AI Music API Comparison 2026: Access, Pricing & Video Workflows

Choose the API by the job it needs to do

Streaming and search: Spotify Web API

Catalog metadata, playlists, and playback controls serve a different integration need from generating a new soundtrack.

Generate from video: Sonilo endpoint

POST /v1/video-to-music accepts a video file or URL, with optional prompt and timeline directions. Review the resulting music against the edit.

Generate effects: video-to-SFX endpoint

POST /v1/video-to-sfx returns a task ID. Poll the task endpoint, download the audio, and check effect timing against visible action.

Mix narration: audio-ducking endpoint

POST /v1/audio-ducking takes separate voice and music inputs and lowers music under speech. This is a mixing step, not music generation.

Sonilo API pricing

Budget for generated seconds, variants, retries, and each extra processing step. Website subscriptions and API billing are separate checks.

Sonilo commercial rights

Free and Creator are personal, non-commercial plans. Pro, Premium, Enterprise, and eligible API users have commercial-use rights under the current Terms.

Music plus SFX for creator apps

Route creator apps that need background music, Foley, impacts, ambience, transitions, and commercial review through the music plus sound effects workflow instead of comparing music APIs alone.

Pay-as-you-go API answer

How should you compare API cost and commercial rights?

Sonilo combines credit-based usage, REST access, and video-aware soundtrack generation. Eligible API users have commercial-use rights under the current Terms. Use Sonilo for video-to-music when the soundtrack should follow an uploaded video, text-to-music when the product starts from a prompt, video-to-SFX when the clip needs synced sound effects, and account endpoints when the app needs service availability or usage checks before a batch.

Plan the integration from input to accepted output

1. Define the input contract: prompt, image, video file, or URL. Confirm file limits, duration controls, available formats, and whether the account has API access.
2. Run generation on your server. Keep API keys out of the browser, save task IDs, handle streaming or polling, and distinguish auth, balance, and rate-limit failures.
3. Measure the workflow on representative clips. Count all variants and processing steps, then compare cost per accepted soundtrack and time to a usable result.
4. Review timing, speech clarity, and the exported file. Save the output, video version, generation date, account, and applicable license before delivering it to users.

Shortlist by workflow

Sonilo vs ElevenLabs vs Mubert vs Beatoven.ai

For this video-first comparison, Sonilo documents video-conditioned music, SFX, and ducking. ElevenLabs documents vocal and instrumental music plus a video-to-music endpoint that returns one audio track, Mubert offers generated tracks and streams, and Beatoven.ai advertises music and SFX APIs. Choose by input and output requirements, then confirm commercial permissions for the exact account and use.

AI music API comparison table

Public sources were reviewed on September 6, 2026. An app subscription does not establish API entitlement. Where a capability is not documented, confirm it with the provider; this is not a benchmark of quality, latency, or total cost.

Video-to-music for platform builders

Sonilo API examples

Sonilo music endpoints support NDJSON streaming. In production, parse each line, collect audio chunks by stream index, and store the resulting track with the video version that produced it.

curl -N -X POST https://api.sonilo.com/v1/video-to-music \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SONILO_API_KEY" \
  -F "video=@/path/to/video.mp4"

curl -N -X POST https://api.sonilo.com/v1/text-to-music \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SONILO_API_KEY" \
  -F "prompt=cinematic electronic bed for a product launch video" \
  -F "duration=60"

import json
import requests

headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer sk_your_api_key"}

with requests.post(
    "https://api.sonilo.com/v1/video-to-music",
    headers=headers,
    files={"video": open("/path/to/video.mp4", "rb")},
    stream=True,
    timeout=300,
) as response:
    response.raise_for_status()
    for line in response.iter_lines(decode_unicode=True):
        if line:
            print(json.loads(line))

with requests.post(
    "https://api.sonilo.com/v1/text-to-music",
    headers=headers,
    files={
        "prompt": (None, "lofi brand loop with warm synths"),
        "duration": (None, "45"),
    },
    stream=True,
    timeout=300,
) as response:
    response.raise_for_status()
    for line in response.iter_lines(decode_unicode=True):
        if line:
            print(json.loads(line))

import fs from "node:fs";

async function streamSonilo(form) {
  const response = await fetch("https://api.sonilo.com/v1/video-to-music", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SONILO_API_KEY}` },
    body: form,
  });
  if (!response.ok) throw new Error(await response.text());

  const reader = response.body.getReader();
  const decoder = new TextDecoder();
  let buffer = "";
  while (true) {
    const { value, done } = await reader.read();
    if (done) break;
    buffer += decoder.decode(value, { stream: true });
    let newline;
    while ((newline = buffer.indexOf("\n")) !== -1) {
      const line = buffer.slice(0, newline);
      buffer = buffer.slice(newline + 1);
      if (line) console.log(JSON.parse(line));
    }
  }
}

const videoForm = new FormData();
videoForm.append("video", await fs.openAsBlob("/path/to/video.mp4"), "video.mp4");
await streamSonilo(videoForm);

const textForm = new FormData();
textForm.append("prompt", "upbeat future bass intro with no vocals");
textForm.append("duration", "30");
await fetch("https://api.sonilo.com/v1/text-to-music", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SONILO_API_KEY}` },
  body: textForm,
});

FAQ

Sources

• Sonilo API docs and pricing
• ElevenLabs Music docs
• Google Lyria music-generation API docs
• Suno official API portal
• Udio public API help article
• Mubert API page
• Stability AI audio API reference
• Loudly Music API page
• Beatoven.ai music and SFX API
• Gemini API pricing by model
• ElevenLabs API pricing
• ElevenLabs Music Terms
• Sonilo video-to-music API reference
• Sonilo text-to-music API reference
• Sonilo video-to-sound-effects API reference
• Sonilo text-to-sound-effects API reference