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. Because the music is made with AI, you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
With RadioMatic from € 29.99 per location per month, without Buma and Sena. News and your own announcements with Professional. See all plans
What do you pay now for music in your lunchroom and sandwich bar?
Three questions, and you see what you now spend on Buma/Stemra, Sena and your music service.
How big is your business?
What else you get
Your own station, not a playlist 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.
What chains have done for years Chains have had their own announcements recorded on a central tape for years. 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.
Your staff will notice 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 adds 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
The first route to the 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).
Chairs or takeaway, same tariff 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.
Small venues, uneven brackets 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.
No fees for AI-made music With RadioMatic no payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, because the music is made entirely with AI. Buma/Stemra itself says that music made entirely by AI, without a creative contribution from a person, does not qualify for copyright or payment.
What the law and the court say The same applies to Sena. Sena can only collect for a recording that has been commercially released, 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. Also used ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
Coffee, the lunch queue and the afternoon. Which music fits when in your lunchroom?
Calm for the morning coffee 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.
More tempo in the lunch queue 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. If the music is too soft during the lunch queue, all anyone hears is the till and each other. That is just as uncomfortable as music that is too loud.
The afternoon asks for something else 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.
The switch happens by itself 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
Sonos, Chromecast or amplifier 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.
No engineer and no cables That saves the installation many venues dread. No engineer, no new speakers, no cables through a suspended ceiling. You hear back within one working day, and after that your station is live in under ten minutes.
What you can choose from today
Suppliers for all of hospitality 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 its own hospitality page with two variants and a subscription you can cancel monthly. Soundtrack is the international player and also charges per zone per month.
Two bills on top 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 Professional, no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, with Professional, your town |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Several locations | Set up per location | No | Set up per location | Yes, from one place, each with its own mood |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
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 bakery, without Buma and SenaBackground music for bakeries
- Background music for your fast food outlet, without Buma and SenaFast food and chain outlets
- Background music in your company restaurant, without Buma and SenaCompany restaurant and staff canteen
Background music for business. What is allowed, what does it cost and what are your options?
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Try RadioMatic free for 14 days. Your own station for your business, without Buma/Stemra and Sena, and cancel monthly if you pay monthly.
Rather talk first? Book a 15-minute call