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Background music for business shapes the in-store atmosphere and enhances the customer experience. Startle offers:
Background music for business is professionally curated music, chosen and managed specifically for commercial spaces rather than personal listening. It’s selected to match a brand’s identity, the pace of a venue and the mood you want your customers to feel.
Background music for business has to be properly licensed for public use, and for brands with more than one site, it needs a way of staying consistent across all locations.
Background music for business is professionally curated music, chosen and managed specifically for commercial spaces rather than personal listening. It’s selected to match a brand’s identity, the pace of a venue and the mood you want your customers to feel.
Background music for business has to be properly licensed for public use, and for brands with more than one site, it needs a way of staying consistent across all locations.
Choose from over 100 ready-made playlists, curated by our experts and regularly refreshed, for every type of retail and hospitality venue.
We can fully manage your schedule, or leave it in your hands.
A completely bespoke playlist, built from scratch around your brand rather than picked from a library.
Your playlists are completely unique, evolve alongside your brand and are rolled out consistently, at scale.
Our custom radio solution is a fully managed soundtrack and messaging system, controlled from one intuitive platform.
From production to scheduling, everything is easy and managed in one platform, giving you a polished and consistent in-store radio experience.
Startle has completely transformed the way we manage our showroom environments across our different retailers. The system gives us full control over the music, tone and messaging, ensuring we can oversee exactly what is being played in each location. It’s easy to use, reliable and keeps our branding consistent across every site.
Head of Marketing
Background music is way more than background, and your spaces are not just spaces anymore. They are one of the biggest opportunities you have to build your brand, connect with customers and create experiences people remember. The sound in those spaces shapes how long people stay, how they feel about you, and what they spend.
Difference in daily sales by changing the genre of music played in-store 1
Increased bar spend from changing the tempo of the music played 2
More french wine sold vs German wine when French music was played 3
If you’re a retail or hospitality brand planning to play music somewhere customers or staff can hear it, you’ll need a public performance licence. TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS covers the right to play recorded music publicly, and it’s held and paid for directly by the business.
Royalty-free music is music you licence once through a single payment or subscription, rather than paying a royalty every time it’s played. The composer or rights holder still owns the copyright, what you’re buying is permission to use their track under that licence’s terms, not the track itself.
Book in for your brand sound discovery call where we learn about your brand, venues and customers, map that to a tailored music direction, and show you how sound can improve your customer experience.
The Startle Player is plug-and-play, and our expert engineers are on hand to help with any tricky installations. Whether you’re launching in one location or 150, it works reliably from day one.
Already with a supplier and worried about switching? Don’t be. We make the transition smooth and handle everything for you.
Our Relentless Support™ team are on hand to help you 24/7/365, and enterprise customers get a dedicated account manager.
Startle has proved to be the perfect partner for Pizza Pilgrims, embracing all of our ideas for using music and technology to enhance our pizzerias. Our playlist management has improved massively.
Co-founder
Book your free brand sound discovery call to see how Startle can transform your music and signage across all locations.
On this call we’ll:
Just need a quote? Request pricing here.
1 Songs That Sell: The Impact of Music in Charity Shops by Startle (2026).
2 The Influence of Background Music on Behaviour in Restaurant Patrons by Milliman R.E. (1986).
3 In-store music affects product choice by North, A.C., Hargreaves, D.J., & McKendrick, J. (1997).
Frequently asked questions.
Background music for business is professionally selected and managed audio played in a commercial environment to shape customer experience, influence dwell time and reinforce brand identity. It differs from personal listening because it requires a commercial music licence and, for multi-site brands, a management platform to keep it consistent across locations.
Startle works on a predictable monthly cost per site with no surprise hardware fees. Pricing depends on the size of your estate and what you need, so we scope it on a short discovery call and give you a clear figure.
Hardware ships free next day and is plug-and-play, and full installation is available through our engineer network. Most estates are up and running within days, and if you're switching providers we handle the transition for you.
Yes. Any business playing music in a public or commercial space in the UK needs TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS. You hold and pay for that licence directly.
Yes. Startle's Studio platform gives you centralised control over every location, so you can push updates, schedule changes and maintain brand consistency across your entire estate from a single dashboard, with Relentless Support™ from the Startle team.
Startle works with multi-site brands across retail, restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, gyms, spas, salons and more. Each sector has its own acoustic and scheduling requirements, and Startle's music team curates programmes suited to each environment.
