Free sound effects for YouTube

I wanted to write a short article on using our sounds in YouTube videos. We get questions daily about this subject so, I thought this might answer some of your questions.

Can I use your sound effects in my YouTube Video?

This is the common question and there is a very simple answer, yes! We create up to 500 new free sound effects weekly, many of which are requests our community asks us for, specifically for use on the video sharing platform. Often they are cartoon sounds, sometimes they’re ambiences and other tones that help set an ambience in the project they’re working on. The list is wide and varying.

Our Standard License stipulates that if you’re a Basic member, you must credit us in your project. For YouTube videos, the best way to credit the use of our free sounds is in the video description. Something like “sound effects from https://www.zapsplat.com”. We don’t mind you using your own text, but as long as it references us as the source of the sounds used. If you’ve used sounds from other libraries or even your own, then something like “additional sound effects from www.zapsplat.com” will also be fine.

If you want some help with this, we’ve created a page that can help with suggestions.

Here is an example of a video that has correctly credited us in their description. Notice they’ve used sounds from us and freesound.org, so they’ve nicely made reference to both libraries.

As long as you use our sounds and music to enhance your video and that they are not the primary value of the project, then using our audio is fine. So, if you’re using an ambience to set a scene, a whoosh to give an on-screen movement some life, an explosion sound for a visual explosion, footsteps synchronised to the on-screen character walking or wind for a windy scene etc, this is perfectly okay.

If you are using our sounds as the primary value, then likely this is not okay. One of the most common examples of this is a video that plays one of our sounds or music tracks in isolation, with a download link in the description with the sole purpose to share that sound with the community. Our License states you can not do this so please don’t. This just gives us extra work by reporting the video to have it removed.

If you’re unsure, just get in touch with us and ask, and we will answer your question quickly. So in summary, yes our sound effects are YouTube safe and can be used in your videos. Happy creating!