Getting-started guide
Make surprisingly good music from a sentence — just know that, right now, the song stays on Udio.
Current prices: Free, from $10/mo · See all plans
Last reviewed 2026-09-07 · for Udio
You describe a song — genre, mood, instruments, the feeling you're after — and Udio plays back audio it made from that. You can supply your own words or let it write them. It builds short pieces first; you extend the ones you like and redo the parts you don't.
A text-to-music generator: describe a song in plain English, get a finished-sounding recording with vocals, instruments and structure. No instrument, no studio, no music theory.
It's built around editing rather than rolling dice: once something is close, you extend it, regenerate a weak section, or restyle it, rather than starting over.
Before you compare it with Suno, settle one thing. Udio's draw is a detailed, textured production sound and finer control over reworking a track — but its current terms bar downloads and limit you to personal, non-commercial use. If you want a file you can keep, post or release, that isn't Udio right now, and check Suno's own terms before assuming it is either.
Free to start, and the free tier is real: no card, a small daily credit allowance plus a separate monthly pool, and a daily cap on full-length (about 2 minutes 10 seconds) generations. Sign up at udio.com and put one sentence in the prompt box — the message you type.
How credits work. Credits are the platform's unit of spend, and Udio generates in pairs: a pair of 130-second songs costs twice what a pair of 32-second clips does. Monthly credits don't roll over; separately purchased packs don't expire.
You won't need to pay to try it. You'll hit the ceiling wanting longer songs, more per day, or the upload and voice-editing features, which are paid-only. Paid plans are monthly (cheaper prepaid annually), from an entry plan with a free trial up to a pricier top tier — prices and credit amounts change, so check the pricing page.
Udio is a social site as much as a tool: by default other people can remix, extend and restyle songs you make. You can change that per song under "Edit permissions," but only one at a time — there's no way to set it library-wide. Treat what you generate as potentially visible.
Uploading your own audio is paid-only, and Udio requires that you own what you upload. Under the terms, uploading grants Udio a broad, worldwide, perpetual and irrevocable licence to use, store and modify it, including to train its AI — and what you type and what comes back can be used for training too.
dreamy indie folk, female vocal, fingerpicked acoustic guitar, soft brushed drums, warm and a little melancholy, late autumn evening
Why this one: Udio responds to descriptive production language — instruments, texture, room, mood — rather than commands, so stacking short phrases is the native way to steer it, at a couple of credits a go.
Tweak: Change one word — warm to sparse — and regenerate.
Takes a 32-second clip you like and uses Extend to add the next section, repeating until it is a full-length track.
Why this one: Udio composes in pieces rather than one shot — the core of how it differs from tools that hand you a fixed track. Longer generations cost more credits and free accounts have a daily cap on full-length ones, so extend deliberately.
Tweak: Describe what happens next — a break, a key change, a stripped-back final chorus.
Regenerates or restyles just the part you don't like, leaving the rest intact.
Why this one: This is where the credit system rewards you: patching a section costs far less than re-rolling a whole track. Beginners hit regenerate until something clicks; editing instead is what changes your results.
Want the full picture first? See the Udio overview for pricing, the free tier and related tools.
