Uppbeat vs Epidemic Sound: How Do They Compare?

If you've been looking for a reliable source of royalty-free music for your content, there’s a good chance Uppbeat and Epidemic Sound keep coming up in your search. Both are well-established options for creators and offer high-quality music and sound effects to sharpen your edits. But they work quite differently when it comes to what's included, how much you'll pay, and what you actually get for your money.

This article puts them side by side so you can make the right call for your next project. You’ll see how much each costs, what goes into creating their catalogs, and the extras that come with each subscription, so you leave with a clear picture of which platform fits the way you create.

• Uppbeat vs Epidemic Sound at a glance
• What do you get for your money?
• How do the licenses work?
• What's the difference between each library?
• What else comes with your subscription?
• What do users say?

Uppbeat vs Epidemic Sound: Compare at a glance

Both platforms are built around music made by real artists, and both handle copyright protection cleanly. The key difference is that Uppbeat's catalog is carefully curated to a standard used by professional film, TV, and advertising productions, while Epidemic Sound focuses on offering a greater number of assets and providing AI-driven tools.

What does Uppbeat offer?

Uppbeat is a creative resource built specifically for content creators, with a music catalog whose artists and tracks are also used in television, film, and advertising. That gives creators access to a level of audio quality that most creator-facing platforms don't offer, alongside 25,000+ sound effects and 10,000+ motion graphics and LUTs, all made by the same carefully curated roster of artists.

What does Epidemic Sound offer?

Epidemic Sound is a music and sound effects platform with a catalog of over 50,000 tracks, produced by professional musicians and in-house composers. It owns the rights to everything in its library outright, paying artists a flat fee upfront rather than ongoing royalties for each download. It's a well-established choice for creators who want a large volume of music, and its AI tools add some workflow shortcuts for customizing and syncing tracks to video.

That’s a top-line view of the differences, but it’s worth stacking up the two platforms side-by-side. Here's a quick overview of what both offer before we dive into the fine details.

Pricing and plans: What do you get for your money?

Uppbeat is the more affordable option at every tier, and it's the only platform of the two with a genuine free plan that lets you download and actually use assets. This is worth spelling out, because Epidemic Sound's free trial doesn't give you usable downloads, which means you need to commit to a paid plan before you do anything with the music.

Uppbeat: Professional-standard assets at creator prices

The headline here is value. Uppbeat's music is used by television, film, and advertising productions, and you can access that same standard of audio at no cost. Three free downloads (renewed each month), is a genuinely useful starting point for creators who want to test the quality of a library before committing. And that’s before you factor in the motion graphics and LUTs that aren’t available on Epidemic Sound.

Free: 3 downloads per month from Uppbeat's full catalog. Copyright-safe and renewed with an extra download each month. 

Price: Free.

Essentials: Unlimited music and sound effects downloads. Safelist one YouTube channel.

Price: $6.99/month (monthly billing).

Creator: Unlimited downloads across music, sound effects, motion graphics, and LUTs. Safelist three YouTube channels. License for individuals and small teams.

Price: $9.99/month (monthly billing).

Pro: Everything in Creator, plus licenses for organizations of any scale, digital ads, and client content. Safelist ten YouTube channels and access WAV downloads and priority support.

Price: $17.99/month (monthly billing).

Annual plans bring those prices down by up to 39%. That makes an annual subscription to Uppbeat's top-tier Pro plan less per month than Epidemic Sound's base Creator plan.

Epidemic Sound: Music and sound effects only, with a pricier entry point

Epidemic Sound has two plans for individual creators. There's no free plan, and the monthly pricing is notably higher than its annual equivalent. This makes short-term testing relatively expensive.

Creator: Unlimited catalog access and downloads, although the license only covers one channel per platform and is limited to personal content only.

Price: $9.99/month (annual), $17.99/month (monthly).

Pro: Ability to monetize up to three channels per platform, with licenses for both digital ads and freelancer client work.

Price: $16.99/month (annual), $39.99/month (monthly).

Business: Allows agencies and businesses to clear tracks for use in marketing, social and events.

Price: $29.99/month (annual), $74.99/month (monthly).

Enterprise: Custom pricing for larger organizations, broadcast, and live events.

None of Epidemic Sound’s plans include motion graphics or LUTs, so creators who need those assets will need to budget for a separate service on top.

How do the licenses work?

Both platforms handle copyright protection through channel safelisting, which prevents Content ID claims on YouTube. The main practical difference between Uppbeat and Epidemic Sound is what happens to your content after you cancel your subscription.

Uppbeat's licensing

Every download from Uppbeat, including those from the free plan, is covered for use on social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Safelisting your YouTube channel means Content ID claims are handled automatically. It’s worth noting that free plan downloads require a credit to Uppbeat, but taking out a paid plan removes that requirement. 

Paid plans come with a perpetual license, meaning any content you publish while subscribed remains copyright-safe even after you cancel your subscription. The Essentials and Creator plans will cover you if you’re a solo creator or part of a small team, whereas the Pro plan works for organizations of any size, and includes coverage for client content and digital ads.

Epidemic Sound's licensing

Epidemic Sound owns 100% of its catalog outright, buying tracks from artists upfront rather than paying full ongoing royalties. This keeps the licensing straightforward from a legal standpoint, though it does mean artists don't benefit when their music is downloaded or streamed. Uppbeat takes a different approach, paying artists a share of revenue every time their music is used.

Content published while your subscription is active stays cleared, even after you cancel. But you cannot use tracks in new uploads after your subscription ends, which means staying subscribed is necessary if you want to keep publishing with Epidemic Sound music. The Creator plan covers copyright safelisting for one channel per platform, and for personal use only. The Pro plan adds multiple channels, client work, and ad use.

Both platforms require an active subscription when you publish new content using their music. The difference is that Uppbeat’s perpetual license ensures anything you publish while subscribed remains licensed and copyright-safe permanently.

What's the difference between each library?

This is where the two platforms diverge significantly, and is the most important section if audio quality matters to your content.

Uppbeat: Music built for professional productions, priced for creators

Uppbeat is a Music Vine Limited brand. Its music catalog draws from the same artist roster and curation standards as Music Vine – a sync library, whose tracks are placed in television programmes, feature films, and advertising campaigns. That professional pedigree is unusual in the creator music space, where most platforms are built specifically for the content creation market and don't cross over with high-end production.

The music in Uppbeat's library has been selected to meet a standard that music supervisors and production companies expect. Only around 1% of artist submissions make it into the catalog, and every track is manually reviewed and tagged to make it easier to find what you want. The result is a smaller library than Epidemic Sound, but one where the quality is meaningfully higher.

For creators, the value is clear. You're accessing music that professional TV, film, and advertising productions pay a significant premium for, through a subscription that starts at a few dollars a month, or nothing at all on the free plan. That's a level of audio quality most creator-facing platforms simply can't match.

Beyond music, Uppbeat has 25,000+ sound effects and 10,000+ motion graphics and LUTs. Every asset is made by real artists from the same curated roster. And it's the only platform in this comparison that gives you a complete creative toolkit in one place. 

Epidemic Sound: Large-scale library with in-house production

Epidemic Sound is a reliable choice if size of catalog is your main priority. Its 50,000+ tracks means you'll rarely find a gap in genre, mood or energy level, although you might have to spend more time searching for the music you want.

Stem downloads let you isolate individual layers of a track, so you can remove drums during a voiceover section or strip back an arrangement to suit a specific moment. That kind of control can be useful, though it does add an extra step to your workflow. Creators who prefer to drop in a finished track and move on may find it more than they need.

Epidemic Sound’s AI-powered Adapt tool adjusts track length and intensity automatically, which saves time when cutting your sound to a specific scene. But again, some creators will prefer to keep full control over the sounds that end up in their content rather than leaving it to an AI algorithm.

What Epidemic Sound doesn't have is the professional sync pedigree behind Uppbeat's catalog. Its music isn’t put through the same rigorous selection process that Uppbeat applies, which means that you might have to sift through lots of tracks to find one you like. For creators who care about quality, that distinction matters.

What else comes with your subscription?

Once you’ve covered the basics like price and licensing, smaller platform features can end up making the biggest difference to your workflow day-to-day. The ease with which you can discover music, edit tracks, or get help when something goes wrong can shape your whole experience with a platform.

Uppbeat: Creator-focused discovery and real human support

Uppbeat's Playlist Generator lets you describe your video in plain English and receive a personalized playlist of matching tracks. Given the depth of quality in the catalog, it's a genuinely fast way to land on professional-grade audio without spending time browsing.

Once you have a feel for the library, smart filters, 2,500+ hand-picked collections, a More like this feature, and keyboard shortcuts also make the browsing experience faster. You can save all your best-loved and most-used assets to personal Boards so you can find them right away – that’s how YouTuber Madame Myriad keeps her favorites organized. And you can use the Sync Preview to check how well a track will work alongside your footage.

But the feature that earns the most consistent praise from creators is Uppbeat's support team. Every plan, including the free plan, gives you access to a real human support team. Uppbeat also holds the highest Trustpilot rating in the music licensing space.

Epidemic Sound: AI tools and stem editing

Epidemic Sound's most distinctive extras are its AI tools. ‘Adapt’ lets you customize a track's length, intensity, and arrangement automatically, while ‘Studio’ can generate a synced soundtrack from a video upload. These can save time when you're editing quickly, though creators who want full control may prefer to select and place music themselves, rather than having it generated or adjusted by AI.

Stem downloads give you the option to isolate individual layers of a track and remove or adjust specific elements to suit your edit. It's a feature that appeals to creators who work at a detailed audio level, though for most use cases a well-chosen track from a quality library will do the same job without the extra steps.

What do users say about Uppbeat and Epidemic Sound?

Uppbeat holds a Trustpilot score of 4.7 from nearly 2,000 reviews. Creators consistently highlight the quality of the music library, how quickly they can find what they need, and the speed and helpfulness of the support team. A common thread is that the music doesn't sound like typical stock audio, which reflects the professional standard behind the catalog.

Epidemic Sound is also well-rated, with particular praise for the breadth of its catalog. Common criticisms focus on the pricing gap between monthly and annual plans, how restricted creators feel when it comes to using tracks after they cancel, and how difficult it can be to contact their customer support team.

Uppbeat vs Epidemic Sound: Which platform is right for you?

Ultimately, both platforms can help you find music for your videos – the difference comes down to how you prefer to work. Epidemic Sound may suit creators who want to access a very large catalog or rely on tools like AI soundtracking and stem downloads to shape their edits.

Uppbeat is built more directly around the everyday needs of creators. Its curated catalog makes it easier to find high-quality tracks quickly, while the free plan provides a genuine starting point for new channels. The perpetual license also means your videos stay protected long after you’ve downloaded a track.

On top of that, Uppbeat’s library goes beyond music, bringing together sound effects, motion graphics and LUTs in one place. For creators who want professional-quality assets, without a complex workflow or high price tag, Uppbeat can make a real difference.