Lease or exclusive: which beat license do you need?

The plain comparison

A lease: you license the beat. I keep it and can lease it to other artists. You pay less and you get limits on streams, sales and videos.

An exclusive: from the day you pay, you are the only artist who can use the beat. I stop selling it. You pay more and there are no limits.

Both come with the same files, untagged MP3 + WAV, plus trackouts where the license includes them. Both put my name on the song as the producer. Both split the publishing the same way. The difference is who else can use the beat, and the price.

When a lease is enough

Most of the time. A lease fits if you are:

• releasing singles to build a catalog
• recording a mixtape, a freestyle or a feature
• testing a sound before you commit to it
• putting out a song that might do 5,000 streams or 50,000, and you do not know which yet

On this site the Cook Up Lease is $50 and covers up to 7,500 sales, with 200 streams counting as one sale, and one official music video. The Cook Unlimited Lease is $150, adds the trackouts, and takes the caps off: unlimited streams, sales, videos, radio and paid shows. If you are serious about the record, Unlimited is the one.

The thing artists worry about with a lease is "what if somebody else uses my beat". It happens less than you think, and when it does, the two songs are usually in different cities and different scenes. If your song takes off, come back and buy the exclusive then. Being the artist whose record is moving is a good position to make an offer from.

When exclusive is worth it

• The song is going to a label, a sync library, a film or a TV placement. Somebody with a contract is going to ask "do you own this".
• You are building a project around one sound and do not want anybody else near it.
• The beat is distinctive enough that two songs on it would be obvious to anyone.
• You can afford it without skipping the mix or the video. An exclusive on a bad mix is still a bad mix.

If none of those are true, start with a lease and keep your money for the mix, the video and the push.

What "the beat comes off the site" means

When an exclusive sells here, the beat is removed from the store the same day. Nobody can lease it after that. Artists who leased it before you keep their licenses, because those are signed contracts and they do not disappear, but no new licenses are sold. The exclusive agreement says so in writing, with the date.

On the exclusives page that is the whole model. Every beat is $50, or 3 for $100. One buyer per beat, first to pay wins. A new batch goes up on the 1st of every month, and whatever has not sold by the end of the month comes down for good. Those beats were never leased to anyone, so when you buy one, you are the only artist who has ever had it.

Publishing, in plain words

Lease or exclusive, the song you make is a new composition. I wrote the music. You wrote the words and the melody. Every license on this site splits it the same way:

• 50% of the composition to the producer: half the writer share and half the publisher share, which is 100 of BMI's 200 points.
• 50% of the mechanical royalties to the producer.
• The other half of both is yours.

I register my share myself. You register yours with your PRO and list every writer on the song. Do not add my share to your distributor's publishing service. It only creates a conflict and holds up both of us getting paid.

The credit on every release reads Produced by LET THAT BOY COOK. Put it in the metadata, the description and the credits. That line is part of the license, not a favor.

One thing people get wrong: exclusive rights are about the beat, not the song. An exclusive makes you the only artist on the beat. The composition split stays 50/50. That is how it works everywhere a producer is a writer on the record, and it is spelled out on the licensing page.

Make an offer on any lease beat

You do not have to wait for a beat to show up on the exclusives page. Every beat on the Label Ready list and the Southern Soul page has an "Exclusive · Make an offer" button. Tap it, name a price, and I answer by email, usually within a day. If we agree, you pay, the beat comes off the site, and the exclusive contract lands in your inbox with the files.

Southern Soul beats marked "No stems" skip the offer step. They are a flat $200 exclusive, paid at checkout like anything else.

The short version

Single you are testing: Cook Up Lease, $50. Record you are pushing: Cook Unlimited, $150. Beat nobody else can touch: an exclusive, $50 each or 3 for $100 on the exclusives page, or make an offer on any lease beat. Whatever you pick, the files and the license are in your inbox the second you pay.