Music for dance schools

Music for your dance school, without Buma and Sena

If you are looking for music for your dance school, RadioMatic gives you a station of its own for each room, with a style and tempo of its own for every class and your own announcements in the hall. Because the music is generated entirely by AI, no payment is due to Buma/Stemra and Sena.

You easily pay

1,270

a year to Buma/Stemra and Sena

If you play music in your business, this bill is compulsory. The amount is the base rate for the worked example below, and your music subscription comes on top of it.

Work out what you pay now

With RadioMatic you pay

€ 29.99

per location per month, billed yearly

= € 360 a year, everything included

The Starter plan, excluding VAT. No payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, so this is the whole amount. There is a free plan as well.

Fourteen days free to try. Monthly billing is available and costs 20% more, and only then can you cancel monthly. Once your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes.

What else you get

A dance school plays different music all week long. The toddler class on Wednesday afternoon, street dance on Thursday evening, ballroom on Friday. That music now usually comes from a phone, or from lists a teacher put together. When that teacher stops, the lists walk out of the door with them. With RadioMatic you fix a style and a tempo range per room and per class block, and the station fills in the tracks. That stays put, even when someone else is in front of the group. And it does not repeat, because the music is generated rather than pulled from a list.

In the hall and the canteen something else happens. Parents wait there and pupils hang around between two classes. The DJ moments name your school and play what you type in. For instance that enrolment for the show is open, that there are taster classes in September or that the room is hired out on Sundays. Then you no longer have to write it on a board nobody looks at. A news round on the hour with the weather alongside is something you can switch on or leave out.

Advertising from others never comes in between, so the dance school in the next town is not advertising in your hall. With more rooms or more locations you run everything from a single dashboard, with a mood of its own for each room and announcements of its own for each location.

What does music in your dance school cost, and which table applies to your rooms?

Buma/Stemra places a dance school in the lower of the two categories of the tariff for mechanical background music. That is because the closed list in the binding tariff text names sports spaces without a hospitality facility. There you pay per square metre, in brackets. Sena has a table of its own for the same group, also per square metre. The amounts above come out of those two tables.

With a dance school there is one point you cannot skip. Those two tables are about background music. The tariff provisions describe that as music played at a constant sound level that does not come to the foreground, and in a dance room music is not that. For this Sena has a separate surcharge for foreground music at movement classes, and it is not in the amounts above. Buma/Stemra writes that the fee for foreground music at movement classes is always calculated separately for the spaces where classes are given. The notes to that surcharge name Zumba, Les Mills and Bodypump as examples. Dance classes are named in so many words by neither organisation. So which table applies to your rooms is something to ask about in writing before you make a declaration.

With RadioMatic no payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, because the music is generated entirely by AI and there are therefore no rights holders. Buma/Stemra itself states that works made entirely by AI without a human creative contribution do not qualify for copyright or payment. The same applies to Sena. The law requires a phonogram released for commercial purposes, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.

The example is a dance school of 300 m² without a hospitality facility.
Buma/Stemra569
Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge701
Together per year1,270

Sources: Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music tariff sheet BUM.413.26/01, category B, the binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01 article 7 and the definition of background music, which reads “muziek die ten gehore wordt gebracht op een constant en niet op de voorgrond tredend geluidsniveau” (music played at a constant sound level that does not come to the foreground), Buma/Stemra on fitness centres and gyms, which carries the line “Gaat het om voorgrondmuziek bij bewegingslessen? Dan berekenen wij de vergoeding altijd afzonderlijk voor de ruimtes waarin les wordt gegeven.” (Is it foreground music at movement classes? Then we always calculate the fee separately for the spaces where classes are given.), and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 12, table Sportscholen / fitnesscentra. Both scales run by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m². The surcharge for foreground music stands in a table of its own on page 13, with Zumba, Les Mills and Bodypump in the notes, and is not in the amounts above. Amounts per year and base tariff, Buma/Stemra excluding VAT, Sena exempt from VAT and here including the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6%. Details of other providers from their own sites, consulted on 23 September 2026.

Read where a dance school stands in the rules

What it saves you

Work out what you save on your current licence.

Slide in your situation and you will see what you currently pay in music rights every year. That amount disappears, on top of what you save on your current music subscription.

What you save
608per year
= that is 75 customer gifts
Type of businessShop
Floor area
2050010001600+
Staff who can hear the music
fte
12550100+
Number of locations
1102550+
How the saving adds up
Buma/Stemra427
Copyright · composers & lyricists
Sena incl. RAAP-PPI181
Neighbouring rights · performers & record labels
Total608
Excluding your music providerThese are the levies only. On top of that you currently pay a subscription to, for example, Soundtrack Your Brand, Synerplay, Mood Media or one of the other providers. We save you those costs too.
Spotify in your business? Never allowed.Spotify’s terms only allow personal use. If an inspection finds you without a licence, you pay the full tariff, without the discount of up to 33.33%.
Based on official Buma/Stemra and Sena rates for 2026, the base rate per sector. Excl. VAT.Your actual saving can differ because of discounts or negotiated rates. Always check your own invoice via mijnlicentie.nl.
See all rates

Per room, per class, and at the tempo the class asks for

In a dance room the music is the material being worked with. Tempo is a technical choice there. A class built on 128 beats per minute runs aground on a track at 96. Teachers solve that now with lists of their own, and those go out of the door with a teacher who stops. With RadioMatic you fix a style and a tempo range per class block in the dashboard. What plays in room two on Thursday evening then no longer depends on whose phone is on the cable.

The rooms do not ask for the same thing either. With street dance the emphasis is on the pulse and it can be low and direct. With ballroom the time signature leads, and it has to stay audible through the whole room. With a toddler or infant class volume is what you watch most. A class in bare feet on a dance floor calls for something other than a class in shoes. You set that per room and run it from the same dashboard, so nobody has to switch anything in the quarter of an hour between two classes.

In the hall and the canteen it is the other way round. Parents wait there, pupils hang around and enrolments are taken. There you do want an even background and room for spoken announcements. An announcement about the show or the taster classes lands better there than on a poster. In the room you switch off everything that speaks and keep the music alone.

It works on the installation already in place

You do not have to replace anything. In most dance schools there is a set of active speakers or an amplifier with a mixing desk in each room, often with a connection for a phone or laptop. That is where the stream goes in through line-in. If you have Sonos or a Chromecast in the hall, the stream plays on that. A browser on the computer at the desk is enough to start. No engineer has to come out and no new hardware is needed.

You can have something different playing in each room and each space, and you run all of it from the same dashboard. With more locations each school keeps its own mood and its own announcements under one account. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free to try.

What you can choose from today

Look for music for your dance school and you will not find a provider with a page for dance schools. You end up with the sport and fitness offering from Tunify, Synerplay, Backsound and Trend Music. That is made for a room where music is the background, while for you the music is the class.

And with all of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Tunify says itself that for commercial use or in a public environment you need a public performance licence of your own from your local copyright organisation. What that costs is set out above.

With RadioMatic every room in your dance school gets a fixed tempo and a style of its own per class block, from the toddler class on Wednesday afternoon to street dance on Thursday evening. What plays then no longer depends on whose phone is on the cable. In the hall, waiting parents hear your own announcements between the tracks, such as enrolment for the show or the taster classes in September.

Why RadioMatic is something other than a playlist or the radio

A business owner who wants music on the premises usually picks from three things. A playlist from a streaming service, an ordinary radio station, or a royalty-free music package. This is where they differ.

PlaylistOrdinary radioRoyalty-freeRadioMatic
New musicFixed listYes, but not your choiceLimited catalogueNew every day
Music that is yours aloneNoNoNoYes, your own hits
Fits the time of daySwitch it yourselfNoSwitch it yourselfAutomatic
Names your businessNoNoNoYes
Your own offersNoOnly if you buy advertisingNoYes, with no studio
Local news and weatherNoYes, the station’sNoYes, your town, your choice of topics
Other people’s advertsNoYesNoNo
Buma/Stemra and SenaPayablePayableSee the termsNot payable
  • New music every day

    The station keeps getting new tracks in the same style, because the music is generated rather than drawn from a fixed list. A track that lands well with your audience comes round more often, and then it is your hit. It was made for your station and plays nowhere else.

  • It names your business

    Between the tracks, DJ voices announce what is going on at your place. Your offer, your opening hours, this week’s deal. That used to need a studio and a voice actor.

  • It moves with the day

    The morning, the rush and the last hour each call for something different. That is set per part of the day and happens by itself, with nobody behind the counter picking a new list.

  • Local news if you want it

    A short bulletin on the hour about your own town, with the weather and the traffic alongside. You choose which subjects you want, or you switch it off entirely.

  • No one else’s advertising

    On an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us, nothing comes in between that is not yours.

  • Every location from one screen

    Each site keeps its own mood, its own promotions and its own opening hours, and you run them all from the same place.

A playlist is worn out within two weeks, and on an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us the station is yours. Your style, your announcements, and the tracks that land with your audience come round more often.

One more thing

Questions that come with this

For a dance school of 300 m² without a hospitality facility that is € 569.08 to Buma/Stemra and € 701.26 to Sena in 2026, € 1,270.34 per year together. Buma charges through category B of the tariff for mechanical background music, which sports spaces without a hospitality facility fall under, and Sena through its own table for gyms and fitness centres, with the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6% on top. For foreground music in the class rooms something can be added at both organisations. With RadioMatic no payment is due, because the music is made entirely by AI.
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