Suno and Udio were sued together by the three major record labels in June 2024. More than two years later they have taken different paths. Suno shipped a licensed model family and kept downloads, now metered by plan. Udio turned downloads off, signed a run of licensing deals, and is building a separate fan app. If you are picking one as of October 2026, the main question is no longer which one sounds better. It is what you are allowed to do with the song once it is made.
This guide covers what each product is today, current models, pricing, features, licensing and legal status, and who should pick which. Prices and limits come from each company's own pricing page, checked on October 19, 2026. For more tools, see our comparison of 10 AI music generators. For open models you can run yourself, see our comparison of MusicGen, Stable Audio Open, AudioLDM 2 and YuE.
The short answer
- Pick Suno if you need to take audio off the platform: to release it, put it in a video, or edit it in another app. Paid plans include commercial use rights and a monthly download allowance.
- Pick Udio only if you are happy to create, listen and share inside Udio. Its help center says downloading of audio, video and stems has been disabled.
- Both cost about the same at the paid tiers, so price is not the deciding factor.
What each product is
Suno is a text-to-song generator that has grown into a larger creation suite. You describe a song or write lyrics, and it generates full tracks with vocals. Its top plan also includes Suno Studio, which the pricing page describes as including MIDI, effects, automation and design-your-own plugins. In November 2025, Music Business Worldwide reported that Suno had raised $250 million at a $2.45 billion valuation and was generating $200 million in annual revenue.
Udio is also a text-to-song generator, run by Uncharted Labs. Its current web product still generates songs from prompts, with tools for extending, remixing and editing. Since its October 2025 settlement with Universal Music Group, the product has operated as what UMG called a "walled garden", with fingerprinting, filtering and other measures added, according to UMG's announcement. Udio is also building a new licensed app, covered below.
Current models
Suno v6. Suno released the v6 family on September 9, 2026. CEO Mikey Shulman wrote that v6 was developed with industry partners including Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe. Our Suno v6 explainer covers the models and label deals in detail. There are three models:
- v6: the flagship model for Pro and Premier subscribers. Suno calls it reliable and precise.
- v6-wild: also for Pro and Premier. Suno says it is less predictable and more varied.
- v6-mini: a faster, more efficient model available to everyone, including free users.
Suno's release notes list what v6 adds: editing one part of a song in plain language, building mashups from several of your songs in one request, sampling and isolating parts to build a new beat, creating from text, audio, images and video, and changing a single lyric without rebuilding the song. Before v6, Suno shipped v5.5 on March 26, 2026, which introduced Voices (sing with your own recorded voice, with a verification step), Custom Models (train a personal version of the model on your own tracks, up to three for Pro and Premier) and My Taste.
Udio. Udio's pricing page does not name a current model version, and the latest post on the Udio blog is the Warner announcement from November 19, 2025. Earlier blog posts introduced Styles (March 2025), Sessions (June 2025) and Voices (September 2025). We found no public announcement of a new Udio generation model in 2026 in the sources checked for this post.
Pricing as of October 2026
The paid tiers line up closely. All prices are in US dollars per month.
Suno (pricing page):
- Free: 50 credits per day, the v6-mini model, up to 4 songs at once in a shared queue, no commercial rights, no add-on credit purchases and no monthly song downloads.
- Pro: $10 a month, or $8 a month billed yearly. 2,500 credits per month, v6 and v6-wild, 20 song downloads per month, commercial use rights, two stem separation types, and up to 10 songs at once in a priority queue.
- Premier: $30 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly. 10,000 credits per month, 60 song downloads per month, commercial use rights and access to Suno Studio.
- Subscription credits do not carry over. Purchased top-up credits do not expire but need an active subscription. Paid users who run out get 50 bonus credits per day until the billing cycle renews, according to the same page.
Udio (pricing page):
- Free: 10 credits per day and 100 per month, up to 4 songs at once, and a limit of 3 full-length (2:10) generations per day.
- Standard: $10 a month, or $8 a month billed yearly ($96 a year). 2,400 credits per month, up to 6 songs at once, plus Voice Control, music and lyric editing, generating from uploaded audio, using songs as a style reference and custom cover art.
- Pro: $30 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year). 6,000 credits per month and up to 10 songs at once.
- Extra credits cost $3 for 100 or $25 for 1,000.
Udio raised these credit limits after the UMG deal. Its help center says Standard went from 1,200 to 2,400 credits a month and Pro from 4,800 to 6,000, and every subscriber got a one-time grant of 1,000 non-expiring credits. A credit on one service is not the same unit as a credit on the other, so do not compare credit counts directly.
Features compared
Creation. Both generate full songs with vocals from a text prompt and lyrics. Suno v6 adds input from audio, images and video. Udio's paid plans let you generate from uploaded audio and use an existing song as a style reference. Udio's plan comparison also lists Blend Styles, Reduce Styles and premium Artist Styles.
Voices. Both offer them. Suno's Voices, available to Pro and Premier, let you record or upload your own singing, and Suno says your Voices are private to you. Udio's plans list a library of Voices plus the option to save and reuse your own.
Editing. Suno's pricing page lists basic editing (crop, fade), advanced editing (replace or add a section), remix tools (extend, cover, adjust speed) and stem extraction. v6 adds plain-language edits to one section or one lyric. Udio lists extend, remix, and editing of music and lyrics.
Production tools. Suno Studio, on Premier, is the main difference here. Neither Udio's pricing page nor its blog lists a comparable multitrack tool.
Song length. Udio's free tier caps full-length generations at 2:10 and three per day. Paid plans lift the daily cap.
Downloads and rights: the real difference
Suno meters downloads. Under terms that took effect September 3, 2026, Suno's help center says:
- Free accounts get up to 7 lifetime trial downloads, for personal, non-commercial use only.
- Pro gets 20 downloads a month and Premier 60, both with commercial use rights. Unused downloads do not roll over, and you can buy more.
- One song counts as one download in any format, and its stems count as part of that song.
- Premier users working in Suno Studio can keep downloading from Studio without the limit.
- Streaming and sharing on Suno remain unlimited on every plan.
Suno says the limits are meant to "make it harder for bad actors to mass-export music." Music Business Worldwide noted that from September 3, a song in a paying subscriber's library cannot be released, sold or licensed until a download has been spent on it. In practice, the download allowance is your monthly release budget.
Udio has turned downloads off. Udio's help center says downloading of audio, video and stems has been disabled, a change made as part of the UMG partnership. You can still create songs and share them through Udio. If your goal is a file you can upload to a streaming service or drop into a video editor, the current Udio product does not offer that.
Licensing and legal status
The three major labels (Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group) sued both companies in June 2024 in suits coordinated by the RIAA, alleging copyright infringement in how the models were trained. Since then the two companies have settled with different labels.
Suno:
- Warner settled and signed a partnership with Suno on November 25, 2025. The announcement said Suno would build a new generation of models using licensed music and require a paid account to download songs. In August 2026, Suno said it would retire all prior models when the new ones launch, according to Music Business Worldwide.
- BMG signed a licensing deal with Suno on August 12, 2026, covering artists and songwriters who choose to participate, according to Music Business Worldwide. BMG had not been a plaintiff.
- Believe is named by Suno as one of the partners v6 was developed with.
- UMG and Sony are still suing. On September 18, 2026 they filed a second lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts, Variety reported. The complaint alleges that v6 still infringes because it was trained on outputs of Suno's earlier models, and it lists 60,202 recordings. These are allegations and have not been decided by a court.
Udio:
- UMG settled and signed licensing deals with Udio on October 29, 2025, for a new platform trained on authorized and licensed music, to launch in 2026.
- Warner settled with Udio on November 19, 2025 and plans a joint subscription service, Reuters reported.
- Merlin, which represents independent labels, signed in January 2026, and Kobalt in April 2026, according to Music Business Worldwide.
- Sony is still suing. It filed a second complaint against Udio in federal court in New York on July 20, 2026, and Udio filed its answer in that case. The claims are unproven.
None of this is legal advice. If you plan to release AI-generated music commercially, read the current terms of service for the plan you are on.
Udio's next product: Starstruck
Udio's licensed platform will be called Starstruck, according to a Water & Music report covered by Music Business Worldwide on May 25, 2026. As reported, it is a mobile-first app for fans rather than producers, with four modes: Cover, Reimagine, Remix and Create. Users must always pick a specific artist and song from artists and songwriters who opted in, and generic, unattributed AI music will not be available. Kobalt's April deal described the service as expected to launch later this year. We found no announced launch date in the sources checked for this post.
That makes Starstruck a different kind of product from today's Udio or Suno. It is built for fans remixing licensed artists, not for creators making original tracks to release.
Quality and workflow
We did not run blind listening tests for this guide, and audio quality is subjective. The claims below are each company's own.
- Suno says v6 models are "faster, more expressive and higher quality", and that v6-mini delivers better, faster results than any free model on any music creation platform. These are vendor claims.
- Udio has not published a new model announcement since 2025 in the sources we checked.
The workflow difference is clearer than any quality difference. Suno supports a full loop: generate, edit a section by prompt, separate stems, refine in Studio on Premier, then download within your monthly allowance. Udio supports generating, extending, remixing and editing, but the work stays on Udio.
Who should pick which
- Musicians and producers who want stems and files: Suno Premier. It is the only option here with Studio and the largest download allowance (60 a month, plus unlimited Studio downloads).
- Creators making background music for videos or podcasts: Suno Pro. 20 downloads a month with commercial use rights at $10 a month.
- Hobbyists who just want to make and share songs: either free tier works. Suno's free plan has the v6-mini model, and Udio's free plan has a daily allowance. Neither free tier gives you files you can use commercially.
- People who want to remix specific licensed artists: wait for Udio's Starstruck, which has no announced launch date.
- Anyone worried about legal risk: neither service is free of litigation. Suno faces UMG and Sony, and Udio faces Sony. Suno's v6 is the subject of a new complaint.
Sources
- Suno pricing
- Suno: Introducing v6
- Suno release notes
- Suno: v5.5 announcement
- Suno help center: Upcoming Changes FAQ on downloads, models and terms
- Udio pricing
- Udio blog
- Udio help center: Changes associated with the UMG partnership
- Universal Music Group: UMG and Udio agreements, October 29, 2025
- Suno: Warner Music Group partnership, November 25, 2025
- Reuters: Warner Music Group and Udio settle copyright case
- Music Business Worldwide: WMG settles Udio lawsuit
- Music Business Worldwide: Suno's BMG deal, download caps and more
- Music Business Worldwide: Udio's licensed app will be called Starstruck
- Water & Music: A scoop on Udio's upcoming app, Starstruck
- Digital Music News: Udio and Kobalt licensing deal
- Variety: Sony Music and UMG sue Suno over v6
- Udio's answer in Sony Music Entertainment v. Uncharted Labs (PDF)
