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Should I purchase or rent MultiTracks for my worship team?
When using the iOS tracks app Playback as your live tracks solution, there are several unique options for accessing tracks content. Use your tracks products purchased on MultiTracks.com directly in Playback by adding songs to your setlist.
Both Playback Rentals and AppTracks are MultiTrack products exclusively available in our Playback app (iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS) for individual songs. This article will break down their key differences, so that you can determine whether renting or purchasing Tracks will best fit your worship team and budget.
The Similarities:
Both are MultiTrack options, providing individual control of instruments and mixes.
Rentals and AppTracks are Playback-exclusive. Purchased AppTracks and Rentals cannot be used outside of Playback.
The Differences:
The differences between Playback Rentals and AppTracks can be broken down into Price and Availability.
Price
Playback Rentals is a monthly subscription, starting at $59.99/month, offering 16 or more Rental credits each month to unlock the MultiTracks for any song in the MultiTracks.com catalog.
AppTracks are purchasable, Playback exclusive MultiTracks for $29 per song.
Availability
One Playback Rental credit will unlock the MultiTracks for a song on one device for 7 days. After the 7 days, this credit will expire and another credit will be needed to re-unlock the MultiTracks for this song. Additional rentals would also be required for any other devices needing to unlock the stems. Any team member in your organization can be given access to spend your organization's rental credits on their own devices for no extra charge.
AppTracks are available indefinitely on any device. For additional team members to access purchased AppTracks or any other purchased Tracks products with their own account under an organization, Team Sharing seats can be purchased and assigned to users on an organization.
Learn more about Managing people and seats here.
What are the benefits of Renting?
Cost
One of the main benefits of Renting is the value. To determine if it's a good value for you and your team, you should determine how many new tracks you'll introduce each month. If you're introducing 2 or more new songs each month, (or versions of songs) Playback rentals will be the best and most cost-effective solution for your team. And even if you're not introducing that many new songs, Playback Rentals allows users to have the flexibility to rent any version of any song whenever they need. You could even use extra unused rentals in the month to test out newer songs without committing to purchases.
Flexibility
As briefly mentioned above, Playback Rentals can offer you more flexibility so you don't have to commit to a certain version of a song with a purchase decision. You're free to try one song one week, and another song another week. This is especially important around major holiday seasons, when you may need a bunch of new songs that you won't need the rest of the year.
What are the benefits of Purchasing over Renting?
Aside from availability mentioned above, there could be one benefit to purchasing AppTracks instead of renting, and that's the use of Playback Team Sharing. This can be confusing, but here's what you need to know:
Rentals can only be used on a single device. There is no way to share these with other devices or team members. This is to protect the tracks against misuse and piracy. Our licenses for the tracks are only single-site licenses; meaning, per our terms of use, a purchased AppTrack or rental can only be used at a single location. Thinking about how your team rehearses? RehearsalMix is the answer! (Learn more)
Playback Team Sharing is a license that allows you to share purchased content with your team. If you decided to purchase AppTracks instead of renting the AppTracks, you could utilize Playback Team Sharing to share setlists in the Playback app, with anyone that had that license assigned to them.
Note: typically this could be used for a very advanced rehearsal tool for team members that have Apple devices. But with rentals and purchasing, the RehearsalMix subscription is still the best subscription for team members and leaders to rehearse to ALL of the tracks 24/7 regardless of what you own or rent. RehearsalMix is the main solution for rehearsing to the tracks and allows your team to rehearse weeks or even months in advance when using rentals or purchasing content. Learn more about RehearsalMix.
The Verdict
Ultimately, both options are viable for any sized worship team.
Playback Rentals is the most affordable and simple solution for Tracks being used every week for every song. Access 16 MultiTracks every month for the cost of 2 purchased AppTracks. Rentals is also a great budget solution for multi-campus church teams, allowing for multiple worship leaders to access your organization's rental credits for use at their own campuses.
If you do not frequently use Tracks during service or do not often introduce new songs, building an AppTracks catalog may be the best solution for you. While it will be a more expensive up-front solution to invest in a catalog, AppTracks may be better for you long-term.
Still not sure which Playback-exclusive tracks solution is best for your team? Contact us and let us help you make a plan.