Selling beats: leases, exclusives and what each licence actually gives away

If you make instrumentals, selling them to artists online is one of the few income streams you can start this week. You upload a beat to a marketplace or your own store, set a few licence tiers, and rappers and singers buy the right to record over it. The whole model rests on one idea: you can sell the same beat many times, until you sell it once for good.

This guide explains how that works, what each tier really gives away, and the mistakes that cost producers money later. It is written for producers selling their first beats and for those whose licence pages were copied from someone else's and never read closely. It is not legal advice; the law cited is US law, as we read it on 25 Oct 2026.

The only distinction that matters: exclusive or not

Beat stores show a menu of tiers with names like Basic, Premium, Trackout and Unlimited. Strip the names away and there are two kinds. Airbit's help centre puts it plainly: "There are only really two different types of licenses - Exclusive & Non-Exclusive." Everything else, "regardless of their name", is non-exclusive, and "this includes Unlimited."

• A non-exclusive licence (a lease) lets the buyer use the beat in their song under set limits. You keep selling the same beat to other people. Several artists can release songs over the same instrumental.
• An exclusive licence means nobody else gets new rights to the beat from then on. Airbit removes an exclusively sold beat from the store automatically; it is the only tier that does.

An "unlimited lease" is still a lease. It may lift the stream or sales caps, but it does not stop you selling the beat to the next person. Say so on your licence page in one plain sentence, because buyers often assume "unlimited" means "mine".

What goes into a lease tier

Each lease tier is a bundle of two things: the files the buyer gets, and the limits on how they can use the song they make.

Files. A typical ladder moves from a tagged or untagged MP3, to a WAV, to trackouts (the separate stems: drums, bass, melody and so on). Stems are worth the most to a serious artist, because they let an engineer mix the vocal into the beat properly instead of over a flat stereo file. That is why stems usually sit near the top.

Limits. As Airbit notes, "each license type will have different limits, such as streaming, distribution, etc." The common levers are:

1. Stream or sales caps across platforms.
2. Whether the song can be used in a music video, and how many.
3. Whether it can be performed live for money, or used on radio.
4. How long the licence lasts.
5. Credit: the producer tag or a "prod. by" line in the title and metadata.

Keep the number of tiers small. Three leases plus an exclusive is easier for a buyer to read than six near-identical options, and each limit you add is one more thing you will have to enforce or quietly ignore.

Pricing a ladder

There is no official price list, and figures quoted online vary widely, so set prices from your own position rather than someone else's chart. Two rules hold whatever your numbers are.

First, make each step up clearly worth it. If an MP3 lease is $25 and a WAV lease is $30, almost everyone buys the WAV and the MP3 tier only adds clutter. Spread the steps so each one adds something an artist can hear or use: better files, then stems, then higher caps.

Second, price the exclusive against what you give up, not against the leases. Once you sell it, every future lease of that beat is gone. A beat that has already sold dozens of leases is worth more as an exclusive, not less, because you are retiring a proven earner.

Content ID: why your leased beat cannot be claimed

Many producers register their catalogue with a distributor's YouTube Content ID service, then discover the claims hit their own customers. YouTube's eligibility page is direct: content "licensed non-exclusively from a third party" and "sound effects, soundbeds, or production loops" are not eligible as Content ID references, and material "sold or licensed at scale for incorporation into other works" must be routed for review.

The practical rule: do not put beats you lease into Content ID. If an artist who bought a lease gets their video claimed, you have broken the deal you sold them. If your distributor opts you in by default, opt those tracks out. Our guide to YouTube Content ID for your music covers how claims and disputes work.

Exclusives need a signed contract

A lease can be a click-through licence attached to the download. An exclusive should not be. Under US law, the definition of "transfer of copyright ownership" in 17 U.S.C. §101 includes an "exclusive license" and excludes a "nonexclusive license". And §204(a) says such a transfer "is not valid unless" it "is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed". So an exclusive sold with nothing but a checkout receipt sits on weak ground for both of you.

A sensible exclusive contract states:

• which rights move (the beat's recording, its composition, or both) and which you keep;
• your share of publishing and your writer credit on the song;
• whether earlier leases stay valid (they normally must, because those buyers paid in good faith);
• any royalty or points on the master, if you negotiated them.

That third point catches people. Selling an exclusive does not cancel leases already sold. Tell the exclusive buyer how many leases exist before they pay. For how points and splits are usually written, see our guide to producer agreements, points and splits.

Your publishing share on every lease

A beat is not just a sound recording; the music in it is a composition, and you are a writer of the song the artist builds on it. Many lease contracts state the producer's writer share and require the artist to register it. Write yours into every tier, then make sure it happens: send a split sheet with the files. Our guide to metadata, ISRCs, ISWCs and split sheets explains what to collect.

Check your own beat is clean first

You can only license what you own. If a beat contains an uncleared sample, every lease passes that problem to an artist who trusted you. Loops from a royalty-free pack are usually fine, but read the pack's licence: some forbid using the loops in beats sold for others to use. Our sample clearance basics guide covers what to check.

A quick setup checklist

1. Decide on three lease tiers and one exclusive. Name them, but state "non-exclusive" on every lease.
2. For each lease, list the files and the limits in plain words.
3. Keep leased beats out of Content ID.
4. Put your writer share and credit line in every licence.
5. Use a signed written contract for every exclusive, and disclose earlier leases.
6. Keep a sales log: beat, buyer, tier, date and caps. You will need it the day an exclusive buyer asks.

What we think

The lease model is usually sold to producers as volume: put up a hundred beats, lease them cheaply, let the numbers work. We think the smarter view is the opposite. A lease is a cheap option for an artist to test a beat in public, and the producer's real asset is the information it returns: which beats keep selling, which artists are growing, which song took off. The exclusive, and the relationship that comes with it, is where that information pays.

So treat leasing as scouting. Keep tight records, keep your tiers simple enough that nobody misunderstands what they bought, and protect the artists who lease from you as if they were future clients, because the good ones are. A producer who never once lets a lease buyer get claimed, cut out or surprised by an exclusive sale is building a reputation that the anonymous hundred-beat catalogue cannot.