Here is the short answer to what the difference is between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC: all three are performing rights organizations, and all three collect public performance royalties on your compositions and pay them to you. The real differences are who is allowed to join, what joining costs, how long the contract locks you in, and how quickly the money arrives.
Two of them, ASCAP and BMI, will take any songwriter or publisher who applies. SESAC is invitation-only and much smaller, so it is less something you apply to and more something you get asked into.
None of them copyright your music, none of them register your songs with the US Copyright Office, and none of them pay you for streaming a recording. There are other bodies and other revenue lanes for those jobs, and getting that wrong is the most common confusion I see among new writers.
Table of Contents
- What the Difference Is Between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC at a Glance
- What ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Actually Do
- ASCAP vs. BMI vs. SESAC: Membership and Who Can Join
- What Music and Performances Each Organization Covers
- How ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Collect and Pay Royalties
- Fees, Auditions, and Signing Up: What Each Organization Charges
- Can You Belong to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC at the Same Time?
- ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC: Which Should You Choose?
- Which Should You Choose?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Do ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect the same performance royalties?
- Can a songwriter register the same song with all three organizations?
- Is a music publisher required to join a performing rights organization?
- Do ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC pay artists for streaming a recording?
- Can a musician switch from one performing rights organization to another?
- Bottom Line
What the Difference Is Between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC at a Glance
Before the detail, here is the whole comparison on one page. Membership figures and structures change, so treat this as a map and confirm anything you rely on against each organization’s own site before you sign.
| Attribute | ASCAP | BMI | SESAC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1914 | 1939 | 1930 |
| Original name | American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers | Broadcast Music, Inc. | Society of European Stage Authors and Composers |
| Ownership | Member-owned non-profit | For-profit, acquired by New Mountain Capital in 2024 | For-profit |
| Who can join | Any songwriter, composer, lyricist or publisher | Any songwriter, composer, lyricist or publisher | Invitation only |
| Writer membership fee | Free | Free | Free for invited writers |
| Publisher membership fee | Low, a flat fee for a publisher-only membership | Higher, tiered by publisher type such as individual, entity or partnership | Set as part of the invitation terms |
| Writer contract term | One year, renewing automatically | Two years | Multi-year agreement set at signing |
| Typical payout timing | Often six to nine months after the performance quarter | Often five to six months after the performance quarter | Can clear roughly 90 days after the quarter closes |
| Under a federal consent decree | Yes | Yes | No |
| Best known for | Member services, education and networking, one-year terms | The largest US repertoire and the broadest radio presence | Fast payments and selective representation |
Global Music Rights is the fourth US performing rights organization, founded by Irving Azoff in 2013. Like SESAC, it is invitation-only and runs on negotiating power rather than scale.
What ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Actually Do
A performing rights organization, shortened to PRO, is a middleman between the people who write songs and the people who play them in public. It licenses the public performance of music and pays the resulting royalties to the writers, composers and publishers who own the composition.
Public performance means playing your song where someone else hears it. Radio airplay, a playlist on a streaming service, a bar playing a playlist, a television show using your track as background music, a wedding band playing a cover, a workout studio running a playlist.
The mechanism is a blanket licence. A bar or a streaming service pays each PRO an annual fee, and in return it may play anything in that PRO’s catalogue without tracking down every writer individually. It logs what it plays, sends the logs to the PRO, and the PRO works out each writer’s cut of the money collected.
That logged performance data is also where live and non-traditional money comes from. Background music in restaurants, fitness classes, retail shops and film or television placeholders often generate more per writer than radio spins do, because none of it shows up as a chart position.
So what the difference is between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC is not what they pay for. They all pay for the same thing, the same public performance right, and none of them own your copyright. The difference is administration: who they accept, what they charge, how fast they distribute and how transparent they are about it.
What the Difference Is Between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC
The history explains almost all of the current differences. ASCAP was founded in 1914 by Victor Herbert and John Philip Sousa as a society for composers who felt the sheet music and vaudeville era had left them underpaid.
SESAC came along in 1930, originally built around a European stage repertoire that the American organizations handled poorly. BMI followed in 1939, created by radio broadcasters who were frustrated by how ASCAP handled licensing and how narrow its membership rules were.
That origin still shapes them. ASCAP is organised around serving its members, BMI around serving broadcasters and publishers, SESAC around a small, selective roster it negotiates for.
On licensing approach, ASCAP and BMI operate under the terms of a 1941 federal antitrust consent decree, which caps certain licensing practices and shapes how they can negotiate with businesses. SESAC is not under a consent decree, which gives it more freedom in how it talks to licensees.
On distribution, each one pays out on its own schedule and its own methodology, which is why the same placement can show up in a different quarter at a different organization. Membership size also differs sharply. BMI represents the largest US catalogue of any PRO, ASCAP is close behind, and SESAC affiliates a small fraction of either.
ASCAP vs. BMI vs. SESAC: Membership and Who Can Join
Songwriters, composers and lyricists can join ASCAP and BMI by applying online, and the application is short. You give your professional details, list your works, and sign the writer agreement.
Music publishers have a separate agreement, and that is where the fees appear. A publisher-only membership at ASCAP is a modest flat charge, while BMI charges publishers more and tiers it by the type of publisher, such as an individual, an entity or a partnership.
Publishers also often sign an administration agreement rather than joining directly. An administrator registers works, delivers statements and handles the paperwork on behalf of a catalogue. This is the route most independent songwriters take, and it means your publisher’s administrator, not you, is the one talking to the PRO.
SESAC does not run open applications. It reviews repertoire, headhunts writers and publishers, and makes invitations. If SESAC has offered you membership, the sensible move is to compare the offer against what you would realistically earn where you already are before you sign.
Can your co-writers each sit with a different PRO?
Yes. This is legal and extremely common, and it is the question that comes up most often in songwriter forums: my band is with one organization and I am with another, so how does this still get paid?
Here is the mechanics. Your share is collected from the PRO that represents the song, then paid out through that PRO to your administrator, and from there to you. Your co-writers’ shares are paid from their own PRO side by their own administrators. The split sheet decides how the pie is cut; the PROs never split it for you.
The part that goes wrong is paperwork. Get every contributor’s share, the writer’s exact legal name, and the split in writing before registration, and make sure every writer registers the same song with their own PRO using matching titles and writer credits. Metadata errors cost writers far more than the choice of PRO does.
What Music and Performances Each Organization Covers
All three license the same broad territory: radio, television, satellite and cable, live concerts, bars, restaurants, retail, gyms, nightclubs, internet radio, streaming services, podcasts and general background music use.
The difference is repertory. Each PRO represents a different catalogue, so any one of them can license a given song or not. In practice that matters most for businesses, who need all of the licenses, and least for writers, whose own work sits in exactly one of them.
Radio bonuses, live performance payments and non-traditional uses such as bar and restaurant background music are also administered differently by each organization, with different rules for what counts and how it is reported.
Rate cards and repertory pages change as licensing deals are renegotiated. Check the current licensing pages directly rather than relying on a rate you read months ago, especially if you are pricing a commercial project.
How ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Collect and Pay Royalties
The cycle runs in quarters. Music plays during a quarter, the licensee logs it, the PRO processes and audits the data, and then money goes out on the organization’s distribution schedule, which is why statements arrive months after the play.
When the money lands, the composition’s performance income is normally divided equally between the writer share and the publisher share. Each half follows its own route: the writer share to the writer or administrator, the publisher share to the publisher or its administrator.
Set that expectation early. A song that does well in radio in one quarter can still show up on a statement nine months later, and forum complaints about slow payment are almost always about this lag rather than about being underpaid.
What a PRO does not collect
This is where most confusion starts, so here is the royalty map. A PRO handles one lane only. The rest of your income lives somewhere else, and leaving those lanes empty is a bigger leak than picking the wrong organization.
| Revenue type | Who collects it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Public performance of the composition | Your PRO: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or GMR | Radio, TV, streaming, live, background use in venues |
| Mechanical royalties on streams and downloads | The Mechanical Licensing Collective, the MLC | You must register your songs with the MLC yourself; a PRO will not do it for you |
| Sync fees for film, TV, ads and games | The publisher or administrator, negotiated directly with the licensee | Not collected through a PRO |
| Digital sound recording performance | SoundExchange, paid to the recording artist or label | Paid for the recording, not the composition |
| Master streaming royalties | Whoever owns the sound recording, usually a label or distributor | This is usually where the larger numbers are |
That last row explains most of the disappointment new writers voice online. The performance royalty is real but modest, while the money from the recording itself comes from a distributor or label and is typically far larger. If you only ever register with a PRO and skip the MLC, you are leaving mechanical income unclaimed.
Fees, Auditions, and Signing Up: What Each Organization Charges
Writer membership is free at ASCAP and BMI, which is the single most repeated fact in this topic and also the one most often stated wrongly online. Plenty of older articles still quote a writer fee for ASCAP that no longer applies.
Publisher fees are where the difference bites. A publisher-only membership at ASCAP is a small flat charge, while BMI’s publisher tiers cost considerably more and scale with the type of publishing entity. SESAC does not publish an open rate because there is no open application.
SESAC’s licensing fees to businesses are also often higher than the others, and businesses frequently describe SESAC as the expensive one. That is a business-licensing cost, separate from what an invited writer pays, and the two numbers get mixed up constantly.
Use fees as a tiebreaker, never as the reason. Check the current fee pages on each organization’s own site before you commit, because rates and structures change more often than any other part of this picture.
Can You Belong to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC at the Same Time?
It depends entirely on what you mean by belonging, and the honest answer is that the limits are narrower than most people assume.
For the same composition in the same role, you register with one PRO per half of the split. Your writer share sits with one PRO and your publisher share may sit with a different one, because a publisher can have a different administrator than you do. That is normal and nobody from any PRO will object to it.
You can also be affiliated with one PRO as a writer and a completely different one as a publisher, for example if you run your own publishing company on a different deal. What you cannot usefully do is register the same writer share of the same song with two organizations and expect both to pay; the duplicate will be rejected or reversed.
What about moving your catalogue between organizations? It is allowed, and it is more paperwork than people expect. Read the resignation clause in your current writer agreement first, because notice periods differ and BMI’s two-year writer term is the one people most often forget they signed. Give written notice, register the works with the new organization, and confirm the effective date on both sides in writing.
Royalties already earned stay yours. What stops is future collection through the old organization, and any gap in registration during the handover is dead money. Coordinate the dates carefully and there is no loss.
ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC: Which Should You Choose?
Here is the honest version, and it is the thing experienced songwriters keep telling each other in threads: if you have no strong reason, pick one and move on. The difference between ASCAP and BMI is small next to what delaying costs you.
If you are a new songwriter with no publishing deal, both are free and both are fine. Choose on contract length if that matters to you, one year at ASCAP against two at BMI, or on payout timing if cash flow is tight.
If you are setting up a publishing company, look at the publisher-side fee structure, because that is the only place the costs genuinely diverge. ASCAP’s flat publisher fee is materially lighter than BMI’s tiers.
If you need money to arrive sooner, BMI’s schedule often runs about a month ahead of ASCAP’s on domestic placements, though writers report this advantage flips on international ones. SESAC is the fastest of the three, which is a large part of why people accept its invitation.
If ownership matters to you, ASCAP is member-owned and returns roughly ninety cents of every dollar collected. BMI retains more overhead as a for-profit, which is the honest cost of its larger scale and its payouts.
If you perform other people’s songs live, none of this is your decision. Your cover performances generate nothing for you through a PRO. That income comes through venue and ticketing arrangements and through whatever terms you agreed with the writers of those songs.
Which Should You Choose?
Run these five checks in order. Eligibility: can you even join it, which rules out SESAC and GMR unless you have been invited. Current terms: read the writer agreement and the fee page yourself, on the organization’s own site, rather than trusting a blog table.
Administrator relationship: if you have a publisher or an administrator, ask them who they already work with, because a match saves you reconciliation work forever. Registration experience: how clean is the work-list upload and the metadata flow.
Fee structure: relevant mainly if you are registering a publisher, otherwise ignore it entirely. Payout timing: matters only if you depend on the money arriving on a particular schedule.
Whichever way you land, the contacts worth knowing are your own administrator if you have one, your publisher, and the membership team of whichever organization you are joining. For a licensing question on the business side, that organization’s own licensing department answers faster than any third party will.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect the same performance royalties?
Yes. All three license the public performance of music and pay royalties on the compositions they represent. The difference is administration, not the right itself: who can join, what membership costs, contract length, payout speed and how much overhead each retains.
Can a songwriter register the same song with all three organizations?
Not the same share of it. One writer share of one composition belongs with one organization. Your publisher share can sit with a different one, and your co-writers can each register their own share wherever they are affiliated, but registering the identical share twice will be rejected or reversed.
Is a music publisher required to join a performing rights organization?
If you want to collect performance royalties, yes, a publisher must be registered somewhere, either directly or through an administrator. Many independent songwriters never form a publishing company at all, register only a writer share, and lose out on the publisher half of the performance income without realising it.
Do ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC pay artists for streaming a recording?
No. A PRO pays for the public performance of the composition, and streaming a recording is only part of that. The big streaming payouts come from master royalties paid to whoever owns the sound recording, digital sound recording performance paid through SoundExchange to artists and labels, and mechanical royalties collected by the MLC.
Can a musician switch from one performing rights organization to another?
Yes, and royalties already earned are unaffected. Read the resignation clause in your current agreement, give written notice inside the required period, then register the same works with the new organization and confirm the matching effective date in writing so no period is double-covered or uncovered.
Bottom Line
ASCAP, BMI and SESAC all do the same core job, and the difference between them comes down to eligibility, cost, contract length and payment speed. Writer membership is free at ASCAP and BMI, SESAC asks first, and being in any one of them matters far more than which one you picked.
Start by identifying your role and your rights, then check eligibility, then read the current terms on the organization’s own site before you affiliate. Fees and ownership structures shift often, and the last few years have changed more than most, so check the fee pages and writer agreements at the source rather than trusting a comparison table like this one.
