Is BandLab Free? Yes, but Its AI Tools Cost $14.99 a Month

Is BandLab free? Yes: the BandLab Studio costs $0 on the web, iPhone and Android, and BandLab says "The Free tier remains available to all creators with a BandLab account." But a free project stops at 16 tracks and 15 minutes, and AutoMix, Voice Cleaner, Audio-to-MIDI and Smart Tools need Pro at $14.99 a month. For a studio where the AI is free too, there's Veena, a free AI DAW with a personal music producer built in.

Veena is an AI DAW with a personal music producer built in. Describe the song you want and CoProducer builds it with you — beats, chords, melody, arrangement and mix — as real tracks you can edit, mix and export. Free, in your browser.

Here is exactly what BandLab gives away and what it charges for, from its own pricing page, Membership FAQ and help centre as they read in September 2026.

Is BandLab free? What $0 gets you

The free tier is a real studio with a short leash:

• The Studio itself, in a browser that "can run the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, or any Chromium-based browser", and in apps for iOS 16 and Android 8.2 and up.
• 16 tracks and 15 minutes per project. "You can create up to 16 tracks with a maximum duration of 15 minutes" (help centre, edited 24 March 2026).
• 3 stem splits a day with BandLab's Splitter.
• Up to 10 effects per track. "You can have a maximum of 10 Effects per track. If you have a Membership, you can have up to 20 Effects!"
• 4 of the 8 mastering presets. Natural, Spatial, Cinematic and Punch, plus the intensity control, are "exclusive features available through BandLab Membership".
• 6 AutoPitch effects, where the Membership FAQ promises members "24 genre-diverse effects".
• 20 BandLab Sounds samples a week to claim.
• 15 Tokens a month for SongStarter 2.0, BandLab's song-idea generator.
• A mixdown as M4A or 16-bit WAV on the web.

BandLab also lists an "Ad-free experience" among the perks of paying, so the free tier is the one with ads.

What BandLab charges for: Pro and Max

Prices and features are from BandLab's pricing page and Membership FAQ (September 2026). Pro starts with a 3-day free trial that "automatically renews at $14.99/month". Students with a verified .edu address get 40% off the first year of annual Pro, which BandLab puts at $59.40.

What it costs you: $14.99 a month for the AI tools, a 15-minute song limit that no plan lifts, and a web Studio mixdown that tops out at 16-bit WAV on every plan.

Are BandLab's AI tools free?

Mostly not. BandLab's pricing page marks seven AI tools "No" on the free plan: AutoMix, Voice Cleaner, Audio-to-MIDI, Smart Tools, Palette, Voice Changer and the FX Preset Generator. The help centre repeats it tool by tool:

• AutoMix, which balances levels and pan by genre: "AutoMix is part of a BandLab Membership."
• Audio-to-MIDI, which turns your voice or an instrument into notes: "This feature is part of our Membership plan."
• Smart Tools, which generate chords, bass and drums around a melody (Layer), add bars (Extend) or rework a part (Recompose): "Smart Tools are available as part of your BandLab Membership."
• Palette, which builds loop combos: "Palette is part of a BandLab Membership."
• Retune and the AI Harmonizer are Max only, at $199 for the first year and $299 a year after that.

SongStarter, the AI song-idea generator free accounts do get, runs on a meter. SongStarter 2.0 spends Tokens; every account gets 15 a month, and packs cost $8.99 for 2,000, $19.99 for 5,000 or $79.99 for 20,000 (help centre, edited 19 August 2026). And on the song ideas it hands you: "While you won't own the rights to the generated track, you can still use it without incurring any fees or royalties to the original creator."

Everything you do upload carries a licence, too. BandLab's Terms of Use (current as of 9 September 2026) grant BandLab "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable licence" to the content you submit.

The free BandLab alternative with the AI included: Veena

In Veena, the AI is the free plan, not the upsell. Open daw.veena.studio, sign in with Google and ask for the beat:

"Make a 140 BPM trap beat in C minor: a hard kick, a snappy clap, rolling hi-hats with triplet rolls, a long 808 that glides between notes, a dark piano melody and a choir-like pad under the hook."

CoProducer sets 140 BPM and C minor, plans the intro, hook and verse, and writes each part as a real track: hats you can redraw in the step sequencer, an 808 on Veena's own synth with its full panel open to you, a piano melody you can drag note by note in the piano roll. Every new part arrives as 3 options, and you pick the one you want. Hip hop is the largest genre in Veena's own data, and new users who ask for trap get a finished first result on day one 83.6% of the time.

Then do what you came to BandLab for. Record your verse from the mic with a count-in, and put Auto-Tune on it, one of Veena's 10 built-in effects. Ask CoProducer to "mix the vocal up front and duck the 808 under the kick", and it sets the levels, pan and effects. Hum a hook and it turns the hum into a bell or a lead; right-click any song you import and split it into 4 stems.

All of that is on the free plan, which has no end date: a daily CoProducer allowance, up to 5 projects, with stems, your own plug-ins through Veena Bridge, real-time collaboration and every export included. Export WAV 24-bit/48 kHz, MP3 or MIDI, the full mix or every track, as often as you like, with no watermark. Veena's terms say "you own the Output you generate through your use of the Service."

If one day's allowance isn't enough, Veena Pro is $20 a month and removes the daily request cap and unlocks the premium models.

Keep what you made on BandLab

Moving your songs takes minutes a song:

1. In BandLab, open the project in the Studio and choose Project, Download, Tracks; pick WAV and download each track. Right-click any MIDI region and choose Export as Audio/MIDI to keep the notes.
2. In Veena, drag the files onto the timeline. It reads 13 audio formats, M4A and WAV among them, plus MIDI, and the first clip sets the project tempo.
3. Only have the mixdown? Right-click it and choose Separate into Stems for vocals, drums, bass and other.
4. Ask CoProducer to take it further: "add a bridge", "make the second hook hit harder", "write a counter-melody on strings".

BandLab's own delete-account page warns that "All posts, projects, and collections will be permanently deleted", so download before you close anything. Our BandLab alternative guide covers the move, and six other options, in more depth.

The short answer, and the free way around it

To start, yes. To finish a song, not always: 16 tracks and 15 minutes a project, 3 stem splits a day, a 16-bit mixdown, and AI tools at $14.99 a month. Veena is free all the way through. CoProducer builds the song with you, the stems, plug-ins and collaboration cost nothing, and every track exports at 24-bit with no cap.

That makes Veena the free BandLab alternative worth opening today, and the online DAW for anyone who wants a producer in the room. More options live on our DAW alternatives page.

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