What custom mode changes
There's a toggle at the top of the Create page. Left is Simple, right is Custom. Flip it and one description box becomes three separate fields - Style of Music, Lyrics and Title - plus an Advanced Options panel with four controls Simple never shows you.
Simple mode isn't a weaker model. It's the same model, given fewer instructions.
Custom mode doesn't unlock better audio, more credits or a smarter engine. Both modes run the same v5.5 and cost the same 10 credits a generation.
What actually changes is authorship. In Simple mode you describe a song and Suno writes the words for you. In Custom mode you supply the words, and Suno performs them. That's the whole difference - and it's why Custom is essential for some jobs and pointless for others.
Simple
One box. Describe it and go.
- A single song description field
- Suno writes the lyrics from your description
- An Instrumental toggle if you want no words
- No section control - it picks the structure
- No Advanced Options panel
Best for: exploring, finding a sound, birthday songs, anything where you don't care what the words are - and for genuinely fast ideas, where typing lyrics would slow you down.
Custom
Three fields plus the advanced drawer.
- Style of Music - the sound, separately
- Lyrics - your words, with section tags
- Title - names the track, and nudges the mood
- Full control of structure via meta tags
- Advanced Options: Exclude Styles, Weirdness, Style Influence, Audio Influence
Best for: anything you'll release, anything with words that have to be those words, and any song that needs a specific shape rather than whatever the model reaches for.
When Simple mode is the right answer
Nearly every guide tells you Custom is always better. It isn't - and reaching for it reflexively is how people spend forty minutes writing lyrics for a song whose sound they hadn't settled yet.
You're still hunting for the sound
Finding a genre takes ten generations, and writing lyrics for nine you'll throw away is wasted work. Lock the sound in Simple first, then move to Custom to write into it.
The words genuinely don't matter
Background music, a podcast bed, a shop playlist, something instrumental-adjacent. Suno's lyrics are perfectly serviceable when nobody is listening to them closely.
You want to be surprised
Custom mode gives you exactly what you asked for, which caps the result at your own imagination. Simple occasionally hands back a line you'd never have written - and that's a real reason to use it.
What goes in each field
Getting this wrong is the most common Custom mode failure, and it announces itself immediately: anything in the Lyrics box that isn't a bracketed tag gets sung out loud. People have released tracks where a voice earnestly sings "upbeat pop, female vocals, 120 BPM".
The entire sound world of the song: genre and subgenre, mood, vocal character, instruments, production and tempo, in roughly that order - Suno weighs the earliest tags most heavily.
Aim for 8 to 15 tags. Under five leaves the arrangement to the model's defaults; past twenty they start contradicting each other. Full method on the prompt guide.
The words to be performed, plus section tags in square brackets - [Verse], [Chorus], [Bridge] - each on its own line. Tags organise the arrangement and aren't sung.
The box holds 5,000 characters but filling it is a trap. Past about 3,000 - roughly 40 to 60 lines - the model starts rushing to fit everything into the runtime and the phrasing goes flat.
Names the track in your Library and on the cover art. It's the field everyone ignores, and it does more than you'd think - the title feeds into the generation, so "Concrete Sunday" and "Untitled 4" don't produce identical songs.
Leave it blank and Suno names it for you, usually from a line in your chorus.
Character limits by model
The limits follow your model version, not your plan. A free account on v4.5 gets the same 1,000-character style box as a Premier account on v5.5.
| Field | v4.5, v5, v5.5 | v4 and older | Practical ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Style of Music | 1,000 | 200 | 150-300 chars is the sweet spot - 8 to 15 tags. |
| Lyrics | 5,000 | 3,000 | Stay under ~3,000 or phrasing gets rushed. |
| Title | 100 | 80 | Short. It's a name, not a description. |
Advanced Options
Four controls that only exist in Custom mode, and they're blunter and more reliable than any wording you can put in the style box. Using them also frees up characters for the things prompts are actually good at.
Typing "no drums" into the style box mostly teaches the model the word drums. This field is the documented control. Keep it to your two or three most important exclusions - a long list confuses the model as surely as a long prompt does.
Low is textbook and commercial. High deliberately fragments. 40-60% is the right default for an original song - past about 80% the model breaks things on purpose, which is useful for sample fodder and useless for a full track.
Low treats your tags as hints, high as instructions. Pair a high setting with a lean 5-8 tag prompt - a crowded tag list at maximum adherence gives you a mix where everything you asked for is present and nothing is audible.
How hard the result tracks an uploaded or recorded audio input. Around 55% keeps the melody while re-rendering everything around it. It pulls against Style Influence - move one at a time, or you'll learn nothing from the result. More on audio inputs.
The other controls sitting alongside
Persona or Voice
Attach a Persona and Suno auto-fills the style box from the source song - delete anything in there that contradicts it, or the identity drifts. Attach a Voice and you can drop the vocal-timbre tags entirely, since the singer is already decided.
Duration slider
Added on 20 July 2026, and web only - it never came to the apps. If you need a specific song length, you need a browser. Asking for one in prose does nothing in either mode.
Model selector
Pick the version that generates. v5.5 is current and the most expressive, but it also punishes vague prompts harder than v5 did - a thin prompt sounds more generic on it, not less. Custom mode is where that matters most.
Four complete Custom mode setups
Each one is a full configuration - style box, lyrics scaffold and the settings that go with it. Paste them in, change the words, and you have a working starting point rather than a blank form. Click the icon on any block to copy it.
1 · A proper song, start to finish
The default setup. Verse, chorus, bridge, and a hard stop at the end.
2 · Instrumental that stays instrumental
For video beds, podcast music and anything a voice would ruin. Three defences, because one isn't enough.
3 · Same artist, every time
Building a catalogue that sounds like one act rather than twelve. Attach a Persona, then get out of its way.
4 · Section-level direction
When the arrangement matters as much as the words. Pipe-stacked tags and scoped cues do what prose can't.
Six Custom mode mistakes
All six are the default behaviour of someone who flipped the toggle without changing how they work.
The signature Custom mode error. Everything in that field is treated as performable text, so your genre notes get sung. Only bracketed tags are exempt. Genre, instruments, production and tempo all belong in Style of Music.
Simple mode's small box enforced discipline. A thousand characters removes it, and people write paragraphs. The model doesn't read prose better than tags - it just gets more contradictions to reconcile. Stay at 8 to 15 tags.
Suno has to fit your words into the runtime. Give it sixty lines and it rushes, flattening the phrasing that made the melody work. Cut to the best 40 lines and use Extend if the song genuinely needs more.
People spend twenty minutes rewording a prompt to stop a vocal appearing, when Exclude Styles does it in four words. If Suno gives you a dedicated control, the control wins - every time.
New style tags, a different Weirdness and a rewritten bridge, all at once. The result is worse and you've learned nothing about which change did it. One variable per generation - it's slower for two attempts and much faster by the fifth.
If you've generated eight times in Custom and still don't like the sound, the lyrics aren't the problem. Go back to Simple, find the sound in three or four fast generations, then return with the style tags that worked.
Custom mode FAQ
What is Custom mode in Suno?
A toggle at the top of the Create page that splits the single description box into Style of Music, Lyrics and Title, and adds an Advanced Options panel. Same model, same credits - you just supply the words and the settings instead of Suno choosing them.
Does Custom mode cost more credits?
No. A generation is 10 credits either way, and returns two songs either way. The only thing Custom costs you is the time it takes to fill in the fields.
Is Custom mode available on the free plan?
Yes. It's an interface toggle, not a paid feature - free accounts get the same three fields and the same Advanced Options. What the plan changes is the model, WAV export and commercial rights, not the controls.
Why is Suno singing my style description?
It's in the Lyrics box. Everything there that isn't inside square brackets is treated as words to perform. Move genre, instrument and production notes to Style of Music.
What are the character limits?
On v4.5 and up: 1,000 for Style, 5,000 for Lyrics, 100 for Title. On v4 and older it's 200 / 3,000 / 80. The limit follows your model version, not your plan.
Can I make an instrumental in Custom mode?
Yes, and it's the more reliable way. Use the Instrumental toggle, put no vocals in the style box, [Instrumental] in the lyrics field, and vocals, singing, choir in Exclude Styles. Three defences, because any one alone occasionally fails.
Is Custom mode always better than Simple?
No. Simple is genuinely better when you're still hunting for a sound, when the words don't matter, or when you want to be surprised. Custom is better for anything you intend to release. Most people should use both, in that order.
Do I have to write my own lyrics?
No - the Magic Wand will draft them from a short idea, and it costs nothing. Generate them, then edit into the shape you want. Custom mode means you control the lyrics, not that you have to originate every line.
Where is the Duration slider?
Under Advanced Options, and web only - it arrived on 20 July 2026 and never came to the mobile apps. For an exact song length you need a desktop browser.
What should Weirdness and Style Influence be?
Weirdness 40-60% for most original songs. Style Influence 40-70%, and push it to 70%+ only when your tag list is lean. Change one at a time or you can't tell which did what.
Does Custom mode work on mobile?
Yes - the toggle is at the top of Create in both apps. Mobile adds a Vocal Gender selector and Memory, and is missing the Duration slider. Everything else matches the website.
Can I switch modes mid-project?
Freely - the toggle doesn't discard anything you've generated. The usual move is exploring in Simple, then flipping to Custom once a generation sounds right and building the finished version from there.
Find the sound first, then write into it
Custom mode is where songs get finished, not where they get discovered. Three fast generations in Simple, then flip the toggle and do the real work with a sound you already trust.