A dizzying array of stock content is available on the internet today, both for individual users and businesses/teams. While it’s great to have so many options, the sheer volume of choices out there can make it difficult to determine which is best for your specific needs. In this article, we’ll be taking you through the difference between Storyblocks vs Epidemic Sound.
That way, you have a clear idea of what each service has to offer before signing up for a paid subscription. Let’s dive in.
Table of contents
Overview of companies
Epidemic Sound and Storyblocks are two popular platforms for creatives seeking royalty-free music, sound effects, and much more.
Storyblocks is a leading stock media platform offering access to over 10 million high-quality, 100% human-made stock media assets. It’s known for its user-friendly website, comprehensive plans, and industry-leading licensing. Its unlimited download plans give subscribers access to a massive library of 8K, 4K and HD footage, video templates, music and sound effects, and photos, vectors and illustrations. It works with award-winning artists across the world to create the assets in their library, including a dedicated initiative called Re: Stock, which aims to increase representation in stock.
Epidemic Sound provides royalty-free music tracks and sound effects for brands and individual creators. Its catalog of more than 300,000 assets is continually expanding as the platform collaborates directly with artists and composers to grow its library. It also offers an unlimited stock audio subscription for a low monthly fee.
Epidemic Sound vs Storyblocks individual plans
Now that you have an idea of what both platforms have to offer, let’s take a deeper dive into the options for individual creators. We’ll cover business and enterprise plans in the next section.
Licensing
When choosing a stock media subscription, the licensing options a platform offers is one of the most important elements to consider.
Permitted usage
Storyblocks’ individual license covers unlimited, worldwide distribution for print, digital, and production, spanning both commercial and personal projects. It covers one YouTube channel ID.
Epidemic Sound’s license for its Creator plan includes monetization for one channel per platform, whether social media, websites, or podcasts. Their license for their Pro plan includes everything with Creator, but allows you to monetize 3 channels per platform and also includes licensing for digital ads as well as freelancer client work.
Anything you download from either Storyblocks or Epidemic Sound (while your subscription is active) is covered forever, the license will never expire. Content available in both platforms’ libraries are royalty-free, eliminating the requirement for tracking different licenses for every asset or project.
Indemnification
Indemnification functions as insurance that any stock content downloaded is safe to use across all personal or commercial projects.
Storyblocks’ individual plans offer indemnification for individual creators up to $20,000. This protects you from any third-party claiming the content you download from Storyblocks infringes on their intellectual property rights.
Epidemic sound does not currently offer indemnification with their individual plans.
Restrictions
Storyblocks content can be used for client projects under an individual license, but must be incorporated into an original project, or the content must be modified in a meaningful way that makes it distinct from the original. Sharing or selling the unedited, original stock assets is not permitted.
Epidemic Sound’s license for its personal subscription is not approved for business or client work.
Content
When it comes to content, Epidemic Sound, as its name implies, focuses primarily on audio content like music and sound effects. Storyblocks’ content library contains a vast assortment of over 10 million pieces of content both audio and visual, with new assets being added every week. Every asset in their library is created by an artist, and every download helps support their work.
Music and sound effects
Epidemic Sound has over 50,000+ music tracks, while Storyblocks offers 60,000+ music tracks across a diverse range of genres, themes, and moods. Storyblocks has more than 115,000 professionally recorded sound effects, while Epidemic Sound has over 200,000, including ones from Soundly.
Storyblocks’ Essentials plan doesn’t include access to their audio library, but music and sound effects are included with ULAA plans. All of Epidemic Sound’s plans include both music and SFX.
Storyblocks’ music library is 100% exclusive, making copyright strikes less of an issue. They also have their own exclusive Storyblocks Label, which features artists outside of typical stock music contributors like Bobby Hawk, a Grammy-winning musician who’s recorded with Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift.
Video
Epidemic Sound does not offer stock video.
Storyblocks, however, has a library of over 10 million high-quality stock video assets, including 8K, 4K and HD footage and motion backgrounds. All of Storyblocks’ plans include access to their full video library, including 8K, 4K, and HD. Storyblocks also offers videos in both horizontal and vertical orientations, making it easy to create content for any channel or format.
Templates
Storyblocks provides over 42,000 pre-made and fully customizable templates for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, and Apple Motion across all of their plans.
Epidemic Sound does not offer video templates with any of its subscription plans.
Images
Storyblocks’ library contains 1,000,000+ royalty-free photos, vectors, illustrations, and snapshots for use, while Epidemic Sound does not offer stock images. Storyblocks’ image library is available with all of their plans.
Download limits
All plans from both Storyblocks and Epidemic Sound offer unlimited downloads.
Included tools
Plugins
Storyblocks only has the Adobe Creative Cloud plugin for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, available with all of their plans. The Storyblocks plugin brings its entire stock library directly into your editor, and includes access to your on-site folders.
Epidemic Sound has plugins for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition that lets you search its music and SFX library, as well as bringing in voiceover content. Epidemic Sound also has a plugin for DaVinci Resolve Studio. Their plugins are available with all of their plans.
Apps and tools
Storyblocks’ individual subscription plans include access to Maker, its baked-in, easy-to-use video editor that directly connects to its entire library and has a selection of pre-made templates.
You can also access Storyblocks’ AI Toolkit with their individual plans, which include monthly credits. With the Essentials plan, you get access to the Video Editing tool, which allows you to make changes to any footage clip in the Storyblocks library using text prompts and Runway’s Aleph model, along with their AI Video Generator and AI Image Generator. With their ULAA plan, you get access to all three of those tools as well as AI Voiceover, which allows you to generate professional-sounding voices using ElevenLabs technology.
With Storyblocks, you also have their AI-powered conversational search tool, which lets you describe what kind of asset you’re looking for in your own words. From there, it searches our library for you, pulling the best results, and you can easily refine your search through a back-and-forth dialogue.
Epidemic Sound offers the option to try its voiceover capabilities (with limited credits), blending AI with professionally recorded voice tracks. They also have an Adapt tool, which lets you customize music from their library.
Looking at other stock media subscriptions? Check out our comparison posts on Epidemic Sound vs Artlist vs Storyblocks, Motion Array vs Storyblocks, Envato Elements vs Storyblocks, Pond5 vs Storyblocks, Shutterstock vs Storyblocks, Storyblocks vs Adobe Stock, and Storyblocks vs Artlist.
Final thoughts on Epidemic Sound vs Storyblocks
That was a lot of information – let’s recap some of the most important points to consider when deciding which platform best meets your needs as an individual creator.
Licensing
- Only Storyblocks offers indemnification up to $20,000 for individual creators, while Epidemic Sound doesn’t offer any indemnification.
- Storyblocks’ individual license covers personal and client use, while Epidemic Sound’s Creator license only covers personal use. Only their Pro plan covers business and client work as well as personal use. This is an important distinction when it comes to potential copyright claims, especially if you freelance.
Content
- Storyblocks has the larger library and wider selection of content with more than 10 million royalty-free stock assets, including sound effects and music, footage, templates, and images. Their music library is 100% exclusive as well.
- Epidemic Sound only offers royalty-free music and SFX.
- If you’re only looking for music and sound effects, both options have similar music catalog sizes, but Epidemic Sound has a much larger selection of sound effects compared to Storyblocks. However, if you’re looking for footage, images, and other kinds of stock content all in one subscription, Storyblocks is the clear winner.
Tools
- Both platforms offer library plugins for Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, but Epidemic Sound also has them for Adobe Audition and DaVinci Resolve.
- Storyblocks also provides the added feature of a video editor that directly connects to its library, plus an AI Toolkit with a Video Editing tool powered by Runway, Voiceover powered by ElevenLabs, AI Image Generator, and AI Video Generator.
- Epidemic Sound has an Adapt tool which lets you customize tracks from their library – each individual plan gives you a set number of “adaptations” you can make per month.
Epidemic Sound vs Storyblocks enterprise plans
Looking for a stock subscription for your organization or company? Let’s take a look what’s included with the plans both platforms offer for businesses.
Licensing
Understanding the licensing restrictions a stock media platform offers is critical to avoid legal issues down the line. Different licenses allow (or disallow) content to be used under certain circumstances, shared in certain ways, and other potential restrictions.
Be sure you fully understand the extent of these permissions and limitations to ensure you stay within their bounds.
Permitted Usage
Storyblocks’ Small Business plan covers one employee at a small business with less than 50 people (excluding agencies, broadcast, and production companies). Assets are licensed directly to the company, making sure your business is protected. It covers use for assets in print, multimedia, games, and the internet, but does not include broadcast or streaming use.
Storyblocks for Business covers unlimited worldwide distribution for any commercial or internal projects, under a license written directly to your company or organization. Storyblocks’ business license does not include a derivative work requirement, which means you don’t have to make substantive changes to the assets you download in order to reproduce them. With a business plan, Storyblocks allows you to keep and use any assets you download, forever.
Epidemic Sound’s commercial plan covers business and client work, social media, websites, podcasts and digital ads. Its enterprise plan covers everything on the commercial plan, plus TV broadcasting, offline events, commercial streaming and video on demand (VOD).
Indemnification
Indemnification protection ensures any stock media you download and use in projects for your company or business is shielded from legal challenges.
Storyblocks for Business offers up to $1,000,000 USD in indemnification covering users in your organization, while their Small Business provides up to $20,000 for your business. Epidemic Sound’s commercial and enterprise plans don’t offer indemnification, which means it cannot be held liable if you run into any legal issues from using their content.
Restrictions
Storyblocks’ business license prohibits selling, licensing, or redistributing stock files obtained through its platform. Users are also not allowed to create a trademark or logo based on anything in its library.
Using scripts or programs to download a high volume of stock files is also prohibited, as is doing so manually. Any stock assets downloaded from Storyblocks cannot be used in a way that encourages violence, or for any other unlawful purposes.
All model- or property-released content will be clearly indicated as cleared for commercial use. Any content that doesn’t specifically enumerate the releases requires you seek written permission from the model or property owner to be fully covered.
Storyblocks for Business and Epidemic Sound’s enterprise plans both offer unlimited seats, meaning anyone in your organization is free to download and use assets downloaded from the platform.
Because Epidemic Sound offers custom licenses for businesses on its Enterprise plan, it doesn’t have a license to reference. This means we can’t say with absolute certainty what restrictions this puts on its business license – so be sure to ask.
Content
As an enterprise user, your needs may go beyond one or two types of stock media. Storyblocks and Epidemic Sound’s core content offerings differ, so it’s best to get a sense of both before committing.
Music and sound effects
Epidemic Sound’s music library is 50,000+, while Storyblocks offers over 60,000 music tracks across a broad spectrum of varieties, genres, and themes. Storyblocks’ library includes over 115,000 professionally recorded sound effects, while Epidemic Sound includes over 200,000, including from SFX platform Soundly.
Storyblocks Label tracks feature exclusive music you can only find on their platform, which significantly reduces the chances of copyright strikes.
Video
Storyblocks offers more than 3 million stock video files, available in 8K, 4K and HD, as well as motion backgrounds. Epidemic Sound specializes in music, so it does not offer any stock video footage on its platform.
Templates
Epidemic Sound doesn’t offer video templates. But Storyblocks has over 42,000 fully customizable, premade templates for Apple Motion, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.
Images
Storyblocks offers over a million illustrations, photos, vectors, and snapshots, covering all of your stock image needs. Epidemic Sound does not provide stock images.
Download limits
Both Epidemic Sound and Storyblocks offer unlimited downloads for their enterprise plans.
Included tools
There’s much more to a stock media platform to consider than its library of content. The additional tools they offer can sometimes put one provider ahead of another, depending on your brand’s needs.
Storyblocks’ Pro plan includes the Adobe Creative Cloud plugin for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. The plugin brings its entire library of content directly into your editor, including access to your on-site folders.
With the AI Toolkit included with Storyblocks for Business, you can use AI-powered tools to help your team create custom content faster. It includes AI Video Editing, which allows you to customize any footage clip in the Storyblocks library using text prompts powered by Runway’s Aleph. You’ll also get access to AI Voiceover, which gives you the ability to create professional-sounding narration using voice to text, clone my voice, or voice changer. Finally, you’ll get access to AI Video Generator and AI Image Generator, where you can create personalized content through text prompts and reference images.
Storyblocks for Business comes with Maker for Teams, a simple video editing tool that connects directly to its full content library, including exclusive features geared towards businesses. One of those features is custom branding settings that can be applied in a single click, complete with pre-set colors, fonts, timing, and even logos, all of which help speed up video creation. It also features a number of collaboration tools that make sharing anything they create in Maker for Teams fast and easy.
Storyblocks for Business also comes equipped with an exclusive client billing tool, shared folders, SSO, administrative tools, and download-to-cloud functionality. Finally, you’ll also get access to their conversational search tool, which uses AI to let you search for content in your own words and refine results through a back-and-forth dialogue.
Epidemic Sound’s enterprise plan includes custom credits for its voiceover tool, including a custom number of voices to choose between. Also included are project management and permission controls, as well as the ability to create custom music productions.
Main points to consider for Storyblocks for Business versus Epidemic Sound
You should now have a better understanding of what both platforms have to offer enterprise users, so let’s do a final rundown of the most important things to consider when deciding between the two.
Licensing
- Storyblocks offers indemnification of up to $1 million for enterprise businesses and up to $20,000 for small businesses, while Epidemic Sound offers no such protection.
- Also worth noting is that Storyblocks’ business license is available to read in full online. Epidemic Sound customizes its deal terms for enterprise customers and its deal terms are not available to read online.
Content
- Epidemic Sound only has music and sound effects.
- Storyblocks, on the other hand, offers a much wider range of stock media assets. Their library of over 10 million assets includes 8K, 4K, and HD footage, music, video templates, images, sound effects, and more.
Tools
- Storyblocks offers Maker for Teams, a simple video editor your organization can use to ramp up your production process.
- You’ll also get access to the AI Toolkit with Storyblocks, allowing you to easily customize any footage clip in their library using Runway’s Aleph, create custom content with generators that use leading models, and create professional voiceovers with technology powered by ElevenLabs.
- Both platforms offer plugins for Premiere and After Effects, but Epidemic Sound also has a plugin for DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Audition.
Epidemic Sound vs Storyblocks: Which one is right for you?
Whether you’re an individual creator or a business looking for a stock media subscription, it’s vital to understand exactly what each plan includes, from licensing to library size and more. If you’re only looking for sound effects or music to soundtrack your next project, your money will go further with Epidemic Sound. However, if you’re after more comprehensive licensing protection and a larger selection of stock media assets, Storyblocks might be the preferable option.
If you have any questions about any of Storyblocks’ plans for businesses or individuals, feel free to reach out or visit our FAQ page.
