Sleep Music Sits at the Center of a $100 Billion Market

Sleep music — compositions designed to facilitate falling asleep and maintaining deep sleep, including ambient sleep soundscapes, delta wave binaural beats, ASMR audio, sleep stories backgrounds, and gentle piano lullabies — is one of the fastest-growing asset classes in the music rights marketplace. Positioned at the intersection of the global sleep aids industry (valued at over $100 billion) and the booming wellness technology sector, sleep music catalogs command premium valuations because they serve a functional, health-adjacent need that is both universal and recession-resistant. If you create music that helps people sleep, your catalog is riding one of the strongest demand curves in the entire music industry.

Market context

The Sleep Music market.

The economics of sleep music are driven by a convergence of factors that make this category uniquely attractive to catalog buyers. The global sleep aids market — encompassing pharmaceuticals, devices, apps, supplements, and audio content — exceeded $100 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at 6-8% annually through 2030. Sleep disorders affect an estimated 70 million Americans and over 1 billion people globally, creating a massive addressable market for non-pharmaceutical interventions, of which sleep music is among the most widely adopted. Sleep apps are the primary commercial driver for sleep music licensing. Calm, the market leader valued at $2 billion, has built its brand substantially around sleep content — its "Sleep Stories" feature (narrated stories with music backgrounds) is its most popular product. Headspace, acquired by Amazon's health division, has expanded its sleep audio library aggressively. Specialized sleep apps like Sleep Cycle (50+ million downloads), Sleepiest, Pzizz, and BetterSleep collectively serve hundreds of millions of users who rely on licensed audio content to fall asleep. These apps spend tens of millions annually on content licensing, and their need for fresh, high-quality sleep audio is continuous because user retention depends on library variety. The streaming platform data for sleep music is remarkable. Spotify reports that sleep-related content — including "Sleep" playlists (7+ million followers), "Sleep Sounds" playlists, and individual sleep music tracks — is among the highest-engagement content on the platform by session duration. Sleep listeners routinely play content for 6-10 hours per night, meaning a single active listener can generate 40-80 track plays in a single session. This extreme consumption density makes sleep music among the most revenue-efficient content per active listener on any streaming platform. Smart home and sleep technology integration represents a growing frontier. Brands like Eight Sleep (smart mattresses), Hatch (sleep sound machines), and Bose (Sleepbuds) are building sleep audio features into their hardware products, requiring licensed content. The smart sleep technology market is projected to reach $27 billion by 2028, and audio is a core feature that these hardware companies are investing in. ASMR crossover has dramatically expanded the audience for sleep-adjacent audio content. The ASMR community on YouTube exceeds 100 million viewers monthly, and sleep-focused ASMR content is the largest subcategory. This crossover has introduced sleep audio to demographics (particularly Gen Z) who now expect sleep music as a standard feature in wellness and health apps. The hotel and hospitality industry licenses sleep audio for in-room wellness amenities, pillow menus, and turndown service soundscapes, with premium hotel chains investing in branded sleep experiences that require licensed content.

What affects value

What we look at.

Example

A real-world scenario.