Sync licensing is how your music gets licensed to be used in visual media, including TV shows, films, ads, and video games. A production can’t legally put your song behind its footage without a sync license. This includes everything from a Netflix scene to a Super Bowl ad to a TikTok campaign.
Getting paid for a placement works differently than streaming or radio. Nobody tracks plays and pays you a set rate. Instead, a music supervisor for a production picks your song (whether they found it or it was pitched to them), you negotiate a fee, and they pay it once. The placement then earns performance royalties every time the content airs.
Based on industry estimates, sync fees run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to six figures or more. A single well-placed song can earn more than years of streaming royalties. However, there are way more songs than placements, so the competition is real.
In this article, we break down how sync licensing works, what sync placements pay on average, and five ways to pitch your music to the people who license it.
Key Takeaways
- Sync licensing is the process of licensing a song for use in visual media, and starts either with you pitching your music or with a production reaching out to license it.
- Every sync placement requires two licenses: a synchronization license for the composition and a master use license for the recording. No production can legally use your song in visual content without these licenses.
- There’s no set “fee” for a sync license. A placement can pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to six figures or more, depending on the project's budget, how the music is used, and the reach of the placement.
- A production pays two licensing fees for a sync placement, one for the composition and one for the recording. The placement then earns performance royalties through a PRO every time the content airs.
- You can pitch your music for sync through libraries, agents, pitch services, a distributor, a publisher, or directly to music supervisors yourself.
How Does Sync Licensing Work?
Sync is short for synchronization, because the music gets “synchronized” to the picture. Every placement, whether it's a film, TV show, commercial, trailer, video game, streaming original, or social media ad, requires the production to get two licenses:
- The synchronization license covers the composition, meaning the song as written. Your publisher grants this one, or you do, if you're independent and own your publishing.
- The master use license covers the recording itself. Your label grants this one, or you do, if you own your masters.
The production licensing your song pays two separate fees, one for the song and one for the recording. If you control both sides, you approve the deal and keep both payments.
If you're signed, your label and publisher both have to approve the deal. Each one collects the fee for its side, then pays out your share under your contract.
The 4 Steps of a Sync Deal
A production hires a music supervisor to pick and license the music for its project. Whether you pitch to the supervisor or they find your music on their own, every sync deal follows a similar process:
- The supervisor decides they want your song. They're searching for a track that fits a specific scene, mood, and budget. They either find it in a music library or someone pitches it to them, whether that's a sync agent, a publisher, or the artist.
- They contact whoever controls the rights. That means the publisher for the composition and the label for the recording, or just you, if you're independent and own both. Fewer owners means a faster deal, which is one advantage independent artists have.
- Both sides negotiate the fees and terms. The fee amount depends on how the song is used, whether it's background or featured, how long the content runs, which territories it airs in, and the production's budget. Some productions also pay extra for an exclusive license, which means you can’t license your song to anyone else during the deal.
- The licenses get signed and you get paid upfront. The production typically pays the sync fee for the composition and the master use fee for the recording before the content airs. Both are one-time payments.
Although the sync fee is a one-time payment, the placement keeps earning after it. Every time the content airs, the production files cue sheets listing every song used, and your Performing Rights Organization (PRO) uses them to pay you performance royalties for each broadcast. On a long-running show, those backend royalties can eventually out-earn the original fee.
Keep in mind that these royalties can only reach you if you're registered with a PRO, whether that's ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.
How Much Do Sync Placements Pay?
There's no standard rate for sync placements, and organizations don’t publish official rates because every fee gets negotiated privately. But based on industry research and published placement data, fees typically fall into these ranges:
- Indie films and student projects: A few hundred dollars to $5,000. Some small festival films pay nothing upfront and only offer a screen credit.
- TV shows and streaming series: Roughly $2,000 to $50,000 per placement, depending on the show's budget and how prominently your song is used.
- National commercials: Typically between $15,000 and $250,000, with global campaigns for major brands reaching $500,000 or more. Audi reportedly paid an estimated $2 million just to use David Bowie's "Starman" in one Super Bowl ad.
- Video games: Around $1,000 for low-budget games and up to $150,000 for major titles.
- Trailers: Often the highest-paying category because a trailer is an ad for a movie and your song is part of the sales pitch. Fees for major studio trailers can reach several hundred thousand dollars, though the biggest deals rarely get disclosed.
Keep in mind that these fees split between the composition and the recording, so what you actually take home depends on which side you own. If you own both, the entire fee is yours.
A placement can also put your song in front of new listeners, and the streaming bump that follows can sometimes be worth more than the license itself.
The most famous example is when Stranger Things used Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" in 2022, the song earned an estimated $2.3 million in streaming royalties in under a month, separate from whatever Netflix paid for the license. And because she owns her masters, most of that money went directly to her.
How to Get Your Music Ready for Sync Placements
Sync licensing moves fast, and supervisors skip past songs that are complicated to license. So before you pitch anything, get your music ready:
- Make sure you own or control your rights. If your song has an uncleared sample or a co-writer who hasn't agreed to splits, nobody can license it.
- Fill out your metadata. That means the song title, every writer's name, your publisher if you have one, your contact info, and your ISRC code, which is the ID number your distributor assigns each track. Make sure you're easy to get a hold of, because if a supervisor can't reach you to clear the song, they'll just use a different one.
- Make instrumental and alternate versions. Supervisors often need your song without vocals, or a shorter edit, and they usually need it within days. Have those files made before anyone asks.
5 Ways to Pitch Your Music for Sync Placements
Once your music is ready, you have five main ways to pitch it.
1. Sync Libraries
These are companies that keep catalogs of pre-cleared songs for supervisors to search. You apply, and if the library accepts your music, it lists your songs, handles the licensing when a supervisor picks one, and splits the fee with you, often around 50/50.
Musicbed is a curated library known for film and ad placements, and Songtradr is one of the largest open marketplaces, where you set your own pricing. Beware that some platforms pay a flat fee upfront and take exclusive rights to your tracks.
2. Sync Agents and Pitch Services
Sync agents pitch your music to supervisors they already know, in exchange for a percentage of the fee. They're selective, usually taking on artists with a strong catalog and some placements already, and in return they pitch your music for film, TV, and ad projects, negotiate the fees, and handle the licensing paperwork.
Agencies like Marmoset, Terrorbird Media, and Bank Robber Music list their rosters and submission pages on their sites. Keep in mind that a real agent only makes money when you do, so avoid anyone who calls themselves an agent but charges monthly fees.
Pitch services work differently. Platforms like Taxi charge a membership fee to submit your songs to project listings, and they don't take a cut of the deal.
Both models are legitimate, but anyone charging you fees and taking a commission is a red flag.
3. Your Distributor's Sync Program
If you already distribute through a company like Ditto or CD Baby, you may not need to look far, because many distributors run their own sync programs. You opt in, their sync team pitches your catalog to supervisors, and they either take a cut of any fee or include pitching in a paid plan.
Check whether you're already enrolled before signing with an agent or library, because if two companies pitch the same song, the supervisor can't tell who controls the rights.
4. A Publisher
If you sign a publishing deal, pitching your songs for sync becomes part of the publisher's job. Publishers have sync teams with supervisor relationships, and they clear the composition side themselves, which makes your songs easier to license. Some administration deals include sync pitching too, but it's usually an add-on, so ask before signing.
This path comes with the biggest tradeoff, though. A publisher takes an ongoing share of your publishing income, not just a cut of sync fees, so if sync is your main goal, an agent or library might get you there without giving up part of your catalog.
5. Pitching Supervisors Yourself
You can pitch supervisors directly, but it's the slowest path, since they get hundreds of submissions a week. Standing out starts with targeting the right people. Find the supervisors who work on shows and ads that use music like yours, which you can look up on Tunefind or in IMDb crew listings.
From there, check their company site or LinkedIn for contact info or a submission form, since most supervisors don't publish an email address.
If you do find one, keep the pitch short: a few sentences and a streaming link, not attachments. Say who you are, why the track fits their projects, and that you own your rights, because that's the first thing a supervisor will check. If you don't hear back, send one follow-up after a couple of weeks and leave it there.
Don't take it personally if they don't respond. Most artists have more luck hiring a sync agent or submitting to libraries instead, which is exactly why they exist.
The Bottom Line
Now you know what it takes to increase your chances of landing a sync placement: clean rights, complete metadata, ready-to-send files, and pitching through any of the five paths above. None of it guarantees a deal, but it puts you in the running.
Whether a placement comes through or not, your music may already be earning royalties from streaming, radio, and everywhere else it gets played.
Those royalties arrive slowly, with PROs paying quarterly and payments taking months to reach you. Instead of waiting on that schedule, you can sell part of your future royalties on Royalty Exchange and get paid upfront, all while staying in control of how much you sell and keeping ownership of your songs.
