Suno
Suno v5.5 writes full songs from a prompt, Studio 2.0 edits them on a timeline. Free, Pro $8/mo, Premier $24/mo, with download caps since September 3.
How I tested Suno
- v5.5 and Studio 2.0
- Premier
- 20 hours
- Chrome on macOS, plus the Suno iOS app
- Generated full songs on v5.5 from plain prompts and from my own lyrics
- Built a track in Suno Studio 2.0 with MIDI recording, the wavetable synth and automation
- Described an audio effect in the chat bar and saved the plugin it built
- Split finished songs with all 3 stem separation modes and exported MIDI
- Cloned my own singing voice with Voices and generated a track from it
- Watched the download counter after the September 3 caps took effect
TL;DR
Suno is the AI song generator that writes a full track, vocals and lyrics included, from a sentence you type. In 2026 it also ships Suno Studio, a browser DAW with MIDI, effects and automation on a Premier plan. Nothing else gets you from an idea to a finished vocal song this fast. Nothing else carries this much legal baggage either, and since September 3 you can only download 20 songs a month on Pro.
Licensing scores 0 and sits outside the star rating on purpose. Every Suno model you can use today was trained on copyrighted music without consent, which is a court question, not a product question. The 4.6 is what the tool does for you, scored on output, control, workflow and price.
What is Suno?
Suno is a text-to-music app built by Suno Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, run by co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman. You type a description, Suno writes the lyrics, sings them and arranges the instruments around them. It raised over $400 million in June 2026 at a $5.4 billion valuation.
It is also the default. In the first quarter of 2026, 90.4% of commercially released AI tracks in the SIQA dataset of 1,551 verified songs came from Suno. When someone says “AI music,” this is usually the thing they mean.
How Suno works
You log in at suno.com, type a prompt, and pick a model. Free accounts get v4.5-all. Paid accounts get v4, v4.5, v4.5+, v5 and v5.5, and v5.5 is the one worth using.
Simple mode takes one sentence. Custom mode splits the prompt in two: your own lyrics in one box, the style in the other. That second box is where the results actually change, because Suno reads genre, tempo, instrumentation and vocal type from it.
Each generation returns 2 versions of the song. From there you extend it, replace a section, add vocals to an instrumental, run a Persona over it to keep one voice across a catalog, or split it into stems. Paid plans can upload 30 minutes of your own audio and build on top of it. Free plans stop at 8.
Suno Studio: the part that makes it a production tool
Studio arrived in 2026 and got its 2.0 release on August 13. It opens any Suno song on a timeline, and it is included with Premier at $24 a month on annual billing.
You get MIDI import, MIDI recording and a piano roll with velocity and pitch bend lanes, a wavetable synth, 7 built-in audio effects, automation lanes and take comping for vocal recording. A MIDI clip can be used as the prompt for a fresh generation, so you play a bassline and let Suno perform it. The chat bar reads the session and builds custom effects from a text description, which is a genuinely odd feature that works. My Suno Studio beginner’s guide walks the whole thing.
The limits are real. Studio runs only in Chrome, needs a screen 768px wide or more, takes no VST or Audio Units plugins, and has no pitch correction. Premier subscribers export 32-bit/48kHz multitracks out of Studio with no download limit, which is the loophole around the caps described below.
Suno’s standout features
The feature list is long, so here are the 5 that change what you can make:
- Studio 2.0: MIDI recording, a wavetable synth, automation and plugins you build by typing a description
- Personas: lock the vocal character and production style of one song and reuse it across a catalog
- Voices: record a sample of your own singing and generate new songs in that voice, on desktop and on iOS and Android since August 7, 2026
- Stem separation with 3 modes on Premier, including an advanced split that pulls a named instrument out by search
- MILO-1080: a built-in step sequencer with its own sample lab and WAV export for people who want to build beats, not prompt them
Stem quality is good enough to be useful and not good enough to replace a dedicated splitter. If you need surgical separation, my guide to Suno’s 3 split modes shows where each one breaks.
Where Suno falls short
The download caps landed on September 3, 2026, and they count your whole library, including every song you made before that date. Pro gets 20 downloads a month. Premier gets 60. The free plan gets a handful of lifetime trial downloads and then nothing.
Suno also says every model currently on the platform, v2 through v5.5, gets retired when the label-licensed generation ships. Your Personas, your prompt library and your reference tracks are built on models with an announced end date. On September 4 Suno posted “New models. Coming soon.” to Instagram with no name and no launch date, so nobody outside the company knows when that switch happens.
Then there is the security record. Suno confirmed a November 2025 breach that exposed 55.3 million users’ email addresses, plus names, addresses and partial card data on tens of thousands of Stripe records. It decided breach notifications were not warranted and never told anyone. Have I Been Pwned obtained the dataset in July 2026.
How much does Suno cost in 2026?
3 tiers, priced on annual billing. Monthly billing costs $10 for Pro and $30 for Premier, and the current numbers are on Suno’s pricing page.
| Plan | Price | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50 credits daily (10 songs), v4.5-all only, no downloads, no commercial rights, 8-minute uploads, shared queue | Trying the sound before you pay |
| Pro | $8/mo annual, $10 monthly | 2,500 credits (500 songs), 20 downloads a month, commercial rights, v5.5, Personas, Voices, 2 stem modes, 30-minute uploads | Solo creators who release a few tracks a month |
| Premier | $24/mo annual, $30 monthly | 10,000 credits (2,000 songs), 60 downloads a month, Suno Studio, 3 stem modes, unlimited Studio exports | Anyone who works in Studio instead of the feed |
Credits do not roll over from one month to the next. Purchased top-up credits never expire but need an active subscription. The download limits, not the credits, are the number that will bite you, so read what the caps actually count before you pick a plan.
Who should use Suno?
Choose Suno if you write songs and want to hear an idea as a finished record today. You type the concept, get 2 versions back in a minute, and know within 5 minutes whether the idea is worth real studio time. That loop is worth the $8 on its own.
Choose Suno if you produce and you want the parts, not the track. Premier gives you Studio, stems, MIDI export and a timeline, so a generation becomes a starting point you cut apart in Chrome and finish in Logic or Ableton.
Choose Suno if you make content and need original music that nobody else has. Video, podcast intros, ads and social all clear at Pro, which carries commercial rights on new songs you make while subscribed.
Who should skip Suno
Skip Suno if you plan to flood streaming with AI tracks. The caps, the watermarking and the platform AI labels rolling out at Apple Music are all pointed at exactly that behavior. Skip it too if your release needs clean, defensible rights on day one, because Universal Music and Sony Music are still litigating and a Munich court has already ruled that training on those songs needed a licence.
Suno vs Udio, Mureka and Riffle
| Suno | Udio | Riffle | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free, Pro $8/mo | Free, paid tiers | Free during beta |
| Core use case | Full songs from a prompt | Full songs from a prompt | Play and arrange it yourself |
| Who makes the music | The model | The model | You |
| Built-in DAW | Yes, Studio on Premier | No | Yes, the whole product |
| Best for | Fast finished songs plus editing | Instrumental detail and control | Producers who want to jam |
Udio is the closest match and the one to A/B against, since it often reads instrumental prompts more literally while Suno wins on vocals. Mureka is the cheaper challenger with its own model line. Riffle sits on the other side of the question entirely, because you play the parts and it assists. The wider field is in my best AI music generators roundup.
My verdict on Suno
I use Suno. I have made hundreds of songs in it, and Studio is the first version of this product where I control the parts instead of rerolling a prompt. Type a prompt, get a song, open the timeline, record a MIDI bassline over it, split the vocal out, export the multitrack. That is a workflow, and no competitor has the whole chain in one browser tab.
What I do not do is pretend the training question is settled. The models you can use today learned from music nobody licensed, GEMA won in Munich on July 31, and Universal and Sony are still in court. That is why licensing scores 0 above and why it stays out of the star rating: it is a real problem, and it is not a problem you fix by picking a different button in the app.
So the honest position is this. Suno is worth $8 a month if you make music with it, and worth $24 if you live in Studio. It is not worth building a release strategy on top of until the licensed models ship and the rights are written down. Use it to write. Be careful about what you upload.
Start on the free plan to hear whether v5.5 fits your genre, then go straight to Pro, because the free tier has no downloads and no commercial rights. If you want the DAW, Premier is the only door.
Frequently asked questions
Is Suno free?
Suno has a free plan with 50 credits a day, which is about 10 songs. It generates on the v4.5-all model only, gives you no monthly downloads and no commercial rights, so treat it as a demo. Paid plans start at $8 a month on annual billing.
How much does Suno cost?
Pro is $8 a month on annual billing or $10 monthly. Premier is $24 a month annual or $30 monthly. Pro covers 2,500 credits and 20 downloads a month. Premier covers 10,000 credits, 60 downloads and Suno Studio.
Can you use Suno music commercially?
Yes, on Pro and Premier, for songs you make while subscribed. Free-plan songs carry no commercial rights. Suno grants you those rights, but the copyright status of AI-generated music is still being decided in court, so a grant from Suno is not the same as a clean title.
What is Suno Studio?
Suno Studio is a browser DAW included with the Premier plan. It opens Suno songs on a timeline with MIDI recording, a wavetable synth, 7 audio effects, automation and vocal take comping, and it exports 32-bit/48kHz multitracks. It runs in Chrome on a screen 768px wide or wider.
Can Suno use my voice?
Yes, through the Voices feature. You record or upload a singing sample, read a verification phrase to prove it is yours, then generate new songs in that voice. Captured voices stay private to your account, and Voices works on iOS and Android as well as the web.
How many songs can you download from Suno?
Since September 3, 2026, Pro accounts download 20 songs a month and Premier accounts download 60. The caps count every song in your library, including tracks made before that date. Premier subscribers exporting out of Suno Studio have no download limit.
Is Suno v6 out?
No. Suno has never used the name v6. The newest model is v5.5, released March 26, 2026, and on September 4, 2026 Suno teased “New models. Coming soon.” with no name and no date. Suno has said all current models get retired when the new generation launches.
