Short answer: there is no single best sync licensing software, because "sync software" covers four different jobs. Most working songwriters end up with one tool per job: a hosting platform to send links (DISCO, DropCue or ReelCrafter), a source of briefs, a way to find the right song in their own catalog when a brief lands (Pitchkit, on a Mac), and their PRO and publishing admin for getting paid. This page lists the options in each, with prices checked on each company’s own pricing page on September 22, 2026.
Disclosure: I build Pitchkit, which is one entry below. It does one of the four jobs and I say where the others are the better buy.
| Job | Tool | Price (Sept 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Host and share your catalog | DISCO | $10.80–26.99/mo billed annually, plus add-ons | The industry-standard link supervisors recognise |
| Host and share your catalog | DropCue | From $8/mo billed annually | Lowest-cost unlimited catalog with sync-focused tools |
| Host and share your catalog | ReelCrafter | Free plan; paid from $8.33/mo billed annually | Starting free; presentation reels |
| Host and share your catalog | SourceAudio | See their site | Libraries and large catalogs |
| Match your catalog to a brief | Pitchkit | Free for 30 songs; $39 once | Mac songwriters with 100+ songs who pitch from memory |
| Tag and search a company catalog | DISCO Discovery Suite, Cyanite | DISCO add-on from $10/mo; Cyanite by plan | Publishers and libraries tagging at scale |
| Find briefs and opportunities | Music Gateway, Songtradr, TAXI, direct relationships | Varies; subscriptions, submission fees or commission | Writers without supervisor contacts yet |
| Get paid | ASCAP, BMI or SESAC; Songtrust or another publishing administrator | PRO membership; admin takes a percentage | Everyone who gets placed |
The platform most music supervisors already have open. Private playlists and links, listener stats, and on the Artist plan unlimited tracks with auto-tagging. The Discovery Suite add-on brings lyric transcription, lyrical theme tags and similarity search from a reference track or YouTube link. Password protection and expiring links sit on the Pro plan.
Pick it if supervisors you pitch to ask for DISCO links, or you want the default everyone recognises.
A newer platform aimed squarely at composers and sync writers. The Artist plan already includes unlimited tracks, password-protected and expiring links, BPM and key detection and 100 AI-tagged tracks a month. Pro adds per-recipient analytics, email campaigns and a submission inbox; Studio adds pitch, licence and royalty tracking.
Pick it if you want DISCO’s job done for less and are comfortable on a younger platform.
The only option here with a usable free plan: 3 reels, 5 share links and 100 audio tracks. Built around polished reels that can mix audio and linked video, which suits composers pitching to picture as much as songwriters.
Pick it if you are starting out and want to send professional links without paying yet.
SourceAudio is the heavyweight for libraries and large catalogs, with deeper metadata and licensing tooling. Songspace, often mentioned in older lists, has been owned by FUGA, now part of Downtown Music, since 2019; songspace.com currently redirects to Downtown’s site. A shared Dropbox or Google Drive folder is the free fallback if you can live without access control and listener analytics. More detail in the DISCO alternatives breakdown.
The job the hosting platforms do not do: you paste a brief in plain English, and Pitchkit ranks every song you have already written by fit. It analyses each track from the audio (tempo, key, energy, brightness, danceability), optionally transcribes lyrics with Whisper, honours tempo ranges, and translates artist references such as “something like Phoebe Bridgers” into musical characteristics. Tick the songs you want and it copies them into a named pitch folder, ready to upload to DISCO or attach to an email.
The closest alternatives are the hosted platforms’ own search: DISCO’s tags and similarity search, or DropCue’s AI tagging. Those help you filter; none of them takes a pasted brief and ranks the whole catalog against it. For a small catalog, a well-kept spreadsheet with BPM, key and mood columns also works, and this guide covers how to set one up.
Cyanite is an AI tagging and similarity-search service used by publishers, libraries and sync teams to auto-tag large catalogs by genre, mood, instrumentation and more, and to search them by reference track. DISCO’s Discovery Suite does a similar job inside DISCO. These make sense once a company is managing thousands of other people’s songs; for a single writer they are usually more than you need.
No software replaces relationships with music supervisors, music libraries and sync agents, and most placements for independent writers still come through those. Services such as Music Gateway, Songtradr and TAXI circulate briefs and opportunities, each with its own model of subscription, submission fee or commission; read the terms, especially exclusivity and re-titling, before you sign up. The full picture is in how to get sync briefs and how to find sync placements.
Register every song with your performing rights organisation (ASCAP, BMI or SESAC in the US) so the backend from a placement reaches you, and consider a publishing administrator such as Songtrust if you do not have a publisher collecting worldwide. Have a signed split sheet for every co-write before you pitch, because a supervisor cannot clear a song with unclear ownership. How the money flows is covered in how sync placements pay.
It depends on which job you mean. For hosting and sending your catalog to supervisors, DISCO is the industry default at $10.80 to $26.99 a month billed annually, with DropCue (from $8 a month) and ReelCrafter (free plan, paid from $8.33 a month) as cheaper options. For finding which of your own songs fit a brief, Pitchkit is a Mac app that ranks your catalog against a pasted brief, free for 30 songs and $39 once for unlimited. Most working writers use one hosting tool plus one matching tool.
Yes, in parts. ReelCrafter has a free plan with 3 reels, 5 share links and 100 audio tracks. Pitchkit's free version is the full Mac app capped at 30 indexed songs, with no account, card or time limit. DropCue and DISCO offer trials rather than free plans. A shared cloud folder is the free fallback for sending files.
No. Plenty of placements happen with a WAV and a clean email. DISCO becomes worth it when supervisors or libraries you work with ask for DISCO links, or when you are sending enough pitches that listener stats and tidy playlists save time. DropCue and ReelCrafter do the same job for less.
Pitchkit is built for exactly that: paste the brief, and it ranks every song in a local music folder by tempo, key, energy, mood, genre, lyrical theme and artist references, then copies your picks into a pitch folder. It runs on macOS 11 or later and is $39 once after a free 30-song trial. DISCO's Discovery Suite and DropCue's AI tagging help you filter a hosted catalog by tags, but do not rank against a pasted brief.
Hosting platforms cannot, because their job is streaming to other people over the internet. Pitchkit runs entirely on your Mac: indexing, matching and lyric transcription happen locally and audio is never uploaded.
The free trial is the whole Mac app with the catalog capped at 30 songs: brief matching, artist references, lyric transcription and pitch folders all included. No account, no card, no expiry. $39 once removes the cap.
Download free trial: 30 songs →or buy the full version, $39, one time · see a real example first