AI Music Generator Comparison: Suno vs Udio, Pricing & Licensing

This is a transparent lookup and rule-based recommender, not a which-sounds-better poll. Each of the 8 generators is stored as a typed record, its cheapest paid plan (USD/mo), free tier, whether it makes vocals and lyrics, max track length, output formats (MP3 / WAV / stems), commercial-use status, copyright ownership and whether there is a public API. Every figure is cited inline to the vendor's own pricing or licensing page and was verified on June 20, 2026. No money math runs on your input; there is no subjective audio-quality score, only verifiable facts.

The two licensing fields are precise, because they decide most choices:

• Commercial use, Yes (granted as part of the product), Paid plans (free tier is non-commercial), or No.
• Ownership, Full (copyright transferred to you, you own the track) or Royalty-free licence (you may use and monetize it, but the vendor keeps the underlying rights).

When you set the controls, three deterministic steps run in order:

1. Toggle filter. The five toggles, Free tier, Commercial use, Vocals + lyrics, Own the copyright, Public API, are boolean predicates that AND together. One interaction matters: “Free tier” plus “Commercial use” asks for commercial rights without paying, and no generator here licenses commercial output on its free tier, so the combination is an honest dead-end, and the tool names the cheapest paid path instead of showing an empty table.
2. Use-case gate. The recommender adds the use case's own filter: “Own the copyright” keeps only full-ownership tools; “Vocals + lyrics” keeps only the vocal tools; “API integration” keeps only tools with a public API; “Royalty-free for video” keeps tools whose commercial use you can monetize.
3. Rank the survivors. Each use case uses a total-order comparator, Own the copyright ranks by the price of the plan that grants ownership; Best free tier by free-tier generosity; the rest by cheapest paid plan. Ties always break on name, so identical settings always return the same picks. A second, independent scoring pass re-derives the same order as a built-in cross-check.

The table sorts independently by cheapest paid plan, max track length or name. Prices are in US dollars because every vendor bills in USD; from a Sri Lankan card expect roughly 18% on top in foreign-transaction and conversion add-ons, use the currency converter for the day's rate. To forecast a monthly bill by song volume, use the music-generation cost calculator rather than this page, which compares the products themselves.

• Suno: plans, credits and commercial-use terms
• Udio: Standard/Pro pricing, stems and commercial use
• ElevenLabs Music: product, commercial licence and API
• Stability AI: Stable Audio licensing and commercial terms
• AIVA: Standard/Pro plans and full-copyright ownership
• Soundraw: flat unlimited royalty-free subscription
• Beatoven.ai: royalty-free background music pricing and API
• Mubert: Creator/Business licensing and Render API

Prices, formats and licensing flags were last verified against the official pages on June 20, 2026. The cheapest paid plan across the table is $5/mo. Vendors change AI-music pricing and licensing frequently, if you spot a figure that has moved, email me and I'll update it.