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LANDR alternatives: online AI mastering compared

Online mastering services all do roughly the same job: you upload a finished stereo file and get back a louder, more polished one. Here is how the main ones differ, and what none of them do.

3 November 2026 · 4 min read

Prices and features below were checked on each company’s own site in November 2026. They change often, so check before you pay.

The short answer

• Cheapest: BandLab Mastering is free with four presets. Matchering is free and open source.
• Pay per song: LANDR charges per track if you don’t subscribe. Waves sells credit packs.
• Unlimited masters: LANDR Studio, Masterchannel, BandLab’s paid plans and Waves’ Annual Pro plan.
• If your vocal doesn’t sit in the beat: none of these will fix it. You need to mix, not master. More on that below.

How they compare

LANDR

The best-known AI mastering service. You upload a WAV, AIFF, FLAC or MP3, choose between several mastering styles that differ in intensity and loudness, and preview the result for free. You can redo a master as many times as you like. It also offers album mastering and mastering to a reference track.

Without a subscription, a master costs US$10 per track. LANDR Studio subscriptions include unlimited online mastering; the cheapest tier downloads MP3s, and the higher tiers add WAV and HD WAV files and LANDR’s Mastering Plugin, which runs in your DAW. When we checked, LANDR was running a sale with Studio advertised “starting at” US$8.25 a month. Studio also bundles other tools, which is good value if you’d use them.

BandLab Mastering

BandLab’s mastering is free, with four presets, and you can drop in a whole EP or album. Paid memberships add more presets with intensity controls (Pro, US$99 for the first year and then US$149 a year) and a mastering EQ (Max, US$199 for the first year and then US$299 a year). If you just want a louder file to put out, the free tier is hard to argue with.

Masterchannel

Masterchannel sells subscriptions with unlimited projects and EP and album mastering. The Artist plan is US$15 a month billed yearly (US$180), and Professional is US$19 a month billed yearly (US$228), which adds a mastering profile from engineer Wez Clarke and tweaks after the master.

Waves AI Mastering Online

Waves, the plug-in company, runs its own online mastering. You buy credits: when we checked, one master was US$3.99 against a list price of US$9.99, with packs of 5 and 15. There are also yearly plans: Standard at US$71.64 for 36 credits, and Pro at US$169.99 for unlimited masters.

Matchering

Matchering is free, open-source software. You give it your track and a reference song you like, and it matches your track’s loudness, frequency balance, peak level and stereo width to the reference. You can run it on your own computer, which keeps your audio private, but it takes some technical setup. A few websites host it if you’d rather not.

What about CloudBounce and eMastered?

CloudBounce closed on 30 June 2025; Image-Line says its technology now lives inside FL Studio. eMastered is still running and also masters an uploaded stereo file, but we couldn’t confirm its current prices on its own site, so we’ve left it out of the table.

What mastering can’t do

Every service above works on one finished stereo file. That’s what mastering is: final polish and loudness on a mix that is already done. It can’t:

• turn the vocal up against the beat, or the beat down under it,
• tune the vocal,
• take mud out of one track without taking it out of everything,
• add space to the vocal without adding it to the drums.

If your rough mix has the vocal buried in the beat, the master will be a louder version of a buried vocal. For most home recordings the mix is where the problems are. Read how to mix vocals over a beat in Logic Pro if you want to fix that yourself.

Where TineEQ fits

TineEQ isn’t an online mastering service. It’s an AI engineer that works inside Logic Pro or GarageBand, on each track of your session. You tell it what you want in plain words, and it tunes the vocal, balances it with the beat, and then masters the song to −14 LUFS with a −1 dBTP ceiling, the usual level for streaming (or louder, if you ask). Every change comes with a reason, and one step undoes the whole job.

Your audio stays on your Mac. The AI only receives text: measurements like levels, tempo and key, plus what you type.

The trade-offs, plainly: it needs a Mac with Logic Pro or GarageBand, it costs US$14.99 a month or US$149 a year with no free trial, and it isn’t available in the EU or UK yet. If you only need a louder stereo file and your mix is already good, a free or pay-per-track mastering service is the cheaper choice.

Questions

Is LANDR free?

Previews are free and don’t need an account. To download a master you pay, either per track (US$10 a track on LANDR’s mastering page as of November 2026) or through a LANDR Studio subscription.

What is the best free alternative to LANDR?

BandLab Mastering is free with four presets. Matchering is free and open source, and matches your track to a reference song, but you run it yourself or through a site that hosts it.

Can an online mastering service fix my mix?

Not really. Mastering works on the finished stereo file, so it can’t turn the vocal up against the beat, fix pitch or take out mud on one track. If the vocal is buried in the mix, it will still be buried in the master.

Do I have to upload my song?

With the hosted services in this list, yes: LANDR, BandLab, Masterchannel and Waves all master a file you upload. Matchering can run on your own computer. TineEQ works inside Logic Pro or GarageBand and doesn’t upload audio.

Is CloudBounce still available?

No. CloudBounce closed on 30 June 2025. Its technology now lives inside FL Studio, per Image-Line.

Should I use AI mastering or a mastering engineer?

AI mastering is quick and cheap and fine for most singles and demos. A mastering engineer is worth it for a release you are putting real money behind, especially an album that has to hang together. Either way, get the mix right first.