Background music for cafés — without OneMusic fees
For an Australian café the music bill has two lines: a music service, and the OneMusic licence for the APRA AMCOS and PPCA repertoires — A$1,000.20 a year for a café seating 7–15 on a streaming package (the rate for 1 Sep 2026 – 31 Aug 2027), before the service itself. The Oktava catalog sits outside both repertoires, so for it there is no OneMusic line: A$290 a year is the whole bill.
Morning rush, lunch service, evening wind-down
The room at 7 a.m. and the room at 1 p.m. are different venues, and the music should know it. Oktava lets you schedule channels by daypart once: mellow over the first flat whites, more pace when the lunch queue forms, warm and low as the afternoon empties out. The player switches by itself — no one behind the machine curates a playlist mid-service — and the channels carry no ads, so the room never jumps from a song to a shouted jingle.
Cafés are where OneMusic letters land first: speakers on, doors open, music audible from the footpath. With Oktava there is nothing from the APRA AMCOS or PPCA repertoires playing, and the paperwork says so — a named certificate with live QR verification by the register, and a playback log listing every track. If a letter still arrives, forward it to us and we prepare the reply.
How it works
Sign up, open the player on the counter tablet or any phone, set the daypart schedule, done. The certificate and playback log are in your dashboard from day one, and cached channels keep playing when the NBN doesn't.
What it costs
A$29 a month or A$290 a year per location — compare that with A$1,000.20 of OneMusic licence for a 7–15-seat café before any music service. The trial runs 7 days, no card needed.
Questions, answered
Do I still need a OneMusic licence?
Not for the Oktava catalog — it's outside the APRA AMCOS and PPCA repertoires, so there's nothing for OneMusic to license. Radio, TV or Spotify at the same café still falls under OneMusic; the playback log shows which case is yours.
We've always played Spotify. What actually changes?
Spotify's terms forbid business use of personal accounts, and the music is OneMusic repertoire — the licence is owed regardless of the app. Switching to Oktava replaces both the app and the licence for what plays; for music played before the switch, OneMusic can still license retrospectively.
Can the music change from breakfast to dinner automatically?
Yes — schedule channels by time of day in the dashboard once and the player handles the rest. Staff can still skip tracks or switch channels whenever the room calls for it.
This information is provided for general reference and is not legal advice.