In today's music industry, it's difficult to find a beat that you can affordably license as an exclusive. This post will teach you how to get the rights to an exclusive beat for cheap! Or at least, cheaper than you might have gotten the beat otherwise…

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What is considered a cheap exclusive license?

A cheap exclusive license is any purchase of an exclusive license for less than $1000.

That might seem like a lot, but beat-sellers can often make much more than this by selling non-exclusive licenses.

Even selling an exclusive track for $2-3k might not make sense. Because a producer could make more selling a larger volume of non-exclusives in the future.

So to make up for the sales they are losing in the future, you have to make it worth their while.

In many genres, I expect the price for exclusive licenses to go up because producers want to keep products on their “virtual shelf.”

That being said, a seller can always lower their price to make the buyer happy if the customer is hesitant about purchasing.

The producer wants to score that sale! So we will cover how to negotiate that sale later in the article.
 

Consider Some Compromises

There are many reasons why beats are priced differently. In order to get a cheap price, you might have to consider a compromise on one or more of these:

1. Beat complexity (genre)

2. Beat producer fame

3. Beat quality

Production Complexity (Genre)

One of the main factors in the price is the amount of time the producer spends making the track.

So a really simple hip-hop track with 3 instruments is going to be easier to make than a 60-track pop banger. It makes sense for the producer to charge more for a song that takes more time to make.

More time, more money (usually).

If you want to buy an exclusive beat for cheaper, you may want to focus on genres that are easier to make.

Producer Fame

The fame of the producer has a lot to do with the price of a beat. Someone who has worked for Ariana Grande is probably going to charge more than "Uncle Joe's Basement Productions" down the street.

If you are looking to get a good deal on an exclusive beat, consider buying from lesser-known producers who have demonstrated some skill.

Listen to their beats and judge them based on the sound, not who the producer is!

Beat Quality

Even a skilled producer will make a lower-quality track from time to time.

And that's the final thing to look at: the quality of the beat.

As we've covered, the quality of a track isn't always related to the price. But often lower quality beats WILL be priced lower.

So if you are willing to compromise on the quality of the beat for the sake of "getting that indie sound" and getting a lower exclusive price, go for it!

AI Beats or Stock Libraries

Even though Soundraw.io brands itself as "AI" it is fairly close to being a stock library. If you listen thru enough songs in their "generated" catalog, you'll start to realize a lot of them are basically the same song. 

Yes, it adds a little customization in song arrangement/length. But changing the song order could be done in Ableton or in your video editor.

Libraries can be a great place to find free beat if you are just starting out, but you can't really expect them to be exclusive.

Find The Beat You Want License

Now that you know WHAT you are looking for, it’s time to go find a beat!

The top two marketplaces to buy beats are BeatStars and Airbit. They both have great filters for Genre, BPM, Tags, and much more. Of course the main filter we care about is price, because we want a cheap exclusive license, right?

Shameless promotion: you can listen thru my beats on YouTube here. If you ask, I will always consider doing an exclusive!

When you find a beat, the seller will either 1) have a price listed for their exclusive or 2) not have a price listed.

If they list an exclusive price...

If they have the price listed, contact them and ask if they are willing to sell you the exclusive rights for a lower price. Not significantly lower, because that would most likely piss them off. It doesn't hurt to ask because the worst that can happen is they say “no.”

Here’s a DM message you can copy:

Hi! I was looking at your beat {INSERT SONG NAME} and I think it’s one of the best tracks I’ve heard this year! I would like to get an exclusive license on it but the price is a bit out of my range because {INSERT REASON, LIKE GETTING FIRED, OR BEING A STUDENT}. Would you be open to selling me the exclusive for ${INSERT SLIGHTLY LOWER PRICE}?

From there they will either say yes or no, or ignore you. If they ignore you, follow up after a week.

If they don’t list an exclusive price...

If they don’t have the price listed, contact them and give them a lowball offer. In my opinion $500 is probably a good starting point, but I would say the absolute lowest is $300.

Here’s a DM message you can copy:

Hi! I was looking at your beat {INSERT SONG NAME} and I think it’s one of the best tracks I’ve heard this year! I would like to get an exclusive license for the track. Would you be open to licensing the beat for $500?

From there they will either say yes or no, or ignore you. If they ignore you, follow up after a week.

What To Do If You Can’t Get The Beat For Cheap

Like we covered above, the first thing you should try is negotiating a lower total price for the exclusive license.

Something along the lines of: "I would love to buy this from you but I'm not able to pay $1000 right now.”

But if negotiations don’t go completely in your favor and the beat is more expensive than you were hoping, you can always suggest an alternate payment method...

Like monthly installments instead of paying all at once.

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