Music Licensing in Fitness: Five Questions Every Operator Should Ask

Five questions every operator should be asking any music or licensing partner —
before they sign

Music licensing might be the most misunderstood piece of compliance in fitness. I’ve spent
years building FitRadio because operators keep coming to us already in the hole — under-
licensed, audited, or paying for the wrong tier — and almost always for the same handful of
reasons.

The legal foundation is simple: music is copyrighted, public performance in a commercial facility requires a license, and your personal Spotify account doesn’t count. That’s only half the picture. The other half is what trips operators up.

Here are the five questions every operator should be asking any music or licensing partner
before they sign — and how we’ve built FitRadio and getmusiclicensing.com to answer each
one.

Does this license cover fitness classes — or just background music?

Why it matters. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR all maintain separate, materially higher rate schedules for facilities that hold group fitness classes. The class license is its own tier, structured around the class itself, not just the building. Operators quoted on a PRO’s general-business rate are usually under-licensed the moment they run a single class.

How FitRadio handles it. This is exactly what getmusiclicensing.com was built for. Operators who come to us for PRO licensing get quoted on the fitness class rate schedule, not the general-business tier that wouldn’t actually cover what they’re doing.

How does the rate change with what we’re actually doing?

Why it matters. Square footage and speaker count are part of it. So are number of classes per week, average class size, participating member count, whether the class carries a premium, and how many locations are on the agreement. PROs combine those inputs differently, and the rate between a 10-person Pilates studio and a 30-person spin format can move significantly.

How FitRadio handles it. Through getmusiclicensing.com, we help operators get quoted against the actual shape of their business — class volume, average size, location count — not a generic tier. For multi-location franchises, the structure covers every location through one process, not a separate negotiation per studio.

Does this cover the sound recording — or just the composition?

Why it matters. This is the single biggest gap most operators have. Every song has two separate copyrights: the underlying composition (who wrote it) and the sound recording (who recorded and released it). ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR only handle the first one. The major labels — Universal, Sony, Warner — handle the second. Most fitness operators have never been told they need both. Most “music for business” services include some composition rights but leave the recording right uncleared for fitness class use. That gap is where the most expensive enforcement actions live.

How FitRadio handles it. Our commercial business subscription is licensed directly with the major labels for streaming in fitness facilities — that covers the sound recording side. The composition side is what getmusiclicensing.com handles: we manage ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR on your behalf and roll the fees into your monthly subscription. Both rights, one vendor.

Is this scoped for fitness, or scoped for retail?

Why it matters. Most general advice in this space points operators toward Pandora for Business, Soundtrack, Rockbot, and Apple Music for Business. These are reasonable for waiting rooms, retail floors and lobbies. They are not built for group fitness, and several of them either limit their PRO coverage to background music or carve fitness class use out of their terms altogether. Using them in class is a compliance gap whether you realize it or not.

How FitRadio handles it. We’ve been built for fitness from Day One. Every catalogue decision, every license negotiation, every product feature — music structured around class formats, BPM-matched programming for HIIT and cycling, real-time AI mixing for personal training — is purpose-built for the way fitness actually uses music. Background-music services were built to fill a room. We were built to drive a workout.

Does this cover all four PROs — including GMR?

Why it matters. A common misconception is that you can sign with just one PRO and only play music from that PRO’s catalogue. You can’t — compositions are co-written across affiliations, so any meaningful catalog requires ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR coverage to be usable. GMR is the newest of the four and represents a small but high-value catalogue of major songwriters whose music shows up constantly in fitness programming. Skipping it is a common and expensive mistake.

How FitRadio handles it. Getmusiclicensing.com covers all four — ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR — through one portal. We act as third-party representative, file the paperwork, handle music reporting, and roll the fees into your subscription at the published PRO rates.

The bottom line

Music licensing in fitness is genuinely complicated. The gap between “I have a license” and “I’m actually covered” is wider than most operators realize.

That’s why we built two complementary products:

• FitRadio’s commercial business subscription — fitness-purpose-built streaming, licensed directly with the major labels for commercial use in fitness facilities.
• getmusiclicensing.com — our PRO licensing portal. Covers ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR with monthly payments instead of large annual upfronts, at published PRO rates, paperwork handled. Available to FitRadio subscribers or as a stand-alone tool for qualifying gyms and studios.

Together they cover both sides of compliance: the music you stream and the public performance rights you need to play it in front of a class.

You don’t have to use us. But if you’re running a fitness business in 2026, you should at minimum know what to ask. If any answer isn’t clear from your current vendor, you have work to do — and it isn’t going to get simpler. The PROs are getting more aggressive about enforcement, audits more sophisticated, and the cost of error scales with your business.

Russell Greene is the CEO and founder of FitRadio, a fitness music streaming and licensing platform serving boutique studios, franchise operators, and personal trainers.