Guide

How topline licensing works, and what a vocal should cost.

Most producers hit the same wall. The track is finished, the drop works, the arrangement is right, and it still sounds like an instrumental. You need a vocal. Then you go looking, and every answer you find is either a sales page or a forum thread from 2019.

This explains how it actually works: what you get, what you own, what it should cost, and what to avoid.

What a topline is.

A topline is the vocal part written over your production. The melody, the lyrics and the performance. You make the track, someone else writes and sings the song on top of it.

It is not the same as an acapella or a vocal sample. A sample is a phrase you chop and pitch. A topline is a song: verse, hook, the lot, written to your track and recorded to fit it.

The three ways to get one.

Sample packs. Royalty-free vocal packs from Splice, Loopmasters, LANDR and similar. Cheap, instant, and the fastest way to get a vocal in the session. The trade-off is that thousands of other producers bought the same pack, and the phrases are written to no track in particular, so they rarely sit right without heavy editing.

Topline catalogues. Finished songs, written and recorded, that you licence and drop into your production. Either non-exclusive, where others can licence the same vocal, or exclusive, where it is removed from sale and becomes yours alone. Much closer to a real song than a pack, and far cheaper than having one written from scratch.

Custom vocals. You send the instrumental, a writer writes to it. You get something made for your track and nobody else's. It costs the most and takes the longest, and for a record you are pitching to a label it is usually worth it.

Exclusive and non-exclusive, properly explained.

This is where most of the confusion lives, and where people get caught out.

Non-exclusive means you buy a licence to use the vocal. So can other producers. Usually royalty-free, so you pay once and owe nothing afterwards. Good for club tracks, edits, bootlegs, DJ tools and anything where it does not matter that the vocal exists elsewhere.

Exclusive means the vocal is taken off sale and used only by you. It should never be resold afterwards. This is what you want for a record you are pitching to a label, because no A&R wants to sign a song whose vocal is on five other releases.

Two things worth checking before you pay for an exclusive:

1. Is it actually removed from sale? Ask directly. A catalogue that keeps selling an "exclusive" after the fact is selling you nothing.
2. Has it been licensed non-exclusively before? A vocal sold to forty people and then sold as an exclusive is still a vocal forty people have.

Publishing, which is not the same as the recording.

Every song is two things: the recording (the audio) and the composition (the melody and the lyrics). They are owned separately, and a licence will usually treat them differently.

• The recording. On most topline deals you own the finished recording of your track outright, and keep all streaming and sales income from it.
• The composition. Melody and lyrics were written by the topliner, so they usually keep a writer's share. A 50/50 split between producer and topliner is the industry standard for this kind of collaboration, and it is what most labels expect to see on a split sheet.

A royalty-free non-exclusive licence normally hands you both, with no split at all, which is why it costs a fraction of an exclusive.

Neither arrangement is a trick. A publishing split does not cost you money up front, it means the writer earns alongside you if the record does well. If a deal offers you 100% of everything for a small fee, read the paperwork, not the headline.

What you should expect to pay in 2026.

Real prices, so you can judge what you are quoted:

• Royalty-free vocal packs: £15 to £80. UNDRGRND, Vandalism, PML and the Splice catalogue sit in here.
• Session-vocalist packs: £25 to £60. Written and sung by one vocalist rather than assembled from a library, so they hang together better.
• Non-exclusive toplines: £10 to £50 per song, depending on whether you get the full stems or just a lead.
• Exclusive toplines from a catalogue: £150 to £900. ToplineBase, one of the larger marketplaces, puts its average nearer €850.
• Custom vocals: £250 to £500 for an established topliner on SoundBetter or AirGigs, and well over £1,000 for someone with chart or major-label credits.

If someone quotes you £40 for a bespoke, exclusive, professionally recorded topline, something in that sentence is not true.

What you should always get.

Whatever you pay, the delivery should include:

• The dry lead vocal, unprocessed, so you can mix it into your track rather than inherit someone else's reverb
• The processed version, if you want a starting point
• Full stems: lead, doubles, harmonies, stacks, adlibs, as separate files
• A lyrics sheet, which you will need for distribution and registration
• A written licence agreement saying exactly what you can do with it
• BPM and key, confirmed, matching the file

If a dry stem is not included, ask why. It is the single most useful file in the folder, and its absence usually means the vocal was never recorded cleanly.

Red flags.

• No written licence. A DM saying "yeah it's all yours" is not a licence, and a distributor or label will eventually ask to see one.
• No dry stem.
• Vague exclusivity. "Mostly exclusive" is not a thing.
• AI vocals sold as human. Increasingly common, usually detectable in the breaths and the consonants. Ask directly, and ask for a video of the session if you are unsure.
• No name attached. If you cannot find the singer's released credits, you cannot verify anything they claim.

How to brief a topliner so you get something usable.

If you do have one written for you, the brief decides the result more than the fee does:

1. Send the instrumental as a full mix, plus the stems if you have them
2. Say the BPM and key, even though they can hear it
3. Give two or three reference tracks, and say what you like in each. "The way the hook sits behind the drop in this one" beats "something like this"
4. Say what it is for. Pitching to a label, a DJ tool, a sync brief and a personal release all want different vocals
5. Say where you want vocals, and where you want silence
6. Be honest about deadlines. Good writing takes a few days, and rushed toplines sound rushed

Common questions.

I write and record toplines for house, melodic house, techno and EDM. My catalogue is in the shop: royalty-free licences from £9.99, exclusives at £299, with full stems, lyrics and a licence agreement every time. I also take a few custom vocals a month.