Spotify says it in its own words: not for your business.

Spotify's Terms of Use grant you "limited, non-exclusive, revocable permission to make personal, non-commercial use of the Spotify Service".¹ Its support page removes any doubt about what that means: "Spotify is only for personal, non-commercial use. This means you can't broadcast or play Spotify publicly from a business, such as bars, restaurants, schools, stores, salons, dance studios, radio stations, etc."² It then recommends a different company for commercial use.

The collecting societies say the same from their side. STIM: a STIM licence doesn't include the permission to use a consumer service: "Om du använder exempelvis Spotify så ingår inte det tillståndet."³ SAMI and IFPI: private accounts are not for business use.⁴⁵ And the societies are the ones who act on it: STIM runs inspections, gives you 14 days to respond, then sends an invoice by estimate;⁶ SAMI can collect the fee even without an agreement.⁷

Tonada closes both gaps at once. Every track is produced in-house and registered with no society, so Tonada licenses your venue directly and nothing is owed to STIM, SAMI, PRS, PPL or GEMA for it. You get a certificate listing every track and its clearance. If an inspector asks, you hand it over.

Even if the law were on its side, Spotify is the wrong tool for a room full of customers. There is one account, playing on one device, controlled by whoever is holding it. The morning shift's playlist walks out with the morning shift. The free tier plays adverts between songs. Explicit lyrics are governed by a toggle on someone's personal account. There are no zones, so the terrace hears what the bar hears; no scheduling, so Friday night starts whenever someone remembers; no announcements; no dashboard for the manager who runs three sites.

Tonada is the venue's system, not a person's. You describe the space, the vibe and the audience once; the platform adapts energy, tempo and mood to weather, footfall, occupancy and time of day; zones and locations run from one dashboard in their own time zones; staff can thumbs-up or thumbs-down a track from the app without taking over. The music is there when the door opens and it doesn't leave at the end of a shift.

The instinct is that customers expect the songs they know. What they actually respond to is tempo, energy and fit, the reasons the classic Milliman study found slower, well-matched music lifted supermarket sales by 38 %. A recognisable song can pull attention toward the song and away from the room; a soundtrack written for the room does the opposite. Tonada's producers compose every track in-house. On Premium you play from Tonada's adaptive library, adapted to your venue in real time; on Bespoke a dedicated producer composes a catalogue that belongs only to your brand. Nobody walks in and hears the same playlist they heard at the last place.

Spotify's own recommendation for businesses is Soundtrack.² In Sweden that's SEK 559 per zone per month billed annually for the Essential plan, plus the STIM and SAMI agreements your venue signs itself (around SEK 4,000 a year for a 100 m² shop) plus add-ons if you want to play tracks in your own order.¹¹⁹ Perfectly legal, and roughly four times the price of a personal account before the society fees.

Tonada Premium is €19.99 per zone per month. It is licensed for business, there are no PRO fees, and the price includes the adaptive engine, the apps, Sonos, the dashboard and new music every week. The trial is 30 days with no card and nothing charged automatically. The Player Box, if you need one, is €15 a month.