Background music for your pet shop, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your specialist pet shop a station of its own with a volume and a mood of its own for each corner, and because the music is made entirely by AI no payment is due to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
You easily pay
€ 790
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
In a pet shop more advice is given than goods are sold. People come in with a question about a dog that will not eat or an aquarium that stays cloudy, and that conversation takes longer than a transaction at the till. That is exactly where the announcements between the tracks earn their place. The DJ moments name your shop and can tell people the grooming salon still has room this week, that there is a feeding advice afternoon on Saturday or that the offer on cat litter runs until Sunday. You type it in and it is there on the next round, without a studio and without a voice actor.
What never comes in between is third-party advertising. In a specialist pet shop that is more concrete than elsewhere, because you sell a few brands of food you chose on purpose and you do not want a commercial for a brand you do not have on the shelf. If you want local news with the weather and the traffic on the hour, that is possible, with subjects you choose yourself. Want music only on a quiet morning, then you switch off everything that speaks.
A pet shop has corners that are nothing like each other. By the rodents and the birds you want it soft and even, by the dog supplies it can sound more ordinary, and at the back in the care room your staff stand all day. You set that per zone from one dashboard, and with more branches every shop keeps its own mood and its own announcements under one account. The music is generated rather than pulled from a fixed list, so your staff do not hear the same tracks come round every week.
Which tariff does your pet shop fall under at Buma and Sena?
Buma/Stemra charges a specialist pet shop under the shop category, so per square metre. That category is a closed list, with an exception worth knowing. Shops fall inside it, self-service outlets do not. If you have a staffed advice desk, you are a shop. If your business is laid out as self-service, you fall outside that category by the letter of the tariff text. What does apply then is not written out. Ask about it in writing before you file a declaration.
Sena charges your business as general retail and counts the staff who hear the music. Take on two more skilled people without expanding by a single metre and your Buma bill stays the same. Your Sena bill does go up, as soon as you cross a bracket line. If you have a grooming salon or a care room at the back with different music from the shop, that is a second item at Buma/Stemra. At Sena everyone who hears the music simply counts.
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 | € 427 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 363 |
| Together per year | € 790 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01, article 7 and article 8, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 8, table Verkoopruimtes I, algemene detailhandel. Article 7 is a closed list under which supermarkets, department stores and self-service outlets fall outside category B. The category B scale runs by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m². The Sena scale runs by staff up to 5, 10, 25 and 50. Article 8 of BUM.129 provides that floor areas are added together where the same music from the same source plays in different spaces, and that you pay for each space separately where different music plays. 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.
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.
Music in a shop where animals live too
A pet shop is the only shop where part of the audience is there day and night. We make no claims about what music does to animals, because we have no research for that and we do not invent it. What we do arrange is the practical side. By the enclosures for birds, rodents and fish you can make a zone of its own with a lower volume, without announcements and without sudden spikes in dynamics, while it carries on as normal further into the shop. What should play there exactly is for your own experience and your supplier’s advice, not for us.
In the rest of the shop it is mainly a question of being understood. At the desk people are told how many grams of food a puppy gets a day or why an aquarium stays cloudy, and conversations like that ask for music that stays underneath. At the same time many pet shops already have a base sound of pumps, filters and ventilation, and that is always there. A calm, even layer of music makes that hum less noticeable than silence does, as long as the volume stays low enough not to compete with it.
Saturday is a different business from Tuesday morning. Families come in, children walk past the aquariums and there is a queue at the till. The shop corner can be a step fuller then, while the animal corner stays soft. With RadioMatic you set that per part of the day and per zone, and it changes by itself without anyone having to stand at a knob.
Connecting to what is in the shop now
Nothing has to be replaced. RadioMatic is a stream and it comes in on your existing installation. If you have ceiling speakers on an amplifier, the stream goes in through the line-in and your zones stay as they are. If there is a Sonos or a Chromecast on the installation, it plays on that. A browser on the PC behind the desk is enough to start.
For the animal corner you put a source of its own there with a volume of its own, and you run that from the same dashboard as the rest of the shop. The same goes for a grooming salon or a care room at the back. With more branches every shop has a mood of its own 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.
What you can choose from today
Look for music for your pet shop and you end up with suppliers who serve shops in general. My Instore Radio supplies background music on subscription to shops, hospitality and shopping centres. Muziek op de Zaak is an installer that delivers music, public address and mood lighting in one package, with specialist shops as its target group.
With both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena, on top of the subscription. What those bills cost is set out above.
With RadioMatic you give the corner with the birds, rodents and aquariums a zone of its own with a lower volume and no announcements, while the dog supplies and the till carry on as normal. Between the tracks your customer hears that the grooming salon still has room or that the offer on cat litter runs until Sunday. On Saturday, when the families come in, the shop corner turns a step fuller by itself.
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.
Questions that come with this
Other kinds of business
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- Background music for your butcher’s shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for butchers
- Background music for your furniture store, without Buma and SenaFurniture and home store
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.