How to Use Suno AI in 2026: Making a Song, Free vs Paid, and Copyright
Suno AI is a music generation service that turns lyrics or a one-line description into a finished song with vocals and backing, and since September 9, 2026 it runs on its v6 generation of models. The free plan gives 50 credits a day and the v6-mini model but no commercial use rights, and Suno keeps ownership of songs made on it. The paid Pro and Premier plans unlock the higher v6 and v6-wild models, commercial use rights, and 20 or 60 song downloads a month. ASAP uses only what Suno's official pricing page, Help Center, and blog state to lay out how to make a song, how the plans differ, and how far you can take a song made for free.
What is Suno AI? A v6-generation music service as of September 2026
Suno AI is a music generation service from Suno that takes text, audio, images, or video as input and produces a complete song. The v6 generation released on September 9, 2026 comes in three versions: the flagship v6, v6-wild for less predictable and more varied results, and the faster, more efficient v6-mini.
Suno's v6 FAQ states that every model before v6 has been retired. Songs made with older models stay in your library and can still be played and shared, but every new song uses a v6-family model. From v6 on, you can also edit part of a song in plain language or change a single lyric without regenerating the whole track.
ASAP covers the background of v6 being developed with music industry partners in a separate [analysis of Suno v6](/en/suno-v6-industry-partner-model/).
How to use Suno AI: 6 steps to make an AI song
The basic way to make a song in Suno is to open the Create screen, pick a mode, enter a description or lyrics, and press Create. According to Suno's v6 FAQ, each generation produces 2 songs at a total cost of 10 credits, so the free plan's 50 daily credits cover 5 generations, or 10 songs a day.
- Log in at suno.com and open Create. Use the Create icon in the left toolbar or go to suno.com/create.
- Choose Simple or Custom mode. Simple makes a song from a one-line description, while Custom opens separate fields for lyrics, style, and title.
- Describe genre and mood in the Style field. The more specific you are about genre, mood, tempo, instrumentation, and vocal character, the closer the result lands to what you intended.
- Paste your own lyrics or press Write with Suno. When writing lyrics yourself, put structure tags such as [Verse], [Chorus], and [Bridge] before each section.
- Press Create and compare the two results. Keep the better one and use v6's partial editing to fix a single section or a single word.
- Download on the plan that matches where the song will go. A free trial download is enough for personal listening, but anything that earns money, such as a monetized YouTube video or an ad, needs a song made and downloaded on a paid plan.
Suno free vs paid plans compared: credits, downloads, and commercial use
Suno has three plans as of September 2026, Free, Pro, and Premier, and the biggest difference between them is commercial rights and download allowance rather than credit volume. The table below comes from suno.com/pricing and Suno's official blog post on its downloads policy, with prices in US dollars.
| Item | Free | Pro | Premier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $10/month ($96/year, about $8/month) | $30/month ($288/year, about $24/month) |
| Credits | 50 per day | 2,500 per month | 10,000 per month |
| Songs you can generate (at 2 songs per 10 credits) | Up to 10 per day | Up to 500 per month | Up to 2,000 per month |
| Models | v6-mini | v6, v6-wild | v6, v6-wild |
| Downloads | 7 lifetime trial downloads, personal use only | 20 per month | 60 per month |
| Commercial use | No | Yes | Yes |
| Song ownership | Suno | You | You |
| Audio upload length | Up to 8 minutes | Up to 30 minutes | Up to 30 minutes |
Paid subscribers who run out of monthly credits can buy more, and they automatically get 50 bonus credits a day until the billing cycle renews. The download limits took effect on September 3, 2026 and also apply to songs created before that date. Suno says every song remains playable and shareable on Suno regardless of plan.
Can you use a song made on Suno's free plan commercially?
Commercial use is not allowed for songs made on Suno's free plan, and Suno's Help Center states that Suno retains ownership of songs generated by free users. Free users may use their songs only for non-commercial purposes, and the 7 trial downloads introduced on September 3, 2026 are for personal use only.
The paid-side conditions are written against two different moments, so the two documents need to be read together. The Help Center says that if you were subscribed to Pro or Premier when a song was created, you are considered its owner and keep commercial rights even after the subscription ends. The August 2026 downloads policy post says that songs you download as a paying subscriber carry commercial rights. ASAP reads the two together and recommends the safest rule: create the songs you plan to use commercially while subscribed, and download them during that same period. Official documents do not say whether upgrading later makes a song created on the free plan retroactively yours.
Lyrics are the one exception. Suno's Help Center states that on any plan, you keep ownership of and rights to the original lyrics you enter. Creators who write their own lyrics therefore need to track the rights to the song and the rights to the lyrics separately.
Suno AI copyright lawsuits: deals with Warner, litigation with UMG and Sony
As of September 2026, Suno is partnered with Warner Music Group and BMG but remains in litigation with Universal Music Group and Sony Music. Suno announced the Warner deal in November 2025 and the BMG deal on August 12, 2026, and on September 8, 2026 distributors Believe and TuneCore agreed to distribute tracks made with its new industry partner models.
On the other side, the dispute has widened. Music Business Worldwide reported that UMG and Sony filed a second lawsuit in Boston federal court on September 18, 2026, alleging that Suno copied 60,202 recordings without a license to build its models and that v6 continues the infringement because it was trained on outputs of earlier models. The same outlet reported that the first case, filed in June 2024, is still ongoing. In a statement to the press, Suno said v6 was trained on content licensed from its partners, creations and preference signals from its community, and the accumulated learnings of its team.
What this means for users is clear. The fact that Suno's terms grant paying users commercial rights and the question of whether Suno's models are lawful are two separate matters, and the second is being argued in court. Anyone planning to use Suno songs in advertising, broadcast, or music distribution, where rights checks are strict, is safer following the rulings and confirming the client's policy on AI-generated music first.
Tips for getting Suno to sing Korean lyrics well
The key to natural Korean vocals in Suno is writing the lyrics in Hangul and using structure tags and short lines to mark clearly where each phrase sits. Suno's official guide says it works best when guided by structure tags such as [Verse], [Chorus], and [Bridge], and as of September 2026 Suno has not published separate official guidance on Korean pronunciation.
The following writing tips are ASAP's own, built on that official guidance.
- Write in Hangul, not romanization. Put the spelling closest to the pronunciation you want into the lyrics field.
- Keep lines short. Break lines where a singer would breathe, and adjust line length after listening to the result.
- Repeat the same line in the chorus. Place the song's central phrase under [Chorus] more than once and keep it clearly distinct from the verses.
- Spell out numbers and acronyms as they sound. Writing the Korean pronunciation instead of "2026" or "AI" lets you decide how they are read.
- Fix only the word that is off, not the whole song. v6's single-lyric edit lets you correct a pronunciation while keeping a melody you like.
Sources: Suno Pricing (Suno) · v6 FAQ (Suno Help Center) · Does Suno own the music I make? (Suno Help Center) · Can I use my own lyrics? (Suno Help Center) · Introducing v6 (Suno blog) · An update to our downloads policy and Terms of Service (Suno blog) · A new chapter in music creation (Suno blog) · Announcing a Landmark Global Partnership with BMG (Suno blog) · A New Partnership with Believe and TuneCore (Suno blog) · How to Make a Song with Suno (Suno) · Universal and Sony sue Suno for a second time (Music Business Worldwide) · Suno confirms V6 model was trained on 'creations' from users (Music Business Worldwide)
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