Shutterstock and PremiumBeat partner to provide the best platform for sharing your royalty-free music with the world. Here is what you need to know before joining our community of contributing artists and producers.

The onboarding for a music contributor is different from the experience for a footage or image contributor to Shutterstock. We currently work with a very small number of music contributors, so we are able to provide more individualized support. When onboarded, each music contributor is assigned an individual representative from the music content team who will work with them on producing the best possible tracks for our collection.

The terms of our music contributor agreement and payout scheme are also different than that for other types of media.

Both of our collections are carefully curated by our production experts. If you are on-boarded as a composer, our content experts will determine which of our collections your work would be best suited for, based on the needs of each collection at that time.

We encourage you to browse through both of our collections, to get a strong idea about our popular and high-quality tracks, and the sound and genres that resonate with our customers.

For your initial batch, send us up to 5 tracks. Make sure you own and control 100% of the copyright in both the composition and master recording of the music.

Make sure your music is available exclusively. We do not accept any music on a non-exclusive basis. You may submit tracks that have already been placed elsewhere as examples of your work, but we will require exclusivity on all tracks added to the library. The tracks submitted must be free of 3rd party rights.

We do not accept:

Music submitted to Shutterstock must be of professional quality. All tracks must be uploaded in MP3 format, with a maximum individual file size of 15MB. Ideal track length is 2:30-3:00 minutes.

Once tracks are approved we handle the front-end metadata, but we do require information from the artist on every track including the title, tempo (BPM), instruments used, and composer information.

Here are a few key elements of top selling tracks.

Commercial Value

“Commercial value” represents the likelihood that your song will be useful to a creative buyer. Since many songs are licensed for commercial, corporate, marketing, or advertising uses, the more attractive and usable a composition is for a broad number of uses the more it is considered to have “commercial value.”

Inspirational

Songs that inspire an emotional reaction are more valuable than those that do not. Make sure your track expresses and reflects a genuine emotion.

Good structure

Production music does not mean cheesy music. Avoid slow progress and monotony, rather aim for a steady rise and a quick evolution of the song. Our top-seller songs are predictable yet still authentic and original.

Top-notch production quality

Unfortunately, poor production quality is often the reason why we deny submissions. We pride ourselves in offering only high-quality music, hence we are very rigorous on this aspect. Make sure you diversify your sounds, i.e. don’t always use the same synth pads or the same plug-ins.

Up-to-Date

Most of our clients are looking for mainstream music that is up-to-date and current. Keep that in mind when producing your songs and let go of those 80’s synth pads. Don’t go too niche in terms of genre or era, yet keep an innovative sound.

We work diligently to review music submissions on a daily basis. However, due to the large number of submissions we receive daily, please keep in mind that the initial review process for music submissions can take up to a few months.

All music submitted is reviewed by professionals with significant experience in music production. We base our decisions on different criteria, mainly production quality, song structure, licensing (sales) potential, quality of musical performance and composition quality.

If your submission is successful you will be contacted via email to set up a Skype interview with our music content team. Just like when hiring a new employee, it’s important for us to get to know our contributors a little better and meet, at least once, via Skype or Google Hangout. During our call, we will go over the details of our music contributor agreement and answer any questions that you may have.

Due to volume restrictions, multiple submissions by the same artist will not be reviewed. Make sure to gather your best 5 tracks and submit once.

The contributor referral program does not currently cover music.

We exclusively buy out the rights to the tracks and pay a substantial, per track fee upfront for every track acquired; contributors will not receive any additional payout from sales. As such, music contributors are guaranteed to receive payment from us even if their music is never licensed by a Shutterstock customer.

We process payments via Paypal or wire transfer within 2-4 weeks after a delivery of five (5) tracks is fully approved. Further details on payout (including the per track fee) will be provided directly by our music content team if your submission is successful.

Our music contributor agreement constitutes a full transfer of rights in exchange for upfront payment. This means that tracks acquired for Shutterstock cannot be used or distributed by the contributor for their own personal or professional projects. This is necessary to maintain the exclusivity of our music collection as well as to ensure the wide range of licensing uses available to the Shutterstock music customer.

In addition, PRO-affiliated composers will receive 100% of the writer’s share of public performance royalties generated from any public broadcasts of their music.

No. Whether you are a member of a PRO (collecting society) or not does not affect your eligibility to work with us. We work with both affiliated and unaffiliated composers.

Read more about Shutterstock Music in this blog post.

Click here to submit up to 5 tracks for our team at PremiumBeat for review. You will receive a confirmation email once your submission successfully goes through to the review team. Our colleagues at PremiumBeat will reach out to you if your submission is accepted.