Suno v6 vs Udio vs ElevenMusic: best AI music
Best AI music generator by job, October 2026: Suno v6, ElevenLabs Music v2.5, Lyria 3.5, Stable Audio 3. Free plans, downloads and commercial use compared.
The best AI music generator in October 2026 depends on the job. Suno v6 is the pick for full songs with vocals, ElevenLabs Music v2.5 for licensed output with an API, Lyria 3.5 inside the Google stack, and Stable Audio 3.0 for open-weight beds and sound effects. Udio still has no downloads.
September 2026 reset the field. Suno replaced its whole lineup with v6. ElevenLabs made Music v2.5 its default. Google took Lyria 3.5 to general availability. Stable Audio 3.0 shipped open weights in May. Udio, the name most "Suno vs Udio" searches still expect, has not launched its licensed platform and still won't let you download a file.
Here is the short answer, by job:
| Job | Pick today | Skip |
|---|---|---|
| Full song with vocals, widest genre range | Suno v6 | Stable Audio for vocals |
| Song with clean licensing paperwork | ElevenMusic v2.5 | Udio until it exports again |
| 2–3 min song inside a Google or Gemini pipeline | Lyria 3.5 | A Suno web export you then re-upload |
| Long song, up to 5 min, priced by lyric length | MiniMax Music 3 | A 30 s loop stretched to fill |
| Beds, loops, stingers, SFX you can self-host | Stable Audio 3.0 | A full vocal track under a voiceover |
| Score a silent AI video in the same studio | Versely AI music generator | A separate export hop |
Free plans, prices and commercial use
What each vendor says on its own pages, read on 8 October 2026. Vendor prices change, so check the page before you buy.
| Tool | Free option | Paid entry | Commercial use and downloads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suno | Free plan: 50 credits a day, v6-mini only | Pro $8 a month ($64 a year) with 2,500 credits and v6 and v6-wild; Premier $24 a month ($192 a year) with 10,000 credits | Free: no commercial rights and no monthly song downloads. Pro: commercial rights and 20 downloads a month. Premier: commercial rights and 60 downloads a month (suno.com/pricing) |
| ElevenLabs Music | Free plan with 10,000 credits a month | Starter from $6 a month, then Creator and Pro | "Cleared for broad commercial use", with rights that vary by plan; self-serve plans exclude film, TV and studio games (elevenlabs.io/music) |
| Stable Audio 3.0 | Small, Small SFX and Medium weights are free to download | Large through the Stability API or an enterprise licence | Trained on fully licensed data, with legal indemnification under the enterprise licence (stability.ai) |
Lyria 3.5 follows the Gemini API terms and watermarks every output with SynthID. Udio has no exportable file today, so there is nothing to license. On Versely, commercial use follows your plan and the underlying model's licence.
What changed in September
Suno v6, v6-wild and v6-mini (9 September). Suno retired its older models and trained v6 on licensed catalogues from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe (TechCrunch). New features: edit a section by prompt or by changing a lyric, use text, image or video as a reference, and isolate stems from a sample. v6-mini is available to everyone, including free users. v6 and v6-wild are for paid users. Suno is also adding watermarks and tiered download limits: on its pricing page Free has none, Pro allows 20 song downloads a month and Premier 60.
v5, v4.5 and v4 are gone from Suno's picker. Users are pushing back, mostly people who liked v5's sound and had half-finished projects on it (Digital Music News). If your prompts were tuned for v5, re-test them on v6 before you trust them.
ElevenMusic v2.5 (11 September). It is now ElevenLabs' default music model, with richer instrumentation. ElevenLabs says listeners preferred it in blind tests across 47,885 prompt pairs. API support started on 14 September, and v2 stays available. The UMG licensing deal announced on 10 September is separate: no UMG music trained v2.5 (Music Business Worldwide).
Lyria 3.5 GA (3–4 September). It is out in both the Gemini API and the Gemini app. It makes full songs of about 2–3 minutes as 44.1 kHz stereo WAV, accepts up to 10 input images, and carries a SynthID watermark (Gemini API changelog, Unite.AI).
Udio: still no licensed launch. UMG settled with Udio in October 2025, with a plan for a new licensed platform in 2026 (Music Business Worldwide). As of 8 October we found no launch announcement and no sign that downloads have returned. The planned platform is described as a walled garden where tracks stay inside Udio.
Stable Audio 3.0 (20 May). Stability released four models trained on licensed data: small SFX, small, medium and large. Medium and large can compose tracks of about six minutes. The small SFX, small and medium models have open weights. Large is API or paid self-hosting only (TechCrunch).
The contenders
Suno v6: still the vocal default
Suno's own Introducing v6 post describes three models, not one:
| Model | Who gets it on Suno | Character |
|---|---|---|
| v6 | Paid plans | Polished and reliable across genres |
| v6-wild | Paid plans | Experimental, less predictable |
| v6-mini | Everyone, including free | Faster and lighter |
Wins on: genre range, hooks, and full tracks with lyrics. The new section edits matter most in practice: you can fix a weak chorus without re-rolling the whole song.
Watch for: new download limits by tier, and new watermarks. Your v5 muscle memory also no longer applies. Suno's legal exposure isn't over either. Warner, BMG and Believe licensed v6, but UMG and Sony filed a second lawsuit in September arguing that v6 inherits the infringement of the models it replaced (Music Week, 18 September). Suno calls the claims "fundamentally flawed". The GEMA ruling in Germany also still matters for EU-facing commercial use.
ElevenMusic v2.5: the paperwork pick
ElevenMusic launched in August 2025 with Merlin and Kobalt licensing deals already signed (Music Business Worldwide), and v2.5 keeps that story while closing the quality gap. It exports today and has an API.
Wins on: provenance you can show a legal reviewer, API access, and vocals that sit well under narration from the same vendor's voices.
Watch for: a narrower stylistic range than Suno on odd genres. Also, the UMG deal does not mean UMG recordings trained this model.
Lyria 3.5: the Google-stack pick
Lyria 3.5 is the right call if your pipeline already runs on the Gemini API. It returns WAV at 44.1 kHz, takes image references, and SynthID watermarks every track. For when a full song beats a looped bed, see Lyria 3.5 three-minute vocal tracks.
Wins on: API-native delivery, image-conditioned songs, and clean WAV output.
Watch for: songs cap at about 2–3 minutes, and every output is watermarked.
Udio: great paperwork, no file
Udio has the broadest set of signed label deals in AI music, and it can't hand you a file today. Until the licensed platform ships and you can see its export terms, don't build a deadline around it. The full story is in Udio downloads paused.
Stable Audio 3.0: beds, loops and self-hosting
Stable Audio used to be the loops-and-stingers tool. Version 3.0 goes further: medium and large write compositions of about six minutes, and three of the four models are open weights. That makes it the pick for teams that want to run music generation on their own GPU and fine-tune it.
Wins on: open weights, licensed training data, SFX, and long instrumental beds.
Watch for: the licence. Stability's page says the Small, Small SFX and Medium weights can be downloaded and that Large goes through its API or an enterprise licence. Check what the licence says for your company size before you ship.
MiniMax Music 3: long songs, lyric-structured
MiniMax Music 3 writes complete songs up to five minutes from a style description plus lyrics. You mark sections with [intro], [verse], [chorus] and [outro] tags (MiniMax release notes). It is on Versely as MiniMax Music 3, billed at 3 credits per 1,000 characters of input, with output lengths from 30 seconds to 5 minutes and 44.1 kHz audio.
Wins on: long-form songs when you already have written lyrics.
Watch for: it rewards tidy structure tags. Loose prose lyrics produce loose songs.
Which of these run on Versely
Versely is one product on two screens, the web app and the mobile app. Music runs through the AI music generator. Here is where each vendor stands:
| Model | On Versely? | Credits (live catalog, 8 Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Suno Sounds V6 | Yes | 2 per call, flat |
| Suno Sounds V6 Mini | Yes | 2 per call |
| Suno Sounds V6 Wild | Yes | 2 per call |
| Suno Sounds V5.5 | Yes, still listed | 2 per call |
| Suno Sounds V5 | Yes, still listed | 1 per call |
| MiniMax Music 3 | Yes | 3 per 1,000 characters |
| ElevenLabs Music v2.5 | Yes, in the web Music studio | Quoted before you generate |
| Lyria 3 Pro / Lyria 3 Clip | Yes, in the web Music studio | Quoted before you generate |
| Lyria 3.5 | Yes, in the web and app Music studio (since 24 Sept) | Same as Lyria 3 Pro, quoted before you generate |
| Stable Audio 3.0 | No | n/a |
| Udio | No | n/a |
Two things to note. First, the Suno Sounds V5 and V5.5 rows are the older sound-effects line, not the v5 song model Suno pulled from its own picker. Treat them as legacy. Second, the Sounds rows are billed per call for beds, SFX and background music. Song generation in the signed-in studio is priced on the in-app picker, and Suno V6 live on Versely walks through that picker.
ElevenLabs Music v2.5, Lyria 3.5 and Lyria 3 are all in the Versely Music studio, next to Suno. For a long lyric-led song with your own words, MiniMax Music 3 is still the pick.
Head-to-head by use case
| Use case | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|
| Full song with vocals | Suno v6 | ElevenMusic v2.5 |
| Fast, free draft | Suno v6-mini (free on Suno) | Stable Audio 3.0 small |
| Exploratory takes | Suno v6-wild | Suno v6 |
| Licensed provenance for a brand | ElevenMusic v2.5 | Stable Audio 3.0 |
| Song through an API | ElevenMusic v2.5 | Lyria 3.5 |
| Instrumental bed, 3+ min | Stable Audio 3.0 | MiniMax Music 3 |
| Lyric-led song up to 5 min | MiniMax Music 3 | Suno v6 |
| SFX, stingers, loops | Stable Audio 3.0 small SFX | Suno Sounds V6 on Versely |
| Self-host and fine-tune | Stable Audio 3.0 | none |
| Background for a video you're cutting in Versely | Suno Sounds V6 | MiniMax Music 3 |
How to prompt any of them
Most bad AI music is a prompt problem. The formula still holds across all six tools:
[genre] + [mood] + [tempo] + [instruments] + [era reference] + [usage hint]
Weak: "Happy song for a YouTube video."
Strong: "Upbeat indie-pop, 120 BPM, clean electric guitar arpeggios, soft synth pad, light brush drums, 2010s indie feel, for a lifestyle vlog intro under 30 seconds."
The usage hint does real work. "Bed under a voiceover" gets a different mix from "main hook for a TikTok". For MiniMax Music 3, put the lyrics on their own lines under section tags. For Suno v6, write the lyric first, then use section edits to fix it instead of re-rolling.
The commercial-use question
Read your licence. That's still the whole answer, but September moved the defaults:
- Suno: commercial rights on Pro and Premier, none on Free. Download limits vary by tier (none, 20 and 60 a month). v6 is trained on licensed catalogues, but older-model outputs carry the older risk, and UMG and Sony are suing over v6.
- ElevenMusic: licensed training from launch. Check the tier you're on for commercial terms.
- Lyria 3.5: the Gemini API terms apply, and every output carries a SynthID watermark.
- Stable Audio 3.0: licensed training data. The open models are under Stability's licence, and the large model is API or enterprise-licence only.
- Udio: no exportable file today, so there is nothing to license.
- Versely: commercial use follows your plan and the underlying model's licence.
For the longer version, see the AI music licensing guide. If you need music inside an automated pipeline, best AI music API covers who is actually callable.
Workflow: music for a short in 10 minutes
- Beat-match tempo to your rough cut.
- Write the prompt with the formula above.
- Draft two or three takes. On Versely, a Suno Sounds V6 bed is 2 credits a call.
- Fix the weak section with a v6 section edit, or regenerate just the bed.
- Drop it under the voiceover and duck it. The free BGM ducking tool runs in your browser, and the loudness meter checks the mix.
- Add stingers at transitions from an SFX model.
Common mistakes
- Letting the music fight the voiceover. Duck hard. Music that competes with narration kills retention.
- Reusing one track across a series. Regular viewers notice.
- Stacking eight style words. Pick two or three.
- Skipping loudness. Raw output is often too quiet or too peaky.
- Assuming v5 prompts transfer to v6. They don't reliably. Re-test.
FAQ
Suno vs Udio: which should I use in October 2026? Suno v6. Udio's licensing is strong, but you can't download a file until its licensed platform ships. Re-check Udio then.
What happened to Suno v5? Suno removed v5, v4.5 and v4 from its model picker when v6 launched on 9 September. Versely's catalog still lists Suno Sounds V5 (1 credit a call) and V5.5 (2 credits a call).
Is ElevenMusic better than Suno? For licensing paperwork and API access, yes. For genre range and hook-writing, Suno v6 still leads. v2.5 narrowed the gap.
What is the best free AI music generator? Suno v6-mini on Suno's free plan (50 credits a day), though the free plan has no commercial rights and no song downloads. Stable Audio 3.0 small and medium are free to download if you have a GPU. ElevenLabs Music also has a free plan with 10,000 credits a month.
Does Suno's free plan allow commercial use? No. Suno's pricing page lists no commercial rights and no monthly song downloads on Free. Pro ($8 a month) and Premier ($24 a month) include commercial use rights, with 20 and 60 song downloads a month.
Can I use Lyria 3.5 or ElevenMusic on Versely? ElevenLabs Music v2.5, yes: it is in the web Music studio. Lyria 3.5, yes, since 24 September, next to Lyria 3 Pro and Lyria 3 Clip. Use Suno Sounds V6 for beds and SFX, or MiniMax Music 3 for full lyric-led songs.
Is AI music legal for commercial use? On paid tiers that grant commercial rights, generally yes. Free tiers often restrict it. Read the licence for your plan and keep a record.
The takeaway
Pick by job. Suno v6 for vocals and range. ElevenMusic v2.5 when provenance and an API matter. Lyria 3.5 inside the Google stack. Stable Audio 3.0 when you want open weights or long beds. MiniMax Music 3 for five-minute lyric-led songs. Leave Udio until it exports again. Then duck the music under the voice and ship.