Answers/Comparisons/ASCAP vs BMI vs SESAC vs GMR: Which PRO Can You Actually Join?

Comparisons

ASCAP vs BMI vs SESAC vs GMR: Which PRO Can You Actually Join?

By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·1,981 words·Comparisons

Every comparison of the four US performing rights organizations I have read treats this as a four-way decision. It is not. Two of the four will not let you in.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time weighing SESAC against BMI before I found out SESAC does not take applications. That is the fact the comparison articles bury, and it resolves the question for almost every independent artist before any discussion of distribution formulas begins.

Which performing rights organizations can you actually join?

ASCAP and BMI are open to anyone. SESAC and Global Music Rights are invitation-only.

ASCAP is a membership association owned by its writer and publisher members, and it accepts applications from any songwriter, composer or publisher who wants to join. BMI is a separate organization with its own repertoire and its own affiliation process, and it likewise accepts open applications. Between them, ASCAP and BMI represent the overwhelming majority of registered American songwriters.

SESAC does not work that way. SESAC is a for-profit performing rights organization with a deliberately selective roster, and affiliation is by invitation. You cannot fill out a form and become a SESAC writer. Global Music Rights, founded to represent a small roster of high-value catalogs, operates on the same basis: GMR chooses its writers, and there is no public application path for an independent artist.

So when you are deciding which performing rights organization collects your US performance royalties, the real choice is ASCAP or BMI. Everything else in this comparison is context.

What does each PRO cost to join in 2026?

Those figures are taken from ASCAP's join page and BMI's own FAQ pages in August 2026. BMI's exact wording on the publisher fees is worth quoting, because the number circulating in forums is usually wrong: there is a one-time fee of $175 to affiliate an individual publisher, $250 as publishing company that is a corporation (including sole stockholder corporations) or LLC and $500 for a partnership. BMI states those fees are non-refundable and are not deductible from future earnings.

On the writer side BMI is equally direct: although some performing rights organizations collect annual dues, BMI does not. Neither ASCAP nor BMI bills you every year. That single fact reshapes the cost comparison more than anything else on this page.

What does joining ASCAP or BMI cost over five years?

Because none of the four US performing rights organizations charges annual dues, the five-year cost of an affiliation is identical to the first-year cost. This is the table nobody bothers to publish, and its flatness is the point.

Set that against what an independent artist spends on distribution over the same five years — DistroKid Musician at $24.99 a year is $124.95 across five years — and the performing rights organization is a smaller lifetime expense than the distributor, while collecting from a completely different pot of money.

Is BMI actually free for songwriters?

Yes. BMI songwriter and composer affiliation costs $0, with no application fee and no annual dues, as of August 2026. That is the verifiable answer and it makes BMI the cheapest entry point into US performance royalty collection.

The caveat people attach — that BMI is only free until you want the publisher side — is real but smaller than it sounds, because BMI itself says most new writers do not need the publisher side yet. The $175, $250 and $500 figures apply to affiliating a publishing company, which is a separate decision from affiliating yourself as a writer.

Do you need a publishing company to join a PRO?

No, and BMI says so in its own words. BMI's FAQ states that a new songwriter "will not need to set up a publishing company", and that "creating a publishing company will not mean that you receive more royalties."

That is worth reading twice, because a large amount of independent-artist advice says the opposite. The advice usually goes: register a publishing company immediately so you can claim the publisher share. But the performing rights organization that would charge you $175 to do it is telling you it will not increase your income. Both halves of the performance royalty — the roughly 50% songwriter share and the roughly 50% publisher share — are payable to you either way; the publisher entity is an administrative container, not a claim multiplier.

Where a publisher entity genuinely earns its fee is later: when you administer other writers' songs, when you enter a co-publishing arrangement, when you run a label with a roster, or when a foreign sub-publisher needs a publisher entity to point at. None of that describes a first release.

What do SESAC and GMR do differently?

SESAC is the third-largest US performing rights organization and the oldest after ASCAP. Unlike ASCAP, which is owned by its members, SESAC is a for-profit business, which means it answers to owners rather than to a membership. Its roster is small by design, and it negotiates licences with broadcasters and digital services on behalf of that roster. SESAC's selectivity is the product: a smaller repertoire concentrates negotiating attention.

Global Music Rights was founded in 2013 by Irving Azoff and represents a compact roster of well-known songwriters. GMR's model is the same idea taken further — a very small, high-leverage catalog used to negotiate directly with radio groups and digital platforms rather than under the consent decrees that historically governed ASCAP and BMI.

Neither model is available to you, and neither is worth waiting for. If a SESAC or GMR representative ever contacts you, that is a conversation to have with a music attorney. Until then, ASCAP and BMI are the entire field.

Which should a self-releasing artist pick?

1. If you want to start collecting today at zero cost, affiliate with BMI as a songwriter. It is free, there are no annual dues, and it connects you to US performance royalties immediately.
2. If you want both the writer and publisher halves registered under formal entities right now, join ASCAP. ASCAP's $50 writer fee plus $50 publisher fee comes to $100 once — less than BMI's $175 individual publisher fee.
3. If you are undecided, do not wait. An unaffiliated songwriter collects nothing from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora, SiriusXM, terrestrial radio, venues or television on the composition side. There is no escrow.
4. Register every work after you affiliate. An active ASCAP or BMI account with no registered works pays $0 forever regardless of stream count.
5. Register with The MLC and SoundExchange as well. Both are free, and neither overlaps with what ASCAP or BMI collects.

What none of the four PROs collect

This is the section that saves people the most money, because ASCAP and BMI are routinely expected to do jobs they do not do.

ASCAP and BMI collect public performance royalties on the composition in the United States, plus foreign performance income through reciprocal agreements with societies abroad. They do not collect mechanical royalties from streaming — those are administered in the US by The MLC under the Section 115 blanket licence. They do not collect digital sound recording royalties from non-interactive services like Pandora radio and SiriusXM — those go to SoundExchange. They do not collect your recording royalties from Spotify and Apple Music — your distributor pays those. And they do not license sync placements for you.

If you have registered only with ASCAP or BMI, you have connected one of four US royalty streams. The other three are The MLC, SoundExchange, and your distributor, and all three of those registrations are separate actions. None of them happens automatically because you joined a performing rights organization, and no one at ASCAP or BMI will tell you that you are missing them.

Can you switch from ASCAP to BMI later?

Yes, and the possibility should lower the stakes of this decision considerably. Writers move between ASCAP and BMI regularly. What you cannot do is treat the switch as instant or free of friction: both ASCAP and BMI operate on affiliation terms with defined resignation windows, and your registered works have to be re-registered at the new organization. Royalties already earned and pending at the old organization are still paid out under its own schedule, so a switch typically means watching two accounts for a while.

The practical implication is that you should choose on cost today and stop reading comparison threads. If BMI's free songwriter affiliation gets you collecting six months earlier than an agonised choice would have, BMI has already outperformed whatever distribution-formula advantage the other side supposedly has.

Does the invitation-only distinction change what you should do?

It removes half the decision, which is why it belongs at the top of every article on this subject rather than in a footnote. SESAC and Global Music Rights are structurally irrelevant to an unsigned artist, and articles that weigh all four evenly create the impression that this is a complicated four-way analysis requiring research. It is a two-way choice between a free option and a $50 option, both from organizations that charge no annual dues and both of which collect the same category of royalty from the same licensees.

The far more consequential decision sitting behind it is whether you register your works at all, and whether you also connect The MLC, SoundExchange and your distributor. Those four registrations, done properly, matter more than any difference between ASCAP and BMI that anyone has ever been able to demonstrate.

What to do this week

1. Pick ASCAP or BMI on cost, not on distribution formulas you cannot audit.
2. Affiliate as a writer — $50 at ASCAP, $0 at BMI.
3. Decide the publisher entity deliberately: $50 now at ASCAP, or deferred at BMI until $175 is actually justified.
4. Register every song you have already released, with exact co-writer splits.
5. Register each new song before release, not after.
6. Register the same catalog free with The MLC and SoundExchange.

Step 4 is the one that has cost me the most. An affiliation is a mailbox; registered works are the letters. I had the mailbox for years before I filled it.

I am an independent artist who has been through these sign-ups, not a lawyer or an accountant — membership fees and terms change, so confirm the current numbers on ascap.com and bmi.com before you pay anything.