Background music for your petrol station, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your petrol station its own station for the shop and the forecourt canopy, with your own offers between the tracks and no advertising for another brand.
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 petrol station?
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
Short visit, one message At a petrol station your customer is there for three minutes. They walk in, picks up a coffee or a sandwich, pays and is gone. That is too short to build a mood, and exactly long enough to hear one thing.
Your offers inside the station That is why with RadioMatic your announcements sit inside the station. The DJ moments name your petrol station and announce that the coffee is free with a full tank, that the car wash is on offer this week or that the shop is open until midnight. You type it in and you hear it on the next round, in the voice you pick.
Your own message, no adverts Big chains have had their own offers recorded on a central tape for years. For one or two petrol stations that has been out of reach until now. It is also your own message and nobody else’s. Third-party advertising never comes in between. So no supermarket or other fuel chain is advertising in your shop, which does happen with ordinary radio in the shop.
Your staff listen longest The real listeners are your staff. Someone stands there behind the till for an eight-hour shift, sometimes alone, sometimes at night. For that person it makes all the difference whether they hear a fixed list or a station that adds new music every day in the same style. With more petrol stations you run them from a single dashboard with its own mood, offers and opening hours per site.
At a petrol station the Sena bill is a multiple of the Buma one
Petrol stations are named outright A petrol station is open to the public. That is why it does not fall under the work spaces tariff, where offices and workshops pay per employee. At Buma/Stemra your shop belongs in the lower of the two background music categories, and petrol stations are named in so many words on that closed list.
Sena charges like a shopping centre So you pay per square metre, in brackets. Sena looks at your floor area as well, but classifies a petrol station with the shopping streets and shopping centres. That is one of the heaviest tables Sena has.
Almost three times as high What stands out about that, and is rarely written down anywhere, is the ratio between the two. At a petrol station the Sena bill is almost three times the Buma/Stemra one. In most other sectors it runs the other way round or the two sit close together.
Careful with estimates If you estimate the Sena bill from the Buma amount, it turns out considerably higher here. If your shop sits just over a bracket line, you also feel that far harder on the Sena side than on the Buma side. How the two organisations relate to each other is explained in the difference between Buma/Stemra and Sena.
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 | € 427 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 1,186 |
| Together per year | € 1,613 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, binding tariff text for mechanical background music BUM.129.26/01, article 7 and article 8, the mechanical background music tariff sheet BUM.413.26/01, which lists petrol stations under category B, Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 9, table Winkelstraten / winkelcentra / galerijen / passages / buitenruimtes / tankstations, and Buma/Stemra on background music for businesses. The category B scale runs by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m², and the Sena scale follows the same lines. Article 8 of BUM.129 provides that floor areas are added together where the same music from the same source plays in different spaces. 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. Also used ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
Music for a three-minute customer and an eight-hour shift
Not quiet and cold In a shop you have two listeners who stay for very different lengths of time. The customer hears one and a half tracks at most, your till operator a whole shift. For the customer what counts most is that it is not quiet and cold in there. An empty shop with only the hum of the cooling feels uncomfortable. Recognisable and lightly cheerful works better there than music that builds slowly, because the customer never gets to the end of that build.
No fixed list for your staff For your staff the opposite applies. Everything that stands out starts to bore, and everything that comes back in the same order every day starts to irritate. That is why it helps that the music is generated rather than coming from a list. The style you set stays, the tracks do not.
Faster mornings, calmer nights The part of the day can move along with it. In the morning rush there is a queue at the coffee and a bit more tempo fits. In the evening and at night, calmer and softer is nicer for the only person standing there then.
The canopy separately Under the canopy it is different again. Someone stands there with the nozzle in hand looking at the amount, and passing traffic makes a lot of noise. Speakers outside therefore ask for slightly firmer music and a different volume than inside. You make the canopy a separate zone with its own mood. There you might play only your own announcements about the car wash or the coffee offer.
On the speakers you already have
Through the amplifier already there Nothing has to be added. RadioMatic is a stream and it comes in on the installation already hanging in your shop. Usually that is an amplifier in the back office with ceiling speakers overhead and a couple of horn speakers under the canopy. The stream goes into the system through the line-in on that amplifier. If you have Sonos or a Chromecast, it plays on that, and a browser on the PC behind the till is enough too.
Shop and canopy as zones If shop and canopy are already separate zones on your amplifier, those zones stay as they are. If you want something different inside than outside, you put two sources in and run them both from the same dashboard. With several stations, every site has its own mood and offers under one account. 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 petrol stations Look for music for your petrol station and you will come across Tunify and Retail Radio from Cue Creative, among others. Tunify names petrol stations in so many words in the sector list on its own pricing page. Retail Radio builds in-store stations for large chains.
Two extra bills With both 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 or public use you need a public performance licence of your own, and that services such as Spotify and Apple Music are not meant for it. Cue Creative says it gives extensive advice on the rights at Buma/Stemra and Sena. What those rights cost is set out above.
With RadioMatic the customer who spends three minutes in your shop hears light, cheerful music and your own offer, such as the free coffee with a full tank. Under the canopy, where someone stands with the nozzle in hand watching the amount, a separate zone plays firmer music and your announcement about the car wash. At night the shop gets calmer by itself for whoever is alone behind the till.
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 petrol station
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your car wash, without Buma and SenaCar wash
- Background music in your workshop, without Buma and SenaCar workshop and garage
- Background music in the car park, without Buma and SenaCar parks
- Background music for your fast food outlet, without Buma and SenaFast food and chain outlets
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.
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