You can hear Taylor Swift belting about love and heartbreak during pivotal moments in the Amazon show “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” a popular coming-of-age series based on a trilogy of books from author Jenny Han. 

Han, in an interview with the podcast “Open Book,” recounts that she wrote a handwritten letter to Swift asking to use her song “The Way I Loved You” in the show’s season 1 finale. Swift not only granted her permission to use the song, but would later allow the show to use more tracks from her discography.

"We've been so lucky to continue to get to use her music," Han said during the interview. 

The show’s music roster is stacked with popular artists, including Swift, Beyoncé, Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey, Chappell Roan and Dua Lipa. So stacked that fans of the show, in jest, have wondered for years just how big the show’s music budget is. 

The artists that this show has been able to license songs from is “unbelievable,” said Benom Plumb, the program director for music industry studies and music management at University of the Pacific.

Marketplace reached out to multiple music supervisors on “The Summer I Turned Pretty” to get insight into the licensing process, but did not get a response by publication time. However, music industry experts who are unaffiliated with the show shared how much music rights can cost and how the licensing process works. 

Proposed licensing fees for a song can not only depend on the popularity of the artist, but how the song is being used. A song’s price tag tends to get higher the more prominently a song is featured or the longer it’s used, said Darren Wilsey, a songwriter and author of the book “The Musician's Guide to Licensing Music.” 

How much might a Taylor Swift song cost? 

In “The Summer I Turned Pretty’s” series premiere, Taylor Swift’s massive hit “Cruel Summer” plays as the lead character is preparing to hit the idyllic coastal town that the show is set in. 

A song like “Cruel Summer” might cost between $50,000 and $100,000, Plumb said. 

A song’s price tag consists of two copyrights that films and TV shows have to pay for: The recording, which typically has to be cleared with the artist’s record label. And the song, defined as the musical composition, typically has to be cleared with the music publisher, Plumb said. (Although in Swift’s case, she owns or co-owns the publishing and recording rights.)

This estimated $50,000 to $100,000 range for “Cruel Summer” would include about $25,000 to $50,000 for the song’s copyright and another $25,000 to $50,000 for the recording’s copyright, Plumb said. 

If a character within the show is singing an artist’s song, but the actual recording is not playing, then you’d only have to pay for the song’s copyright. 

The premiere also features the song “Lover” by Swift, so in total, the cost for Taylor’s songs in the first episode could have totaled up to $200,000. 

That amount is a drop in the bucket for a large tech company like Amazon, which spends billions of dollars on original content each year. Amazon reportedly spent about $7 billion on Prime Video in 2024 (although that’s a steep decrease from the $19 billion it spent in 2023).

But even if a TV series is released by a powerful conglomerate, shows still need experienced music supervisors to develop a budget and convince studios to give them enough money to license the songs they want, Plumb said. 

“[The music supervisors] are doing a fantastic job to be able to negotiate these sorts of deals with the Taylor Swifts and the Dua Lipas and the Beyoncés,” Plumb said. 

Producers and show creators don’t always realize how music can support a show’s narrative, so music supervisors might not get the budget they need to achieve their vision, said Jonathan McHugh, co-founder of the Guild of Music Supervisors and the chair of music business studies at Loyola University in New Orleans.

If a TV show wants to use a song but can’t afford the recording rights, they might workaround budgeting constraints by having a band record the song, McHugh said. 

But on “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Amazon and the producers “obviously realized how music could and should be a character,” McHugh said. 

Having the budget to spend on top artists, which most TV series don’t have, also helps raise awareness of your show on social media, McHugh said. 

“It's good to see that there are these kinds of shows that are really going all in on music,” McHugh said.

But some songs are not as expensive as you might think

While “The Summer I Turned Pretty” probably has a high budget, artists can grant shows a “sweetheart deal” and charge less than they normally would, Plumb said. 

“These are all negotiated in the free market. So if Taylor Swift was giving a sweetheart deal, it could maybe just be 10% of what I quoted, “Plumb said. “But what I am basing that on is my experience in the industry actually negotiating these licenses.” 

In some rare cases, an artist might even give a show permission to use its music for free. 

“I've been in those situations where I had a client say, ‘Look, Plumb, don't give them a hard time. They've helped me out a lot of my career. Let's just give this to them,’” he said. 

In general, TV shows usually aren’t spending $100,000 on a track – they typically budget about $2,000 to $10,000 per song, a common rate for smaller artists, if they’re going to pay for both copyrights, Plumb said. 

Some licensing fees might not be as high as you’d expect because artists want their music featured, Darren Wilsey said. 

“Everything is negotiable,” Wilsey said. “One of the most valuable aspects of having music featured on a popular TV show is the exposure.”  

TV shows can use that as leverage when proposing licensing fees, Wilsey explained. 

If you aren’t as well-known as Swift, a TV show can introduce your music to millions of new viewers. Back in the aughts, the hit TV show “The O.C.” featured indie rock bands whose fame skyrocketed after their songs were used on the show. 

For both the artists and the TV shows, it can be a mutually beneficial relationship.