Background music for your restaurant, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your restaurant a station of its own 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.
You easily pay
€ 3,606
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
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.
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. 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.
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, its own offers and its own opening hours.
Why does a restaurant pay the highest tariff for music?
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 museum with more than three times the floor space pays less in total than a restaurant. Your turnover and your number of seats play no part in that. The category you fall into decides it.
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. 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.
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 | € 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. The comparison above sets a museum of 900 m² against a restaurant of 250 m². 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.
What music suits lunch, dinner and the late evening?
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. At eight it is full. Then the chatter is so loud that the same music at the same volume suddenly disappears. In practice nobody keeps up with that, because nobody on the floor has time to stand at a knob.
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.
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 zone of its own, with a mood of its own. How the rules for a hospitality business work exactly is on music in hospitality.
It works on the equipment already in place
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.
If you want something different on the terrace than inside, you put a source of its own there. You run both from the same dashboard. With music by human creators that choice costs extra. 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. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, a station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free.
What you can choose from today
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.
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 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
- 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 lunchroom, without Buma and SenaLunchroom and sandwich shop
- Background music for your wellness centre, without Buma and SenaWellness centres, sauna and spa
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.