Background music for your restaurant, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your restaurant its own station that moves with the service, from the first lunch guest to the last table. Because the music is made entirely by AI, no payments are due 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 restaurant?
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 specials and monthly wine You get a radio station rather than a playlist. The difference is in what happens between the tracks. The DJ moments name your restaurant and tell guests what has to go off the menu today, which wine you are pouring this month or that the kitchen runs later on Thursday. You type it into the dashboard and you hear it on the next round, in the voice you pick. Want music only during dinner, then you switch off everything that speaks.
New music, same mood The music is generated and does not come from a fixed list. New music in the same style arrives every day. So the mood stays, while the tracks change. Your guest probably does not notice, your floor staff do.
Your floor staff hear the difference Anyone who works five evenings a week in your place hears the difference between three hundred tracks that keep coming round and a station that tops itself up. Want a short bulletin on the hour with what is happening in your town, with the weather and the traffic, then you switch it on. You choose which subjects go in it.
No ads from other restaurants Third-party advertising never comes in between. So the restaurant two streets away is not advertising in your place. With more than one location you run everything from a single dashboard. Each site keeps its own mood, offers and opening hours.
Why does a restaurant pay the highest tariff for music?
The dearest tariff of all This is the tariff that takes most owners by surprise. Buma/Stemra puts a restaurant under the hospitality tariff and Sena puts it under the table for hospitality background music. Of all the categories the two organisations have, that is the most expensive one. A business of the same size outside hospitality pays a good deal less. Your turnover and your number of seats play no part in that. The category you fall into decides it.
A few metres make a difference Within that category Buma/Stemra charges per square metre, in brackets. The jumps between those brackets are large, so a few metres more or less moves the bill noticeably. How your metres are counted depends on how you set the music up. If the café part and the dining room play the same music from the same source, the floor areas are added together into one bracket.
Separate music costs more Play something different in those two spaces and you pay for each space separately. Two spaces that each land in their own bracket soon cost more together than your whole floor in one bracket. A terrace counts as soon as the music can be heard there.
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. The same applies to Sena.
What the law and the court say 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 | € 1,241 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 2,365 |
| Together per year | € 3,606 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, hospitality 2026, tariff sheet BUM.410.26/02, Buma/Stemra, hospitality, binding tariff text BUM.122.26/01, article 7, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 4, table Horeca achtergrondmuziek. The Buma hospitality scale runs by floor area up to 30, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 m², and above that per 100 m² more. The Sena scale runs up to 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 m², and above that also per 100 m² more. Article 7 of BUM.122 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. Also used ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
What music suits lunch, dinner and the late evening?
Every hour a different room A restaurant is a different business every hour. Over lunch there are people who have to leave again within the hour, and a slightly higher tempo fits that service. At five the room is empty and everything sounds loud and bare, because there are no conversations to absorb the sound.
A full room swallows the music At eight it is full. Then the chatter is so loud that the same music at the same volume suddenly disappears. In practice nobody adjusts the music to that, because nobody on the floor has time to stand at a knob.
Warmer over the last glass Then comes the late evening. Guests who stay on after half past nine over a last glass want to hear something other than the table that came in at seven for three courses. Warmer, slower, with more room between the notes. Singing with words that demand attention works against you at the table. Your guests are there to talk to each other.
Follows the time of day With RadioMatic you set that per part of the day, and after that it runs by itself. A terrace or a separate bar can be set up as a separate zone, with its own mood. How the rules for a hospitality business work exactly is on music in hospitality.
It works on the equipment already in place
Sonos, Chromecast or the till You do not have to buy anything. RadioMatic is a stream, and it comes in on what you use now. If you have Sonos, the stream plays on Sonos. If you have a Chromecast or a media player behind the bar, it plays on that. If there is an amplifier with built-in speakers in the room, the stream goes into that system through the line-in. A browser on the till computer is enough to start.
Its own source for the terrace If you want something different on the terrace than inside, you put a separate source there. You run both from the same dashboard. With music by human creators that choice costs extra.
No surcharge per space with us As soon as different music plays in each space, Buma/Stemra charges for each space separately instead of over the combined floor area. With us the amount does not change. 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 with a hospitality page Look for music for your restaurant and you find suppliers with a page of their own for hospitality. Backsound has a hospitality page and Synerplay has a page for restaurants. Both give you an app or a player of their own, with controls per space.
The licence is yours to arrange And with both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Synerplay says itself that you arrange those two licences directly with the rights organisations. Backsound writes on its own site that the business owner remains responsible for the public performance licence. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic your restaurant sounds different at lunch than at eight, when the room is full, and warmer and slower after half past nine. That happens by itself, without anyone on the floor standing at a knob. Between the tracks the DJ names your restaurant and tells guests what has to go off the menu today.
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 restaurant
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your lunchroom, without Buma and SenaLunchroom and sandwich shop
- 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 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