Discover the Best Podcast Hosting Sites in 2023

Arguably one of the most popular hosting solutions available and definitely one of the best free podcast hosting sites available, Buzzsprout found its place on every top list. With a generous forever free plan, an easy-to-use interface, and affordable pricing, Buzzsprout leaves little to be desired.

Overview

Buzzsprout’s main selling point is providing all the core features you need in a simple, approachable, and affordable package. Naturally, its main feature is the ability to share your podcast with all the popular directories like Spotify, Apple Podcast, and others.

Its neatly designed interface, coupled with recent updates, makes the creation and publishing of your podcasts a breeze. You just punch in basic data such as the episode name, episode summary, description, and the content creators behind the episode.

The publishing process is greatly streamlined. This is what makes Buzzsprout possibly the best hosting site for podcast content for new users. After you insert all the info and upload the file, you choose which directories to publish and voila.

Buzzsprout gives you access to a simple podcast website where users can view, share, and subscribe to your podcast. With the free plan, your website will feature ads. Additionally, Buzzsprout provides you with various useful statistics like the number of downloads, on which platforms and devices your users tune in to your podcast, and more.

On top of that, this hosting site automatically optimizes your audio files when you upload them, saving you the hassle of managing bitrates, formats, and ID3 tags.

This podcast publishing site also allows you to add podcast transcriptions. It can improve the audio of your episodes through Magic Mastering and gives you access to a monetization marketplace. Furthermore, Buzzsprout enables you to embed a podcast player straight to your websites with a few simple lines of code, and it allows you to structure your episodes by chapters as well.

Pricing

Buzzsprout offers a free package and three paid subscription-based monthly plans. While some sites offer discounts if you subscribe annually, this isn’t possible with Buzzsprout – you have to pay month by month. This hosting site does not allow unlimited upload bandwidth – each pricing plan has an upper cap on the number of hours of content you can upload monthly.

The free podcast hosting plan allows you to upload up to two hours of content per month. With this plan, your episodes are hosted for 90 days, after which they’re deleted. As we mentioned, the free plan also brings advertisements to your podcast website. However, you can add unlimited team members and have access to advanced statistics. Magic Mastering is not available with the free package.

The three paid plans cost $12/$18/$24 per month and allow you to upload 3/6/12 hours of content monthly, respectively. Opting in for the paid plans removes the ads from your podcast website. Your episodes are stored indefinitely with paid plans as well, and you can easily import your podcasts from podcasting hosting sites if you need to.

Magic Mastering comes as an optional paid add-on for $6/$9/$12 per month, depending on the plan you’re subscribed to. Another optional add-on is the episode transcription service, with Buzzsprout’s team transcribing your podcast for $0.25 per minute.

Verdict

Buzzsprout holds everything you might look for in hosting platforms. It has a solid free plan, easy episode publishing and sharing, as well as useful analytics to track your success. Our only grievance was the presence of upload bandwidth limits, which many of its competitors omitted from their offers.

InMotion is a veteran of the web hosting industry, with over 11 million hosted domains under its belt. The company offers a large variety of hosting options, from shared to dedicated servers, as well as VPS and cloud hosting. In our search for the best podcast hosting app around, we checked out their entire hosting catalog, settling on the WordPress hosting packages as the best deal for aspiring podcasters.

Overview 

InMotion doesn’t necessarily have a dedicated podcast hosting platform, but their WordPress hosting packages are clearly tailored to podcast enthusiasts.

First off, every plan comes with unlimited monthly emails and bandwidth. The company does have a disclaimer about responsible usage, but it’s nice to see podcast sites that free you from having to worry about strict monthly data caps and allow you to focus on your podcasts.

InMotion offers several useful tools for making the most of your podcasts. Every customer gets several marketing tools and even free advertising credits at Yahoo and Bing to promote their podcast. However, these are only available to customers with valid US mailing addresses.

All plans except for the cheapest one also get access to the Jetpack set of WordPress tools, featuring analytics and backup tools, social media integration, custom WordPress themes as well as CDN and security tools. InMotion even has several blogs that suggest the best podcast app or WordPress plugin choices for boosting the reach of your podcasts.

Pricing 

When it comes to pricing, InMotion offers several pricing tiers. The most affordable one and that we recommend offers standard hosting servers, while the more advanced options give you dedicated WordPress servers but obviously cost a lot more.

The most standard WP-1000S plan starts at $4.99 per month on a three-year plan. It includes hosting for one website, 50 GB of  SSD storage, free domain and SSL, unlimited emails and bandwidth per month as well as some basic marketing tools.

If you’re wondering where to host a podcast that will be able to take advantage of the Jetpack Personal suite of WP tools free of charge, the WP-2000S and WP-3000S plans are your go-to options. These also come with larger SSD storage, faster performance, and up to two or three hosted websites. The WP-2000S is currently on discount and costs only $4.99/month, while the WP-3000S is $10.99/month. The top-tier WP-4000S plan even comes with a dedicated IP address. It’s the only plan available on a monthly subscription of $25.99.

To get the best podcast hosting service around, you really don’t need dedicated server hosting, but the option is there if you want it. These servers can be rented out for one, three, or six months or even an entire year. The most affordable option is the yearly subscription, which starts at $139.99 per month and goes up to $259.99. Even the basic option here comes with five dedicated IP addresses, a complementary 1 TB disk drive, and a launch assist feature with two hours of free managed hosting, and things only get better from there.

Verdict

InMotion may not be the first option that people will consider when looking for the best place to host a podcast, but the company definitely has the chops to take on its more dedicated and specialized rivals. While we would’ve loved more options tailored specifically to podcasters, the attractive price, advanced security and marketing features, and access to unlimited email and bandwidth each month offer compelling reasons to give them serious consideration.

Transistor.fm is a fairly new site, which quickly rose to the sphere of most popular podcast platforms. The site was launched in 2018 by two people – a podcaster and a person that created a podcasting tool. Now it hosts more than 9,000 podcasts. While Transistor does not have a free plan, it allows you to create and upload an unlimited number of podcasts across all of its pricing plans.

Overview

One of Transistor’s main advantages over the competition is its ability to make unlimited podcasts under one account. This not only means that you can upload as many episodes of your podcast as you please, but that you can make an unlimited number of separate podcast series.

Naturally, this means that Transistor has no upload bandwidth limits with any of its packages. This is what makes it one of the best podcast distribution platforms available.

Transistor also allows you to create private podcasts without requiring you to create a new account or pay any additional fees. Private podcasts have several uses, from creating intra-company messages and broadcasts to making exclusive content for subscribers and backers.

Of course, Transistor.fm also allows you to quickly upload and share your podcast with all the desired podcast directories on the net by generating an RSS feed. You can freely add additional team members to your podcast, but their number is limited, with pricier plans increasing the team member pool.

Like any best platform for podcasts, Transistor also lets you access a string of useful statistics regarding your podcast. These statistics include data on viewership, their preferred devices and listening platforms, average downloads per episode, and so on.

Furthermore, Transistor aims to make projections about the number of subscribers and downloads you’ll have in the future – all very useful pieces of data for making content plans and for pitching to potential sponsors.

Transistor also lets you create your own podcast website, which you can customize visually. As with most other hosting platforms, you can also embed a podcast player into your pre-existing websites.

Pricing

As we mentioned, Transistor does not offer podcast hosting for free. There are three pricing plans available – Starter, Professional, and Business. The hosting service is paid on a monthly basis. If you choose to subscribe for a whole year, you get two months for free.

The Starter plan costs $19 a month, and it allows you to create and upload an unlimited number of podcasts. You also get access to analytics, but the number of monthly downloads is limited to 10,000. The Starter plan allows you to add up to two additional users.

The Professional podcasting service plan will set you back $49/mo, but it increases the number of monthly downloads to 50,000 and boosts the additional user limit to five. On top of that, and everything present in the Starter plan, you get access to private podcasting, with a maximum number of subscribers capped at 500.

Lastly, we have the Business plan which costs a whopping $99 a month. With it, the number of monthly downloads is increased to 150,000, additional users to 10, and private podcasts to three, with a 1,000 cap on private podcast subs.

Verdict

Transistor is, without a doubt, one of the best platforms for podcasts. The fact that it provides unlimited upload bandwidth and allows the creation of as many podcasts as you want is invaluable. However, it is pricier than some of its competitors.

Captivate is a UK-based company behind one of the prettiest-looking podcast hosting sites we’ve encountered. Besides the visual appeal, Captivate brings unlimited podcast creation and uploads, easy publishing and sharing, as well as marketing and growth-oriented features. Captivate is also a very new hosting site, launched in 2019, which is evident from its modern look and the robust tools it offers.

Overview

The first thing that captures your attention with Captivate is its beautiful design. Your website and dashboard make the process of managing and uploading your podcast truly enjoyable, making it one of the best places to upload podcasts.

Of course, Captivate’s allure goes far beyond its visuals. All of their plans come with unlimited podcasts uploads, and you can also create different podcast series freely, all in the confines of a single account and subscription.

Furthermore, Captivate offers to transfer your podcasts from previous hosting sites for free, if you decide to opt-in for their services.

Veterans and new users alike will feel right at home with Captivate. The interface is very intuitive, and you’re greeted with great tutorials whenever you reach a new screen or a feature you haven’t used before. As can be expected from the best podcasting hosts, Captivate automatically creates RSS feeds for your podcast and shares them with the desired podcast directories.

When publishing, you just need to punch in all the usual data like episode name, description, publishing time, and author.
Captivate differs from its competitors in how it treats the files you upload. While many hosting sites optimize your files, changing metadata and bitrates, Captivate leaves your files exactly as they were.

This means that when users download your podcast, they’ll be downloading exactly the same file as you uploaded. This is extremely useful for users that handle their own production, but might be less optimal for beginners that are less tech-savvy.

As with most places to upload podcasts, Captivate gives you access to a plethora of useful analytics. These include average downloads, episode breakdowns, preferred directories where the listeners access your podcast, from which device, from what country, and so forth.

Captivate also automatically creates your podcast website that you can customize according to your preferences. Your dashboard for managing your podcast is available both on desktop and mobile devices, allowing you to perform all the necessary actions wherever you may be.

On top of all of this, Captivate features useful tools for finding sponsors, like the One-click Sponsor Kit which creates a pdf with all your analytics neatly presented for pitching to sponsors, embedded players, and call-to-action buttons.

Pricing

Like most top podcast platforms, Captivate offers three separate pricing plans – Podcaster, Audio Influencer, and Podcast Brand. All of the pricing plans allow unlimited podcasts and unlimited team members, analytics, and other features. They just differ in the number of allowed monthly downloads.

• Podcaster – $19 per month, 12,000 monthly downloads
• Audio Influencer – $44 per month, 60,000 monthly downloads
• Podcast Brand – $90 per month, 150,000 monthly downloads

Verdict

Captivate is probably one of the best podcast hosting options for growth-driven users. The plethora of features available aimed at marketing and financing your podcast, coupled with the simplicity of its pricing, make it a truly great choice for ambitious podcasters.

Next up on our list of best podcast hosting sites is Podbean. While many of the sites we reviewed here are relatively new, Podbean has been around for a long time. The company started back in 2006 and over time has accrued quite a following, making it one of the most well-known hosting platforms around.

Podbean’s user-friendly approach, unlimited podcast hosting, and robust monetization features make it a mandatory stop in the search for the right hosting platform.

Overview

Podbean has all the features that you might need for running and publishing a successful podcast. First of all, like many of the best podcast hosting platform options on our list, it allows unlimited episode uploads. The podcast publishing process is simplified, making it easy for first-time users to instantly jump in, without sacrificing any utility.

After you click ‘publish,’ your RSS feed is automatically updated, reaching all the needed podcast directories like Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts. You can set up timetables for publishing, uploading the episodes beforehand, and letting Podbean distribute the podcast on the set date and time.

Podbean also has a pretty robust mobile app which has the same functionalities as your web dashboard and can be used for publishing podcasts as well.

Besides sharing your podcast to various online directories, this podcast software can automatically publish your podcast to social media accounts you’ve connected to, and they’ll be available on Alexa via the Podbean Alexa skill.

Podbean also creates a personalized podcast website for you, with a customizable theme. Another great feature is the ability to create your own personalized domain for the site instead of using the default brand ones. If you have a pre-existing site, you can easily embed the Podbean podcast player on it if you wish to do so. If you want to, you can allow users to subscribe to your podcast via email, and they’ll receive automatic notifications when you publish a new episode.

Of course, no anchor for podcasts would be complete without analytics. Podbean supplies you with the following data analytics: average downloads, listener geographies, the dominant devices and platforms among your listeners, your top 10 episodes, user retention, and the optimal time of day for publishing.

Additionally, Podbean offers several monetization features to help you generate revenue from your podcasts. There’s a Podbean advertising marketplace where you can quickly connect with potential advertisers, while the PodAds SaaS will use dynamic insertion tools to seamlessly incorporate ads into your episodes.

Additionally, you can create premium content only available for users that pay monthly or per-episode fees to you, as well as create a Patron page for donations.

Pricing

Besides its paid plans, Podbean is also one of the best free podcast hosting platform options available. There are four plans in total – Basic, Unlimited Audio, Unlimited Plus, and Business. The free plan is the only one that has bandwidth limits, but the cheaper paid plans lack some features found in the pricier ones.

The Basic plan is free to use forever but limits your bandwidth to 100 GB and five hours of content per month. You get access to the Podbean app and your own podcast website that you can customize with basic themes. The Basic plan also features basic podcast analytics.

The Unlimited Audio plan costs $14 per month ($9/mo if billed annually) and removes all bandwidth limits. Furthermore, it unlocks more customization options for your site, allows the creation of your own domain, and gives you access to advanced analytics like those found with other top podcast platforms. Additionally, you unlock the ads marketplace and premium sales monetization features with this plan.

The Unlimited Plus plan is $39 per month ($29 for annual subs). With it, you can make video podcasts, gain access to full customization options for your site, and unlock Patron and PodAds SaaS monetization tools.

Lastly, the Business plan sets you back $129 each month ($99 if billed annually) and unlocks private podcasts; the pro version of the Podbean app gives you an overview of user engagement stats, allows multiple admins for your podcasts, and puts live chat support at your disposal.

Verdict

Podbean definitely deserves a place on our top podcast hosting sites list. The amount of website customization and monetization features cannot be matched by any of its competitors. The fact that it allows unlimited bandwidth with all of its paid plans is always a plus.

Last but not least, we have Simplecast. It has been in the game since 2013 and has since grown to be among the favorite hosting destinations for podcasters. Besides having regular pricing plans aimed at individual podcasters and their teams, it also offers packages for brands and businesses.

Overview

At its core, Simplecast has very similar features to those found with any best podcast website. You can freely upload an unlimited number of episodes for your podcast. Simplecast features a beautiful, modern-looking interface that makes the upload and sharing process a breeze.

If you were using some other hosting platform beforehand, you can easily migrate it to Simplecast with only a few clicks.

Like any other hosting site, Simplecast creates an RSS feed out of your podcast that is then distributed to appropriate directories. You can also create multiple different podcasts shows under one account. Any files over 128 kbps are automatically re-encoded to this bitrate, while anything below is kept at its original bitrate.

This isn’t unusual for both paid and free podcast websites, but it might be a problem if you’re handling your own production and want to retain ultra-high quality; however, it might be possible to renegotiate terms with Simplecast concerning re-encoding.

Besides sharing whole episodes on podcast directories and social media, Simplecast also allows you to create Recasts – shareable short audio clips that you can share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and similar services.

Of course, Simplecast also lets you create a personalized website for your podcast. You can customize the site by choosing the theme, adding additional pages, and so forth. Creating and customizing your site is also made extremely easy with the helpful Simplecast interface.

Like most of the best podcast hosting platforms, Simplecast allows you to embed a podcast player on websites you own. These players are also customizable, with the option to embed a minimalistic version of the player if you wish to do so.

Simplecast’s biggest pride and joy is the analytics it provides. Simplecast feeds you useful data like the geolocation of listeners, whether they listen while at home or on the move, the preferred platform and device of your listeners, and individual episode breakdowns. All of this data is audited and approved by the IAB tech lab.

For developers and more tech-savvy users, Simplecast offers its publishing and distribution API. This is a feature we’d like to see among other cheap podcast hosting sites as well, as it allows you to build your own site, app, or analytic dashboard with the Simplecast API.

Pricing

Simplecast offers three pricing plans for independent podcasters and two packages for networks and businesses.
The individual packages are Basic ($15/mo), Essential ($35/mo), and Growth ($85/mo). These prices are for monthly subscribers – if you decide to subscribe for a full year, they’re discounted.

The Basic plan covers all the features we mentioned above in our review, sans the Simplecast API. The upload bandwidth is unlimited, but the number of downloads is capped at 20,000 per month. This plan also limits the number of team member seats to two.

The next plan with this best podcast hosting site is the Essential package. It allows four team members and gives you access to additional web players and advanced analytics like unique listener reports. The number of monthly downloads is capped at 50,000.

The Growth plan further broadens the analytics you can access, like ISP analytics, comparing multiple episode statistics, as well as detailed device data. This plan allows up to 120,000 downloads per month.

The business plans grant access to the developer API, deep listener and user retention data, high-bit audio files, and other advanced tools.

Verdict

The breadth of tools at your disposal with Simplecast cannot be dismissed. Robust features aimed both at individual podcasters and businesses combined with ease-of-use make Simplecast a top choice for users of all stripes and possibly the best place to post podcasts. The only downside might be the monthly download limits, but they’re not too constricting.