What are the best Podcast hosting providers?

If you want to share your podcast with the public, you’ll quickly face the issue of podcast hosting. There are currently a wide variety of podcast providers out there, each offering different features and having different pros and cons. We take a look at five of the most popular podcast hosting providers, as well as the option of self-hosting.

What is podcast hosting?

Put simply, podcast hosting allows your podcast to reach the public more easily. Most people find podcasts on music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora. Podcast hosting providers make sure that your podcast makes it onto these platforms.

It works something like this: You sign up for a podcast hosting service of your choice and upload your episodes there. All your audio files will then be saved on the hosting server, which will generate an RSS feed. This feed is passed onto the streaming platforms, so that the podcast feed is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly updated with each new episode.

Com­par­i­son of pod­cast­ing hosting providers

As we just learned, if you want to ensure that your podcast reaches listeners, you can register with a podcast hosting provider and upload your episodes to their server. Your podcast will then appear on the various streaming platforms. So far, so good! The only “problem” is that there are a very large number of podcast hosting providers on the market, making it hard to figure out which is the right one for you. Below we’ll describe five of the most popular podcast providers and compare their features and pros/cons. But first, here are some things you may want to keep in mind when reading this guide or trying out providers:

• How intuitive and user friendly is the podcast provider?
• If you’re con­sid­er­ing a paid option, which features will be important for your podcast?
• Do you want the audio files that you upload to be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly encoded?
• Does the provider have any limits on monthly uploads (either in the number of episodes or hours)?
• What extra features does the provider offer? (For example, ad insertion, email marketing in­te­gra­tion, podcast promotion via third-party providers like Patreon, mon­e­ti­za­tion options)
• What metrics does the provider offer for eval­u­at­ing podcast sta­tis­tics?

In­for­ma­tion last updated March 2022.

Anchor

Anchor is Spotify’s podcast hosting provider and offers unlimited hosting and optimized dis­tri­b­u­tion – all for free. That means that pod­cast­ers can upload as many shows and episodes as they want, without any monthly upload limits.

This podcast provider is a great place for beginners to start, given that it’s com­plete­ly free and comes with a number of useful features. Thanks to their min­i­mal­is­tic approach and simple user interface, you can easily find your way around without any back­ground knowledge in podcast en­gi­neer­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion, or audio quality.

Of course, free programs always come with a price. There are con­sis­tent reports of technical problems when uploading podcast episodes, leading to the episode not being visible online. And Anchor also isn’t known for quick and easy customer support.

Podigee

Podigee is great for beginners who don’t have a problem with a monthly upload limit. If you’re looking to upload one or two episodes a month, the most basic of the three available pricing plans may already be suf­fi­cient for your purposes.

Users often complain about the outdated and at times confusing user interface. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Podigee limits certain features that might also be relevant for beginners to the Advanced and Pro­fes­sion­al packages. For example, the podcast sta­tis­tics available in the Basic package are minimal, just like the four hours of included audio encoding per month. Compared with the other podcast hosting services we mention, these lim­i­ta­tions mean that Podigee isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly rec­om­mend­ed to budget users.

Podigee is par­tic­u­lar­ly popular among business users thanks to its con­for­mi­ty with the European data privacy reg­u­la­tion GDPR. However, even if you’re aiming for a lis­ten­er­ship in Europe, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about data privacy reg­u­la­tions unless you’re hosting a branded podcast for a company or a podcast produced for com­mer­cial purposes.

Captivate

Captivate is a growing player on the market. It offers a number of features that go beyond the basic functions of a podcast hosting provider — for example, tutorials on how to properly set up a podcast and their own repos­i­to­ry of content (called Growth Labs) on themes in podcast pro­duc­tion such as podcast SEO, marketing, and mon­e­ti­za­tion.

Captivate wins points with its clean, modern interface. With a one-click feature, you can either choose in­di­vid­ual streaming platforms to upload your podcast to or upload it to all platforms at once.

Advanced pod­cast­ers will ap­pre­ci­ate that there’s no monthly upload limit, meaning you can upload as many podcasts and hours of content as you want. The number of listener downloads is re­strict­ed, but this probably won’t be an issue for most users. The limit for the most basic plan is 12,000 downloads per month.

Tran­sis­tor

Tran­sis­tor is one of the newer podcast hosting providers that is geared towards advanced pod­cast­ers with an interest in com­pre­hen­sive analytics features and anyone who wants to host more than one show.

All the pricing plans offered by Tran­sis­tor allow you to create private and public podcasts from the same account. The private podcast feature will be es­pe­cial­ly in­ter­est­ing for anyone who wants to monetize their podcast from the start and earn money with listener mem­ber­ships.

Tran­sis­tor doesn’t have a monthly upload limit, but there is a limit on downloads. The most basic plan costs $19 a month (or $190 a year) and comes with 15,000 downloads. Let’s be clear: Tran­sis­tor is really made for pro­fes­sion­al pod­cast­ers, agencies, and large companies. It nonethe­less offers great value for money, so if you’re a beginner looking to dive deep into the world of pod­cast­ing, consider testing out this provider with the 14-day free trial.

Buz­zsprout

Buz­zsprout is regarded as par­tic­u­lar­ly user friendly among pod­cast­ers. The podcast hosting provider markets itself using words like “speed” and “sim­plic­i­ty”, referring to how quick and easy it is to get your podcast on Spotify, Deezer, and other streaming platforms. The user interface has a min­i­mal­is­tic design that allows for easy nav­i­ga­tion of features. Buz­zsprout also offers users tutorials on pod­cast­ing and the various features they provide.

If podcast analytics are important to you, you’ll be happy with the com­pre­hen­sive sta­tis­tics provided by Buz­zsprout. How many users listened to your last episode and for how long? Which country do most of your users listen from? Which streaming service brings the most listeners? In addition to providing in­ter­est­ing insights for you as a podcast host, this in­for­ma­tion can be valuable for ne­go­ti­at­ing ad­ver­tis­ing deals.

Buz­zsprout can in theory be used for free, but episodes are deleted after 90 days with the free version. Paid plans are priced based on upload limits: the least expensive plan ($12/month) offers 3 hours of uploads a month; for 12 hours of monthly uploads, you’re looking at $24/month.

What are the ad­van­tages of podcast hosting with a provider?

Using a podcast hosting provider like Podigee or Captivate makes it sig­nif­i­cant­ly easier to create a podcast. You’ll not only save a lot of time but also benefit from the numerous practical features offered by hosting services.

Here are some of the benefits of using a podcast hosting service:

• Automatic creation of an RSS feed for your podcast
• Podcast episodes are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly forwarded to streaming services
• Many providers offer one-click dis­tri­b­u­tion, meaning that you never need to submit your podcast to streaming services yourself
• You’ll likely get your own podcast website and a podcast player that can be embedded on websites
• Com­pre­hen­sive analytics features for analyzing listener behavior
• Useful features for podcast marketing and expanding your reach
• Tool in­te­gra­tion for social media (e.g. creation of audiogram videos)

Can I host my own podcast?

In theory, you can also “manually” host your podcast on your own server. To do that, you’ll need your own webspace. The biggest dis­ad­van­tage of self-hosting is time: If you decide to host your own podcast, you’ll need to make a creator account with each in­di­vid­ual streaming service and upload your episodes sep­a­rate­ly to each service.

Embedding your podcast on your website

Consider creating a dedicated website for your podcast to spread the word about it. If your podcast still doesn’t have a lot of reach, a website with good SEO can go a long way.

Most podcast hosting providers provide tools for this, such as so-called “podcast players”. In addition, there are numerous WordPress podcast plugins that you can use to integrate your podcast content on your WordPress site.