Every ad campaign needs music. The decision that follows is the one most agencies and brand teams agonize over: do we license something from a library, or do we commission something custom?
Both approaches work. Neither is inherently better. The right answer depends on your campaign, your budget, your timeline, and — most importantly — what you’re actually trying to do with the sound.
Library music — also called stock music — is pre-composed, pre-recorded audio that you can license for a fee. Platforms like Artlist, Musicbed, Marmoset, Epidemic Sound, and our sister platform Top Shelf Music all operate in this space.
The advantages are real: speed (you can license a track today and be in edit tomorrow), price (library licensing is dramatically cheaper than custom composition), and range (a good library has tracks across every genre and mood).
The disadvantage is also real: so can your competitor. Library music is non-exclusive unless you specifically negotiate for exclusivity. That hip, indie acoustic track you licensed? Seventeen other brands may have licensed it this quarter.
Custom music is composed specifically for your brand or campaign. Nobody else gets it. It lives and breathes the brief.
Advantages: distinctiveness (your brand doesn’t sound like anyone else), fit (the music is built around the edit), ownership (you may own the master and publishing outright), and flexibility (a family of assets — full-length, 30-second, 15-second, sonic logo — all from the same DNA).
Disadvantages: time (good custom music takes weeks, not days) and cost (you’re paying for creative labor, not just access — see our audio post production cost guide).
The most sophisticated brands don’t choose one or the other — they choose both strategically. Custom music for brand-defining work: launch campaigns, hero spots, sonic branding systems. Library music for fill-in work: social content, evergreen explainers, low-stakes digital assets where the music is texture, not brand voice.
A client like Postmates came to Swell wanting a custom sonic palette — a family of original tracks they could drop into any spot or campaign. The result was their “Fun & Fresh” sonic identity. That replaced the cycle of licensing generic library tracks for each campaign and wondering why nothing sounded coherent.
Custom music is not optional when:
Library music is completely appropriate when:
Before you default to either option, ask: is the music in this campaign supposed to be noticed? If the answer is yes — if the music is doing emotional heavy lifting, if it’s part of the brand’s sonic identity, if it will run nationally in a high-rotation media buy — commission something custom.
The worst outcome is using library music where custom was needed, and sounding like everyone else at the exact moment you needed to stand apart.
