In the mobile phone market ringtones are now big business and there are several companies that offer ringtones for sale. You can purchase individual ringtones or you can subscribe to services that allow you to download a fixed number of new ringtones every month. The thing is you don’t need to pay for ringtones at all there are ways of getting them for free and you can even make your own ringtones.

The first stop for anyone with a new iPhone looking for ringtones will be iTunes. You can download a track from more than 500,000 currently on offer at a cost of $0.99 each. You can have the track converted into a custom ringtone via iTunes for another $0.99. That means you can get ringtones made from any song on iTunes for a total cost of $1.98. You can download the new ringtone via a sync with iTunes and you also get to keep the full music track as a separate file. There are more expensive options out there for ringtones but there are cheaper options too.

You don’t need to pay anything at all if you already have a song that you would like to convert into a ringtone. If you check the article at The Apple Blog you can find a detailed step-by-step guide for creating free iPhone ringtones using iTunes and songs that are already on your computer. This method only works with DRM free tracks but you can get around this by using an application called GarageBand.

If you would rather not use a song for your ringtone and you want to find some free options then check out Mac Most. They have a variety of free ringtones which you can preview as MP3 files and they also provide them as free downloads in the .m4r file format. This means you can download them and just drag and drop them into iTunes in order to sync them onto your iPhone the next time you connect it. The quality of some of them is not fantastic but there are plenty of themes to choose from and they are all completely free.

If you are willing to sign up to a subscription service then you could check out something like Ringtone Feeder. They charge $1.98 per month or $19.98 for a full year and that fee entitles you to download at least two new ringtones every week. The installation is easy and these files come ready for use in vocal and instrumental varieties.

It is so easy to create your own iPhone ringtones that subscription services seem like a waste of money to me but if you want something easy to use then they might appeal. For a ringtone to work it has to be 40 seconds or less and while making them is easy some people will prefer just choosing something they want and downloading it. You can still do this without having to subscribe to a service or pay out any cash.

If you want access to a wide selection of completely free, no strings attached ringtones then check out Nakko. You can sign up for a free account and get access to a wide selection of ringtones for your iPhone which can be downloaded for nothing. Each account lets you create a locker where you can store your selections and you can even upload your own creations to the site for others to download. Each ringtone has a five star rating to help you choose the best examples and there is a locker count which gives you a guide to the popularity.

Once you have the ringtone you want, simply use iTunes to convert it into the right format and you can add it to your iPhone the next time you sync. Finding and setting up iPhone ringtones is easy, free and fun.