Photo Credit: Aerps.com
How’s Suno faring after shifting exclusively to licensed models? Quite well, according to CEO Mikey Shulman, who says the company now boasts “far beyond” two million subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue.
Shulman pointed to continued growth – albeit without divulging hard figures – during a sit down at Bloomberg Screentime 2026. As many will recall, the exec this past February indicated that Suno had cracked over 100 million total users, including two million paid subs, and surpassed the above-noted $300 million in revenue.
But a lot has changed in the interim, and not solely because of the wider AI space’s rapid evolution. Suno last month shelved all its existing models (meaning those allegedly trained on protected recordings without authorization) upon launching multiple v6 products in partnership with Warner Music, BMG, and Believe.
Out of the gate, certain users pushed back against the sweeping changes – though whether their grievances will translate into a subscriber-base contraction remains to be seen. More immediately, Shulman struck an optimistic tone when discussing the platform’s commercial positioning.
“The last stats that we released were two million subscribers, $300 million in revenue,” he said. “We are far beyond that by now, and so there is quite a lot of traction.”
Admittedly, as the v6 pivot only arrived in September, the comments don’t reveal a ton about Suno’s current subscribership trends.
However, they are interesting generally and because “traction” doesn’t solely refer to paid users; the aforesaid licensing agreements presumably contribute to traction, as do increases in the number of “industry professionals” using the platform.
Regarding the latter, some have directly acknowledged incorporating Suno outputs into mainstream releases. Nevertheless, assuming Shulman is being forthright when referring to the “tons and tons of industry professionals using” the platform “in their day-to-day workflows,” its reach could be strong in this department.
That’s especially noteworthy because the Suno Studio DAW “is exempt from the download limits taking effect in September 2026,” according to the appropriate product page. On the other hand, as reiterated by Shulman during the same interview, casual users (like “a grandmother just making music for fun”) also play an important part in the relevant business model.
As competition intensifies, will these casual users shift to Klay, ElevenMusic, Spotify, Udio, and other gen AI players – which, even given the Sony Music- and artist-led copyright complaints against Udio, are plagued by fewer legal headaches?
Time will tell. Closer to the present, that Suno’s “next” planned expansion will involve “opt-in experiences built around individual artists” – including from Warner Music’s roster – is worth keeping in mind as well.
I, and countless others, are being prevented by Suno from creating covers, remixes, or anything else of our own works. If a lyric is published on Musixmatch, it’s flagged by Suno as “copyrighted material”. This has been going on for much of 2026. In April, I received encouraging advice from Suno’s support agent (AI): I could prove my ownership, and I’d get access.
“The moderation system can’t automatically verify ownership or recognize mechanical licenses and co-publishing agreements, so these situations require human review… Our team will verify your ownership and work with you to resolve the flagging issue. Once they confirm you have the rights, they should be able to help ensure you can create new versions of your own work… The moderation team should be able to sort this out once they see your ownership documentation.”
Unfortunately, this was BS. I finally got around to submitting proof for one song yesterday, including a co-pub agreement, ISWC, and SOCAN screenshot, and more.
Now I get, “Thanks for coming back to us on this, and for putting together such a thorough package of documentation. It’s clear you’ve done a lot of work to establish your rights to “Molly’s Bar and Grill,” and we appreciate that.
We want to be straightforward with you, because an earlier reply from us set the wrong expectation: there isn’t a human review queue that processes ownership documentation to manually unblock specific lyrics. We’re sorry that wasn’t made clear the first time around.
Here’s the honest picture of where things stand: Suno’s copyright detection system is designed to protect artists and the music they’ve made. When it flags lyrics that appear in published databases like Musixmatch, that’s actually the protection working as intended — the same system that would prevent someone else from using your work without permission. It flags based on what’s published on the internet, and right now it can’t distinguish between you (the rightful owner) and someone trying to use your material without authorization.
We’re actively developing an artist verification system that will let verified creators work with derivatives of songs they own the rights to. We don’t have a timeline to share, but it’s something we’re working toward. Once it’s available, it should address exactly the situation you’re describing.
In the meantime, the best path forward is to work with new or different material while we continue building out those processes for creators with published catalogs.
We genuinely appreciate your patience with this. Apologies again that the earlier guidance pointed you toward a process that doesn’t yet exist.
All the best, Suno Support”
And now they include a disclaimer: “This reply was generated by Suno’s AI support assistant, which can make mistakes.”
With $300 million in annual revenue, you’d think Suno could assign a few human agents (I appreciate the irony) to process requests like this. (Thanks for the helpful list of the competition in the gen AI field… will be shopping around.)