Background music for your lunchroom, without Buma and Sena
Looking for background music for your lunchroom or sandwich shop? RadioMatic gives you a station of your own that moves with the part of the day. The music is made entirely by AI, so Buma/Stemra charges nothing for it.
You easily pay
€ 1,952
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 nowWith 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
Your premises get a radio station of their own rather than a playlist. The difference is what happens between the tracks. The DJ moments name your business and play your own offers, such as the soup of the day, the deal on the coffee menu or the fact that you are open later from Thursday. You need no studio or recorded tape for that. You type it in and it is in there.
Chains have done this for years with a centrally recorded tape. For a business with one or two sites that was out of reach until now. Want local news on the hour, with the weather and the traffic, then you switch it on. Want music only, then you switch off everything that speaks. Third-party advertising never comes in between, so the place down the road is not advertising inside yours.
The music is generated and does not come from a fixed list. Your customer may not notice, but your staff will. Anyone standing in the same place eight hours a day, five days a week, hears the difference between a list of three hundred tracks and a station that gets new music every day in the same style.
What does music in your lunchroom cost? Even with only a takeaway counter you pay the hospitality tariff
Buma/Stemra applies the hospitality tariff along two routes. The first is a hospitality business, in the tariff text “een horeca onderneming die bij het Bedrijfschap Horeca en Catering kan worden ingeschreven” (a hospitality business that can be registered with the Dutch hospitality and catering board). The second covers other spaces open to the public, “als daar eet-/drinkwaren worden verstrekt en deze ter plaatse kunnen worden gebruikt” (if food or drink is served there and can be consumed on the spot). Seating only counts under that second route, for example in a shop with a coffee corner. A lunchroom is itself a hospitality business and falls under the first route. With ten chairs or with only a takeaway counter, the hospitality tariff applies.
How much you pay depends on your floor area. For the smallest venues the two organisations part ways. Buma has a separate bracket for the very smallest venues, and the bracket above it costs more than six times as much. No Buma document explains what that small bracket is meant for, so we are not going to guess. Sena does not have that bracket at all. The lowest Sena bracket is so wide that a sandwich shop of a few metres pays exactly the same as a venue four times its size.
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.
| Buma/Stemra | € 672 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 1,280 |
| Together per year | € 1,952 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, hospitality, binding tariff text BUM.122.26/01, Sena, 2026 tariff overview, mijnlicentie.nl. For 60 m² the Buma hospitality tariff is € 672.00 and the Sena tariff € 1,011.43 base, or € 1,280.47 with the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6%. The smallest Buma bracket runs up to and including 30 m² at € 105.08, and the bracket above it is 6.4 times as expensive. The lowest Sena bracket runs up to and including 100 m². Amounts per year, Buma/Stemra excluding VAT, Sena exempt from VAT. Details of other providers from their own sites, consulted on 22 September 2026.
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.
Coffee, the lunch queue and the afternoon. Which music fits when in your lunchroom?
In a lunchroom the audience changes three times a day, and the music should change with it. Between eight and eleven there are people with a coffee and a newspaper, or someone opening a laptop. Calm music suits that, without big swings and with few lyrics demanding attention. Put a tight beat on there and people finish their coffee faster than you intended.
Between twelve and two it is a different business. The queue runs to the door, the toaster is on, there is calling out and paying. Music then mostly works on the sound in the room. With a firmer pulse and a slightly higher tempo, the noise of talking people and beeping equipment sounds less ragged. Too soft in that half hour is as uncomfortable as too loud. Then all anyone hears is the till and each other.
After two it gets quieter, and you do not want the music stuck in lunch mode. The afternoon asks for something broader and slower, with room for conversation at the tables and for the staff cleaning and preparing. That switch is exactly what goes wrong in practice, because nobody behind the counter has time to pick a different playlist at two o’clock. With RadioMatic you set it per part of the day and it happens by itself, with the name of your venue and offers from your own menu between the tracks.
On the speakers you already have
You do not have to buy anything. RadioMatic is a stream, and it plays on the equipment already in your venue. If you have Sonos, the stream plays on your Sonos. If you have a Chromecast on the amplifier, that works too. If you have an ordinary amplifier with a line-in, you connect a phone, tablet or small box to it and you are done. If everything in your venue runs through a tablet behind the counter, you just open the station in the browser.
That saves the installation many venues dread. No engineer, no new speakers, no cables through a suspended ceiling. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free on trial.
What you can choose from today
Look for music for your lunchroom and you end up with suppliers for hospitality as a whole. Tunify is the best known name there, with three subscriptions per zone per month and a discount if you pay yearly. BCM Stream has a hospitality page of its own with two variants and a subscription you can cancel monthly. Soundtrack is the international player and also charges per zone per month.
With all of these services you play music by human creators. That means two extra bills on top of the subscription, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Tunify says itself in its frequently asked questions that public use requires your own licence, and that as a business owner you always apply for it yourself. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic the music in your lunchroom moves with the day by itself. Calm with the coffee in the morning, firmer when the lunch queue reaches the door and broader again in the afternoon. Between the tracks your customers hear the name of your business, the soup of the day or the deal on your coffee menu.
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.
| Playlist | Ordinary radio | Royalty-free | RadioMatic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New music | Fixed list | Yes, but not your choice | Limited catalogue | New every day |
| Music that is yours alone | No | No | No | Yes, your own hits |
| Fits the time of day | Switch it yourself | No | Switch it yourself | Automatic |
| Names your business | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your own offers | No | Only if you buy advertising | No | Yes, with no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, your town, your choice of topics |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not 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.
Frequently asked questions about music in your lunchroom
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your restaurant, without Buma and SenaBackground music for restaurants
- Background music for your fast food outlet, without Buma and SenaFast food and chain outlets
- Background music for your hotel, without Buma and SenaBackground music for hotels
- Background music for your clothing shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for clothing shops
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Request access to the beta. Your own station for your business, 14 days free trial, and monthly cancellation if you pay monthly.