I finally decided to take a step up in my music library this year after being with Envato this last year and MotionArray before. Complete shock.

I guess I have been supposed to be on an enterprise plan as an in-house shooter and editor (the only one at my company) I have learned. Now, I'm looking at a $4,000 minimal bill with most of the major music groups (Artlist & Soundstripe). I moaned and complained saying how was it possible that some influencer with millions of views was paying the rates listed on the website (up to $30/month) and little old me was paying fifteen fold that rate for videos seen by maybe 1,500 people a few times a month.

Thinking that everything is negotiable, I assumed they'd come down halfway to meet me, which I was prepared to come up from what I had assumed the rates were based on the "individual package". They didn't budge. Am I the only one in complete shock by this? Have I just been missing it this whole time. I'm all for artists getting paid but the delta can't be 15x especially in a one-man band department.

I think I finally settled on Musicbed (which ironically I've been reading used to be most expensive) for about half the Artlist and Soundstripe quotes. Did I make a good choice on that or am I going to get bamboozled on this too somewhere?