5 Rockbot Alternatives for the Perfect Music Atmosphere

Why Is Music Important to My Business?

For restaurants, bars, grocery stores, hotels, gyms, and many other businesses, taking background music seriously can lead to all sorts of advantages. The benefits start with a more pleasant experience for customers—one CNN article stated that 83% of all U.S. shoppers enjoy in-store music. A pleasant music experience is especially appreciated by shoppers in the 18-24 age range, with 91% reporting they enjoy it.

Along with that, our own research suggests that restaurants can see sales increase by 4.8% when they play a soundtrack that fits their brand, compared to stores that play no music.

However, merely playing music isn’t enough—you’ll also need to approach song selection from an analytical perspective. For example, while playing random hits may seem like a winning strategy, a study published in the Journal of Business Research found that customers are less likely to focus on what stores have for sale while listening to popular songs.

To avoid pitfalls like these, businesses need a music solution that offers a data-driven approach to background music.

What Is Rockbot?

Rockbot has been a popular name in the world of enterprise media since 2009. In addition to its commercial music, Rockbot offers audio messaging and professional video solutions such as digital signage and TV programming.

Pros and Cons of Rockbot

Rockbot’s music streaming service is a popular choice for businesses, and it delivers some advantages. For example, this service includes real-time music control through an iOS/Android app, an optional plug-and-play media player, and Rockbot Request, which allows customers to request songs.

That said, Rockbot has some key limitations. In comparison to many of its competitors Rockbot boasts a catalog of only 16 million songs, a fraction of the songs available from some of the leading competing services. Its request feature allows a user to have only five songs in the queue at a time, and the service charges an extra charge of $25 per month for the feature.

Along with that, Rockbot does not offer on-demand music streaming, provides a limited selection of ready-made playlists, and handles business licensing only in the U.S. and Canada.

5 Rockbot Alternatives

Since Rockbot has some shortcomings, it’s wise to explore a few Rockbot competitors before choosing a streaming service. This is a competitive field, and you want to find a commercial streaming service that can give you all the flexibility, licensing, and playlist support you need with all the music you want on demand.

1. Soundtrack Your Brand

Soundtrack Your Brand has one of the most extensive music catalogs in the industry, offering users access to more than 100 million songs. Additionally, it’s the only commercial streaming service to offer on-demand streaming, allowing you to play what you want, when you want.

The service also offers worldwide licensing, including crucial licenses for businesses in 74 countries. Helpful features include the ability to schedule playlists, filter explicit tracks, block songs, import playlists directly from Spotify, and seamlessly weave in-store messaging into the soundtrack.

In addition to giving users the freedom to hand-craft playlists from scratch, it’s the first service to offer an AI Playlist Generator, allowing you to create hours-long playlists that match your brand needs from a simple text prompt.

2. SiriusXM for Business

As its brand name suggests, SiriusXM for Business includes satellite radio stations and artist stations from SiriusXM subsidiary Pandora, as well as over 200 playlists. On the other hand, this service is only available in the USA and does not offer on-demand streaming. However, it does offer in-store messaging functionality.

3. Pandora for Business

Unlike SiriusXM for Business, Pandora for Business (also known as Pandora CloudCover) primarily focuses on offering Pandora’s internet radio channels to businesses. Unfortunately, Pandora for Business offers relatively limited songs and playlists, lacks on-demand streaming, and does not provide music licensing outside of the U.S. and Canada.

4. Mood Media

Like Rockbot, Mood Media (alternatively, “Mood:Media”) offers both commercial music streaming and services such as in-store signage. However, Mood Media offers only 1 million licensed songs (while other services offer roughly 10 times that number) and doesn’t allow businesses to play music on demand or import playlists from Spotify.

5. TouchTunes

TouchTunes focuses on digital jukeboxes rather than a catalog of ready-made playlists music streaming for business solutions. Because of that, this is not a fit for many businesses interested in taking control of their soundtracks and enjoying a full range of music control functionalities.

Choosing the Right Rockbot Alternative for Your Business

By now, you’ve had a chance to look at the various Rockbot competitor options available to your business. To pick one of these services for your music streaming needs, consider factors like:

Choice of Music 

Today, businesses commonly use playlists for their soundtracks—but there’s no reason you shouldn’t have the power to play whatever songs you want. For that, you’ll need a service that offers a sufficiently large catalog and on-demand music selection.

Curated Playlists and Stations

Since playlists serve a crucial role in enterprise music streaming, you’ll want to have a wide selection of music curation options at your disposal. Premium commercial streaming services deliver thousands of playlists and custom station features, which may vary depending on the pricing tier.

Licensing

If your business wants to play music in a public setting, it needs licenses from performing rights organizations (PROs) like ASCAP, BMI and GMR. Your streaming service should include these licenses so you don’t have to spend the time, effort, and increased expense of procuring them independently.

AI Music Playlist Generator

When your streaming service offers an AI-driven playlist generator, you can generate as many playlists as you want for scheduling, dayparts, unique experiences, and special events. Using this feature is as easy as typing in a description of the playlist you want, and in a few seconds you’ll have your results.

Spotify Playlist Importing

Although it’s not legal to use Spotify music streaming for business needs, you may want to import a playlist from their service. If your streaming service supports Spotify playlist importing, you may be able to add your curated music playlists, extend them, and create “similar music” stations, depending on the service.

Additional Features

Along with the perks listed above, your business’s streaming service should come with a robust service lineup. Services you might need include explicit lyrics filtering and playlist scheduling.