your video.
2. Extend this respectful tone to your thumbnails and video titles, and make sure your thumbnails and metadata accurately depict your video’s content.
3. Don’t try to monetize videos that already contain ads (i.e. paid product placement ).

How to Get Paid Through AdSense

In order to receive a payment from AdSense, you need to earn at least $100.

For example, if you only earn $10 in a month, you will not receive a payment that month. You will not lose that $10 – you will receive it when your total earnings reach or exceed $100.

You will also need to provide AdSense with tax information and verify your identity and address in order to start being paid.

The most popular way to get paid through AdSense is via an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). To receive your payments this way, you’ll need to link your bank account to your AdSense account.

Here’s how:

1. Log in to AdSense.
2. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then select Payments.
3. On the Payments page, click Manage payment options.
4. Click the Add payment method.
5. You’ll be prompted to add your bank account details.
6. Make sure the name on your AdSense account matches the name on your bank account (if you’re under 18 and cannot make your own AdSense account, this may mean you’re using your parent or guardian’s bank account).

Which YouTube Videos Get the Highest Paying Ads?

Not all ads pay the same, and not all videos will be able to attract the ads that pay the most.

How much money your video has the potential to earn depends on:

1. The size of your channel
2. Your niche on YouTube
3. The specific topic of the video

That the size of your channel matters probably isn’t a surprise. The biggest brands want to run their ads beside videos that are getting more views.

Whether or not your YouTube niche has a high potential for profit will depend on a couple things:

1. How many other channels are in your niche?

The more people there are making similar videos to you, the thinner the available ads are spread.

1. How many cheap or expensive products are being advertised in your niche?

If the products are free or inexpensive (i.e. free online games) then that limits your earning ability. In large niches like gaming, the few higher paying ads will go to the most popular channels and the low-paying ads will be spread amongst everyone else.

If you have a very specific niche, i.e. luxury cars, then you will have less competition and the ads available will likely be for more expensive products (and thus the ads themselves will be higher paying).

Even if you are in a large niche, you can still make videos on specific topics designed to attract higher-paying ads and more revenue. Pay attention to the analytics in your Creator Studio to learn which of your videos earn the most. Then, make more videos on similar topics to boost your earnings.

Another factor that can affect what ads appear alongside your videos is the viewing habits of individual viewers. People are shown ads that YouTube believes are more relevant to their interests.

Useful Terminology (CPM, CPC, CPV)

A lot of people think your ad revenue is determined by your view count. This isn’t true – it’s determined by ad impressions.

How much revenue you earn from the ads running around your videos depends on these three things:

CPC: ‘cost per click’. Most of the ads on YouTube are CPC, meaning that an ad impression is only recorded when an ad is clicked on.

CPV: ‘cost per view’. Skippable pre-roll ads are the only ads on YouTube which record ad impressions without clicks. These ads record ad impressions when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad instead of skipping it.

CPM: ‘cost per mille’ or ‘cost per thousand’. This refers to how much money gets paid out for 1000 ad impressions.

Your CPM will be affected by a multitude of things including the ads themselves and the size of your channel. AdSense has made it a rule that you cannot disclose your CPM to anyone, which makes it difficult to determine what you should expect.

Note: never click on ads near your own videos or instruct your viewers/friends to do so. If your clicks are higher than what AdSense considers normal they may ban you.

Sites like Social Blade provide estimated earnings for any channel you want to look up. Looking up channels that are where you plan to be in the near future could help you set your own expectations.

Are you able to monetize your videos? How many more subscribers or hours of watch time do you need?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Also read: