Lyria 3 on Playcut:
a flat price per song for your video edit
Lyria 3 bills per song, not per second, so the length that comes back never changes what you pay. On Playcut, Lyria 3 pricing is 20 credits for a Clip, a fixed 30-second track, and 40 credits for a Pro song of about two minutes; a re-roll costs what the first attempt did. Run it from the studio, an MCP client or the REST API, on paid plans from $9/mo.
Clip 30 s · Pro about 2 min · MP3, 44.1 kHz stereo · up to 10 reference images · rates in credits
Who Lyria 3 is for, and who should skip it
Lyria 3 fits when a video needs an original bed and you want to try several directions without watching the meter. It doesn't fit a brief that names a track to match, a WAV delivery spec, or a take you need twice. Those limits are set upstream by Google, with no setting on our side.
Reach for it when
- You need a new bed for each social cut, ad or explainer.
- You want the mood steered by frames from the cut itself.
- The music should share a workspace and credit balance with the video.
Skip it when
- The client wants it "like" a named artist or song. Names are blocked.
- Delivery requires WAV. The Lyria 3 models we run return MP3.
- You must reproduce a take exactly. There is no seed.
Which Lyria you get on Playcut
Playcut runs two Google models: Lyria 3 Clip (lyria-3-clip-preview) and Lyria 3 Pro (lyria-3-pro-preview), with Pro as the default. Both are preview models, so Google can change how they behave. We don't run Lyria 3.5, and every limit on this page is scoped to the two models above.
Lyria 3 pricing: 20 or 40 credits a song
Music is billed per song, not per second. There is no length surcharge and no discount for a short result, so a Pro song that runs 1:40 costs the same 40 credits as one that runs 2:10.
Credits are held when you submit and returned in full if the task fails or you cancel it. A prompt the name filter rejects ends as a failed task, so it costs you the wait, not the credits.
How many songs a plan's credits cover
One balance pays for images, video, voice and music alike, so these are ceilings, not music allowances.
Hobby is $9/mo, Pro $29/mo, Studio $79/mo and Agency $149 per seat per month. Credit packs never expire and come in 600, 2,500 and 5,000 credit sizes, or 15, 62 and 125 Pro songs. The full ladder is on the Playcut pricing page.
Music next to the rest of an edit's spend
At September 2026 rates, one Pro song costs a quarter of one second of Veo 3.1 at 720p, and less than one Nano Banana Pro image at 1K (67 credits). An 8-second Veo clip at 720p is 1,280 credits, the price of 32 Pro songs. On a timeline with generated video, auditioning more music barely moves the budget.
Clip or Pro: decide by the length of your cut
Clip and Pro aren't quality tiers. The choice follows the length of the finished video, because Clip's 30 seconds is fixed upstream and Pro has no duration setting. If a voiceover drives the cut, run the script through the video script timer first: the spoken length is the bed you need.
A cut under 30 seconds
Clip · 20 credits
Reels, Shorts, TikToks and bumpers. Clip always returns exactly 30 seconds, so trim the tail in your editor.
A cut of 30 to 90 seconds
Pro · 40 credits
Clip can't run past 30 seconds and no prompt hint changes that. Pro returns about two minutes with sections and an ending, which leaves room to cut to length.
A cut of two to three minutes
Pro with a length chip · 40 credits
Pick 2m or 3m in the studio. It is a request, not a setting: a three-minute ask can still come back at about two, so plan a repeat in the edit.
Longer than one Pro song
Several Pro songs · 40 credits each
Lyria can't extend a track. Generate each section as its own Pro song from a shared brief and cross-fade them, expecting a shared style rather than shared themes.
The Clip-then-Pro habit, and its catch
Draft on Clip at 20 credits, change one variable per attempt, then run the winning brief on Pro. 4 Clip drafts cost the same as 2 Pro songs.
The catch is that Lyria has no seed. The Pro run gives you a new song in the same style, not a longer version of the Clip you liked. If one Clip is exactly right, keep that file and trim or loop it in your editor.
How to score a cut with Lyria 3 in Playcut
Music has its own app in the studio, next to image, video, voice and the actor apps. Tracks land in your workspace alongside the video they belong with.
- 01Open the Music app Sign in at app.playcut.ai and pick Music from the app selector. The Clip and Pro toggle sits beside it, with Pro selected by default.
- 02Set the length Clip shows a locked 30-second badge. Pro shows chips for Auto, 1m, 2m and 3m, which add a length request to the start of your prompt.
- 03Write the brief like a note to a composer Genre, tempo, key, instruments, energy over time, and vocals or instrumental. The box takes 5,000 characters and keeps line breaks, so tags such as [Verse] and [Chorus] reach the model intact.
- 04Attach frames from the cut Add up to 10 reference images, or paste a still into the prompt box. They steer mood as a set; you can't point the prompt at one image.
- 05Generate and save the brief that worked Credits are held when you submit and returned if the job fails or is cancelled. Save a good prompt to your library, then type / in an empty prompt box to reuse it.
A brief you can copy
This Clip brief names tempo, key and instruments, and says where the energy should change. The music tool's own guidance adds that lyrics can be written into the prompt; asking for a specific artist's voice or copyrighted lyrics is blocked by policy.
Instrumental bed for a 30-second product reel. 96 BPM, D minor.
Muted electric piano, warm sub bass, brushed snare.
Starts sparse, lifts at 0:12 with a fuller drum pattern,
drops back to piano alone for the last five seconds. No vocals.Rewriting a prompt the filter blocked
The studio puts an amber warning beside the Clip and Pro toggle for this reason. Remove the name and write down what the name meant to you.
From Claude, Cursor or your own code
Lyria 3 is not studio-only. The generate-music tool is public on the hosted MCP server and the REST tools API, with the same key as every other tool. Setup is on the Playcut MCP server and REST API page.
# One 30-second Clip. Omit "model" and you are billed Pro.
curl -X POST https://api.playcut.ai/api/v1/tools/generate-music/execute \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PLAYCUT_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"prompt":"Instrumental lo-fi bed, 85 BPM, dusty electric piano, relaxed swung drums","model":"lyria-3-clip-preview"}'
# {"taskId":"65f3a1b2c3d4e5f600000002","status":"PENDING","estimatedCredits":20}
The reply is a task id; poll get-task-status until it finishes. The billing trap is the default: leave out model and you are billed Pro at 40 credits.
Seven limits to know before you score with Lyria 3
These are the limits that change a brief or a delivery plan. Most are set upstream by Google, not by Playcut.
- Real names are blocked, even when you negate them
- Artists, producers, albums, song titles and persona names all trip the filter, and "not like" a name fails too. Brand names used as descriptors, place names and gear names get through. It is the most common failed music task on Playcut.
- MP3 only, on the Lyria 3 models we run
- Both return 44.1 kHz stereo MP3. Google doesn't publish the bitrate, so we don't state one, and there is no WAV option.
- Pro's length is a request, not a setting
- The length chips only add a sentence to your prompt. A three-minute ask can return about two, at the same rate and with no partial refund.
- No seed, no continuation, no editing
- The same prompt returns a different song every time, and Lyria is single-turn: you can't extend a track or regenerate one section. Every revision is a fresh generation at the full flat rate.
- It doesn't hear or watch your video
- Lyria takes a text prompt and still images, nothing else, so it can't sync hits to your cuts. Timestamp tags such as [0:00 - 0:12] are the closest thing to a sync point, and they are a request too.
- Google rewrites your prompt out of sight
- Lyria runs Google's own prompt rewriter before it generates, and the rewritten text isn't returned. Apart from a length chip's request and tidied whitespace, Playcut sends your prompt as you wrote it, but a strange result can't be traced to the exact words the model used.
- Every track carries a SynthID watermark
- Google's imperceptible watermark is always on and can't be turned off. Playcut adds no watermark of its own on any plan.
Lyria 3, video-model audio or voice: which to use
Lyria 3 is the only music model on Playcut, so the useful comparison is with the other ways to put sound on a timeline. Several video models generate audio with the picture, and voice covers narration. Rates are as of September 2026.
Native video audio and a Lyria score share a timeline
Veo 3.1 and Seedance 2.0 generate audio on every clip, with no silent option. When Lyria scores the cut, duck or mute that track in your editor, or keep only the effects that belong to the shot. The broader case for mixing models this way is on the AI video generator page.
Lyria versus a licensed stock track
A stock library lets you audition a finished track before paying, under a license you can read in full. Lyria gives you an original track per request at a flat credit cost, but you hear it only after you pay and can't regenerate the same take.
Every Playcut plan includes a commercial license. Our terms of service say you keep ownership of the generations you create, and that the model provider's terms also apply to model output. We don't call Lyria output royalty-free or rights-cleared, so review each track before it ships.
Writing a music brief that survives the filter
People reach for a name because it is shorthand for a set of choices. A good Lyria prompt unpacks the shorthand: tempo and key first, then the three or four instruments that carry the track, then era and recording character, then the energy arc. Say plainly whether you want vocals. The Lyria 3 prompts for ad beds, scores and full songs are written this way.
A flat price rewards short, deliberately different drafts over one careful prompt. Change one variable per Clip, and when a draft lands, the difference from the one before tells you which variable mattered. The Playcut pricing breakdown shows how that spend sits beside image and video.
Every model we run, with its credit rate and its refusals, is on the AI models comparison hub. New to the studio? The guide to using Playcut walks the whole flow.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Lyria 3 cost on Playcut? +
Lyria 3 Clip is 20 credits per song and Lyria 3 Pro is 40, flat, whatever length comes back. Credits are held at submission and returned in full if the task fails or is cancelled. Hobby's 500 monthly credits cover 25 Clips or 12 Pro songs.
Why did Lyria 3 reject my prompt? +
Most often because it contains a real name. Google's filter blocks artists, producers, albums, song titles and persona names, even inside a negation. Delete the name and describe the sound instead: tempo, era, instruments, vocal delivery and mix.
Can Lyria 3 export WAV files? +
No. The Lyria 3 Clip and Pro models we run return MP3 only, at 44.1 kHz stereo, so the studio offers no format choice. Converting to WAV changes the container but can't restore what the MP3 encode removed.
Can I generate Lyria 3 music from the API or an MCP client? +
Yes. The generate-music tool is public on the Playcut MCP server and the REST tools API, with a prompt, an optional model and up to 10 reference images. Leave out the model and you get Pro at 40 credits, so name the Clip model for a 30-second draft.
Can I use Lyria 3 music in commercial videos? +
Every Playcut plan includes a commercial license. Our terms say you keep ownership of the generations you create, and that the model provider's terms also apply to model output. We don't call Lyria output royalty-free or rights-cleared, so review each track before you publish.
Is Playcut's Lyria 3 the same as Lyria 3.5? +
No. Playcut runs Lyria 3 Clip and Lyria 3 Pro, both Google preview models, and not Lyria 3.5. Specs you read about 3.5 elsewhere don't describe what you generate here.
Ready to make something cinematic?
Pick a plan. Every plan bills at checkout — cancel anytime.