Music clipping service for artists and labels

A music clipping service pays independent creators to cut an artist's own footage into short vertical clips and post them on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. On Seenfold you buy it online at $1.50 per 1,000 verified views on 1 month or $1.05 on 6 months, with a minimum of 500,000 views a month and no sales call.

This page is for independent artists, managers and label teams planning a release. It covers the footage that works, the rights you need before the first clip, a campaign week by week around a release, what it costs, and what to measure.

Release date set? Start a campaign online, then send your footage from the dashboard after payment.

Why artists run clipping campaigns

Feeds have split into niches, and no single post reaches everyone anymore. Many clips on many accounts can find the pockets of the feed where a song lands. Clipping also asks nothing new of the artist: it runs on footage that already exists, so a release can stay visible without the artist posting every day. The background, with sources, is in our guide to music clipping campaigns.

The clips are posted from creators' own accounts, and the artist is on screen in them. A viewer who likes a clip knows whose song it is, which is the difference from putting a track under someone else's video.

What footage works for a music clipping service

• Live performances. A crowd singing a chorus back, a key change, a stripped-down version of the single. Older sets can introduce a catalog to people who missed it.
• Studio sessions. Building a beat, finding a hook, a first playback. It gives a song a story before release.
• Interviews and podcast appearances. The story behind a song, a strong opinion, a funny exchange, with the artist's name attached.
• Behind the scenes. Rehearsals, tour days, the video shoot. Rough footage often suits a feed better than polish.
• The music video. Useful in release week, though it tends to clip into fewer moments than a performance or an interview.

Send footage your team shot or has permission to use. Clips of a track laid over sports highlights, TV scenes or other people's footage are not a good fit: the footage belongs to someone who never agreed to promote the song.

Rights come first

You are responsible for the content you send and the brief creators follow, and music has more owners than most footage. Before the first clip posts, check three things:

• The recording. If you self-release, you probably control the master. If you are signed, the label usually does.
• The composition. Co-writers and publishers share the song itself, and any of them can object.
• The footage. A TV performance belongs to the network, a podcast appearance to the show, a fan's phone video to the fan.

Platform music libraries are licensed for personal posts, not paid promotion, so a song being available in an app is not permission to run a campaign with it. That permission comes from the rights holders. If the song is registered for Content ID on YouTube, clips can be claimed, so talk to your distributor before launch. A short written yes from the label, the publisher, co-writers and whoever owns the footage takes an afternoon and heads off a takedown in release week. For the wider picture, see whether clipping is legal.

Clips are paid promotion, and creators disclose that wherever the law or the platform's branded content rules require it.

A music campaign, week by week

Before release

Buy the plan, then send studio sessions and behind-the-scenes footage from your dashboard. Write the brief: the song title, the artist handle or pre-save link for every caption, and anything off limits. We aim to review your footage and brief within one business day, then creators start cutting and posting.

Release week

Send the performance footage, the video and any interviews as soon as they exist, and update the brief so captions point to the release. Clips go up through the month as they are made, so views build across the release window rather than landing on one day.

The month after

Keep new footage coming: a live debut, a podcast spot, last night's show. Each month has 30 days to deliver its views, and if one comes up short the shortfall rolls into the next month. If a clip misses the brief, report it from your dashboard and we will have the creator take it down. Views it earned before it came down still count, unless the creator broke your brief.

After the campaign

When your plan ends, views still undelivered are refunded to your card at the rate you paid, except the first month if no footage ever arrives.

What a music clipping service costs

The rate per 1,000 verified views is $1.50 on 1 month, $1.27 on 3 months and $1.05 on 6 months, billed monthly by card through Stripe. The minimum is 500,000 views a month.

A Tier 1 audience preference adds $0.40 per 1,000 views. It favors creators whose audiences are mostly in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and it is a preference, not a guarantee of where viewers are. On the release cycle plan it brings the rate to $1.67 per 1,000, or $835 a month. Every term and add-on is on the pricing page.

What to measure

Views are counted from the view counts TikTok, Instagram and YouTube show, only on clips made and posted for your campaign. Fake views, such as views from bots or view farms, are not allowed and can be excluded. Every clip is on your dashboard with its creator, link and views.

Views show the clips were seen. Whether they worked shows up where people listen, so compare the weeks before the campaign with the weeks during it:

• Streams for the song and the catalog, noting what else ran at the same time.
• Saves and streaming followers, which show a listener wants the music again.
• Searches for the song title and the artist's name.
• Videos using the song's sound, a sign the clips started something others picked up.

Keep the two sides apart. A clipping campaign buys views of social posts and never touches streams directly. Services that promise streams are a different thing, and streaming platforms treat them as a risk to your music. Artists who also run long videos or streams should see creator clipping.

Questions

How much does a music clipping service cost?

On Seenfold, $1.50 per 1,000 verified views on 1 month, $1.27 on 3 months and $1.05 on 6 months, with a minimum of 500,000 views a month. A 500,000 view month is $750 on the 1 month plan.

What rights do I need?

Permission for the recording, the composition and the footage. You are responsible for the content you send, so get a written yes from the label, publisher, co-writers and footage owner first.

Does clipping buy streams?

No. It pays for views of clips on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Streams, saves and followers are what you measure to see whether those views turned into listeners.

When should a campaign start?

Before release, with studio and behind-the-scenes footage, then through release week and the month after with performances and interviews.

Are the clips disclosed as paid?

Creators are required to disclose the paid relationship wherever the law or the platform's branded content rules require it.