Short answer for a small US store, café or salon playing background music: roughly $1,000 to $1,600 a year, once you add up the four organisations that each bill separately. On their 2026 published rate cards ASCAP's General licence starts around $402 a year, BMI's around $294 to $415, SESAC sits a little higher and GMR is charged on top. A 60-seat restaurant or a venue with live music, a DJ or karaoke pays well beyond that. These are estimates from the official tariffs, not a quote: the figure for your premises depends on floor area, capacity and how the music is used, and every section below links to the source so you can check the exact bracket. In the United Kingdom the system is different: see how much a PRS and PPL licence costs; for Canada, Entandem.
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Every recorded song carries two distinct rights that must be cleared separately to play it publicly in a commercial venue. Understanding this split is the foundation of any honest cost calculation.
Every song has authors and composers who hold the rights to the underlying musical composition. Those rights are administered by Performing Rights Organisations. In the United States, the three main PROs are the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), and SESAC. A fourth organisation, Global Music Rights, covers a smaller but commercially important catalogue. In the United Kingdom, PRS for Music represents the songwriter and publisher side. In Italy, this role is held by SIAE; in France by SACEM; in Germany by GEMA.
A public performance license from a PRO grants the business the right to perform the compositions in that organisation's catalogue. Crucially, a license from one PRO does not cover the repertoire of another. ASCAP represents over 13 million works from songwriters and publishers. BMI represents around 22.4 million songs from 1.4 million artists. SESAC has a smaller but more selective catalogue of 1.5 million works from approximately 15,000 artists. To play a varied playlist from these repertoires legally, a business in the United States generally needs all three licenses.
The actual sound recording, as opposed to the underlying composition, belongs to a different rights holder, typically a record label, often together with the recording artist. In the United States, neighbouring rights for digital transmissions are administered by SoundExchange. In the United Kingdom, Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) handles recording rights through the combined PPL PRS Music Licence. In Italy, SCF administers the producer side.
A composition license alone is not sufficient to play a commercial recording publicly. Both rights must be cleared, either through separate licenses or through a unified arrangement that covers both.
The two licenses above grant permission but do not provide the actual music. The music source is a third cost layer: a curated background music service, a commercial music subscription, or a custom audio catalogue. Consumer streaming accounts on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music or Amazon Music explicitly exclude commercial use in their terms of service, regardless of any external public performance licenses the business may hold. The result is that even a fully PRO-licensed venue cannot legally use a personal Spotify account to play music for customers.
Three separate cost layers, not one. Composition rights (PROs), master recording rights (neighbouring rights bodies), and the music source itself. A complete compliance picture requires all three.
The United States operates under a fragmented PRO system. A business that plays diverse popular music from the PRO repertoires needs separate licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, with the option to add GMR for full coverage.
ASCAP, a non-profit member-owned organisation, sets a General License minimum that for a small business starts in the low hundreds of dollars per year. The rate scales with occupancy, square footage, and music usage. Venues that host live music, charge cover fees, or maintain audio-visual systems pay materially more. ASCAP enforcement agents actively visit commercial premises and pursue litigation against unlicensed venues. Current rates: ascap.com
BMI, the largest of the three main PROs by catalogue size, prices small-business licensing in similar territory, starting in the low hundreds of dollars per year. Costs scale up significantly: larger venues or those with intensive music usage pay many times the entry rate. BMI's rate structure includes specific add-ons for live performances, DJ events, and karaoke. Current rates: bmi.com/licensing
SESAC, the only for-profit PRO among the three main organisations, does not publish a public rate card: fees are agreed directly and generally sit above the ASCAP and BMI minimums, historically in the mid hundreds of dollars per year for a small venue. SESAC's catalogue is smaller in volume but contains a high concentration of popular hits. Current rates: sesac.com
Global Music Rights covers a fourth catalogue of high-profile songwriters and represents an additional license layer that businesses playing chart music often need to add. Separately, master recording rights for digital transmissions are administered by SoundExchange.
Adding the entry-level minimums of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, plus modest GMR coverage, the combined annual floor for a single-zone, single-location small business commonly lands above a thousand dollars. That figure is the entry point, not the average. Restaurants with seating capacity above modest thresholds, retail stores with audible floor areas above small-shop limits, hotels with multiple public spaces, and any venue with live music or audio-visual content pay materially more.
Enforcement is real: the PROs employ agents who visit commercial premises and litigate against unlicensed venues, and cases against groups of restaurants and bars are periodically reported in the trade press. Statutory damages under United States federal law run from $750 to $30,000 per work, rising to as much as $150,000 per work where the infringement is found to be wilful (17 U.S.C. § 504). The arithmetic of non-compliance generally exceeds the cost of proper licensing for any established business.
Every country runs its own collecting societies and its own rate cards, so the US figures above do not transfer. We keep a separate, sourced guide for each market: PRS and PPL in the United Kingdom, IMRO and PPI in Ireland, Entandem in Canada, OneMusic in Australia and OneMusic in New Zealand. For Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the other EU markets, the guides are in each country's language from the site menu.
The legal framework recognises that catalogues of works outside the repertoires administered by collecting societies are a legitimate alternative for commercial venues. When a service provider produces music in-house or works with a catalogue that has never been registered with collecting societies, the works are not part of the repertoires they administer.
This is the framework under which My Corporate Radio operates. MCR is a music streaming service provider for commercial venues. The catalogue streamed to subscribers consists of works for which the rights have been settled directly between MCR and the producers and authors involved. Those works are not part of the repertoires administered by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR, PPL, PRS for Music, SIAE, SCF or equivalent collective management organisations in other jurisdictions.
Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience. He works as a host on national commercial radio and leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
The MCR catalogue is curated under his direction, with the discipline of someone who programmes music professionally for a living. Every track is selected for context: the morning service in a bistro is not the same as the late-afternoon shift in a luxury hotel lobby, and the curation reflects that distinction.
The monthly subscription is a fee for a service. The service consists of:
For a single-location business on the Background Music plan, the all-inclusive cost is £12.99 per month, billed in GBP$16.99 per month, billed in USD€14.99 per month, billed in EUR. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. For multi-location operators, hotel chains, retail groups and enterprise venues, custom pricing is available at sales@mycorporateradio.com.
A venue that hosts frequent live performances, books touring artists, operates a dance floor with rotating DJs spinning from their own collections, plays radio broadcasts or works outside the streaming service's catalogue will still need a traditional PRO license to cover the unpredictable repertoire performed live. A proprietary catalogue produced in-house coexists with collective management rather than replacing it entirely.
The following figures assume a single-location small business with a single audio zone, playing background music during standard operating hours.
| Cost component | Traditional path (UK)Traditional path (USA)Traditional path (EU avg) | MCR streaming service |
|---|---|---|
| Collecting societies / PROs | PPL PRS £450.99 + VAT ASCAP + BMI + SESAC: commonly above $1,000 combined Siae, Scf, Sacem, Gema: tariffs vary by country and venue | Not required for MCR catalogue |
| Music source / service | A further recurring subscription A further recurring subscription A further recurring subscription | Included in subscription |
| Late-start or annual surcharge | +50% first year if late, plus periodic rate increases | None |
| Year-one total | £450.99 + VAT, plus the music service$1,000 to $1,600 a year, plus the music serviceVaries by country, plus the music service | £155.88$203.88€179.88 — all included |
The traditional path figures above are based on the lowest published rates for the smallest commercial premises in each category. Real businesses with larger floor areas, more seating capacity, multiple zones, live music or audio-visual content pay materially more under the traditional path. The MCR service applies only to works in the MCR catalogue; a business that plays additional repertoire from PRO catalogues will still need the relevant PRO licenses for that repertoire.
Beyond the headline licence fee, business owners frequently encounter unexpected costs.
Performing Rights Organisations and PPL PRS adjust their rates periodically, generally each year, often above general inflation. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC each apply their own increases independently, which compounds the effect for businesses holding all three licences.
Live music events, DJ nights, dance floors, audio-visual content, additional speaker zones, outdoor seating areas, karaoke, jukeboxes and special events often trigger surcharges or require add-on licences. The headline rate quoted for background music alone rarely reflects the operational reality of a busy venue.
Businesses that have been playing music without a licence and are subsequently contacted by a PRO or PPL PRS face a surcharge on their first invoice. In the United Kingdom, this is typically 50 percent of the standard rate. In the United States, statutory damages under copyright law can reach $150,000 per work where the infringement is found to be wilful.
Managing multiple licence relationships, tracking renewal dates, responding to audits and verifying that fees are calculated correctly takes operator time. For multi-location businesses, the administrative overhead of music licensing compliance is a real cost that rarely appears in headline comparisons.
Operating without proper licensing exposes the business to copyright enforcement actions. Enforcement is becoming more sophisticated: digital auditing tools allow PROs to identify likely non-compliant venues without physical inspection.
Three illustrative scenarios that show how the numbers play out for typical commercial venues.
A retail store of about 1,000 square feet, background music only, no live performances. Under the traditional path with PRO repertoire, licensing ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and GMR directly lands at roughly $1,000 to $1,600 a year on the 2026 rate cards. On top of those licenses, the business still needs a commercial music source, which is a further recurring subscription. With the MCR streaming service playing only its proprietary catalogue, the annual cost is $16.99 × 12, totalling $203.88.
A 1,200 square foot retail boutique, no live music, background playlists during opening hours. Under the traditional path with PRO repertoire, the business needs entry-level licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, plus modest GMR coverage and a licensed background music service on top. Year-one total: commonly well above $1,500. With the MCR streaming service playing only its proprietary catalogue, the annual cost is $16.99 × 12, totalling $203.88.
A group with three restaurants of comparable size, all playing curated background music during service. Under the traditional path with PRO/SIAE repertoire, SIAE and SCF combined fees per location typically run around €400 to €700 per year, plus a background music subscription per location. Three-location total: €1,800 to €3,000 per year before counting administrative overhead. With the MCR streaming service playing only its proprietary catalogue, the cost is €14.99 per month per location, totalling approximately €540 per year for the group.
The Background Music plan costs £12.99$16.99€14.99 per month, billed in the matching currency. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. For multi-location businesses, custom pricing is available through sales@mycorporateradio.com.
We keep the full per-organisation breakdown on a dedicated page, updated with the figures for each society: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC license cost for a business.
On the 2026 published rate cards, ASCAP's General license for a small business starts around $402 a year and BMI's around $294 to $415; SESAC sits a little higher and GMR is billed on top. A small store, café or salon that licenses all four directly lands at roughly $1,000 to $1,600 a year before paying for any music source. Larger venues, live music, DJs and karaoke cost materially more. These are estimates from the official tariffs, not a quote: the exact figure depends on capacity, floor area and how the music is used.
A proprietary music catalogue consists of musical works produced in-house by a music service provider, outside the collective management system administered by Performing Rights Organisations. The works in such a catalogue are not part of the repertoires administered by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, PPL PRS or equivalent collecting societies, so no PRO fees apply to it.
No. Consumer streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music are licensed exclusively for personal, non-commercial use. Their terms of service explicitly prohibit use in commercial premises that are open to the public. Playing music from a personal account in a business venue creates copyright exposure that is independent of any public performance license held with a PRO.
Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience. He works as a host on national commercial radio and leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
Yes. The subscription can be cancelled at any time from the account dashboard. There are no long-term commitments. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card and converts to a paid subscription only with explicit confirmation.
In the United States, statutory damages for copyright infringement are set by federal law at between $750 and $30,000 per work, rising to as much as $150,000 per work where the infringement is found to be wilful (17 U.S.C. § 504). In the United Kingdom, businesses caught playing unlicensed music typically face the original licensing fee plus a 50 percent surcharge on the first year, and infringement can also be pursued through the courts.
MCR streaming service: £12.99$16.99€14.99 per month. Curated catalogue fully licensed with rights holders. No credit card required for the 7-day trial.
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Official sources for current licensing rates:
ASCAP: ascap.com/help/ascap-licensing
BMI: bmi.com/licensing
SESAC: sesac.com
PPL PRS (UK): pplprs.co.uk/themusiclicence
PRS for Music (UK): prsformusic.com/licences
SIAE (Italy): siae.it
SACEM (France): sacem.fr
GEMA (Germany): gema.de
SGAE (Spain): sgae.es
Tariffs cited in this guide reflect publicly published current rates and are subject to change without notice. For the most current figures that apply to a specific business, always consult the official organisation directly.
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