Last updated on March 15th, 2024
Have you given serious thought to which podcast host you’re going to use for your podcast?
As podcast creators we tend to give a lot of time and attention to our show content and the gear we use to record it. And rightly so.
The listener experience is paramount to your show’s growth and ultimate success. Any part of the process that impacts that listener experience needs pouring over with a fine tooth comb.
Most listeners consume their podcasts by way of RSS feed. Their podcatcher of choice picks up that feed. Where you choose to host your podcast finds its way down the list of priorities as a result.
As long as it’s technically working, why rock the boat? That mentality finds a lot of podcasts still using SoundCloud. Even when that may no longer be the best fit for their show.
I’d encourage all creators to do a hosting audit and see if there’s a better choice. We should do this far more often. The market has grown up and there are SoundCloud alternatives worth a look.
Steve Wilson, formerly head of marketing at Apple Podcasts, pleaded for podcasters to stay away from using SoundCloud as their podcast host. Why? It’s just not designed for it.
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SoundCloud, as a podcast host does have a lot going for it on the surface. There are reasons it was as big as it was at its peak and why SiriusXM was so interested in dropping that much coin on their transaction.
Related reading: 12 of the best podcast hosting services
This comes from their musician roots. Swapping “tapes” and getting new music out into the scene is a big deal. SoundCloud has always had that just under the surface of their offering.
It’s “iTunes like” in that it has dedicated apps and a dedicated ecosystem. From the perspective of attracting a new audience, you can capture “SoundCloud” only listeners who may not be using another podcatcher. If you came to SoundCloud for the face melting underground dark metal band, you might stay for an obscure indie music podcast. That might not happen if you’re using another podcatcher.
That’s a big one. You can graduate to a paid service with more bells and whistles later. But when you’re launching a new pod idea, why pay when you don’t have to, right? Again, born of it’s garage band roots, free distribution is a big deal when you look at the world of record contract advances. Podcasting doesn’t have those same financial foundations, but new podcasters benefited alongside their musician cousins.
They make an honest effort at metrics and analytics.
As the podcast market matured, so did the podcast hosting providers. The demand created by an explosion in new podcasts attracted new players to the pitch.
What might we be looking to build and improve on if we are willing to jump ship?
SoundCloud was built around music and music distribution. For independent musicians, they are a de facto better financial choice than big record labels. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to podcasters. Something to think about and consider.
Spoken word podcasts don’t require the fidelity that music does, which means you should have the option to cap your sound quality to get more length for the same size file. SoundCloud doesn’t allow this.
They’ve had a recent influx of money and interest from outside parties like the aforementioned SiriusXM, but you have to ask yourself if you want to ride that roller coaster. A business that’s in trouble has to make changes that can have a significant impact on your show.
| Podcast Host | Starting Plan Price | Discount Link | Storage | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spreaker | Free | First month free with code "discoverpod" | 5 hours | Unlimited |
| Podbean | Free | First month free | 5 hours | 100 GB |
| Buzzsprout | Free | $20 Amazon gift card | 2 hours | 100 GB |
| Transistor | $19/month | Discount | Unlimited | 15,000 downloads |
| Simplecast | $15/month | First month free with code "discoverpods" | Unlimited | 20,000 downloads |
| Castos | $15/month | First month free with code "discoverpods" | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Blubrry | $12/month | First month free with code "discoverpods" | 100 MB (roughly 2-6 hours) | Unlimited |
| Captivate | $19/month | None | Unlimited | 12,000 downloads |
| Libsyn | $15/month | None | 250 MB (roughly 4-8 hours) | Unlimited |
| Anchor | Free | None | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Red Circle | Free | None | Unlimited | Unlimited |
The best things in life are free right? I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere. But really, as someone who has bootstrapped several businesses, taking action with a free service trumps a fancy paid service. At least when you’re first starting out.
Related reading: best free podcast hosting services
With how far free hosting has come, it doesn’t make financial sense to spend money before you’ve tested your podcast in the market and built an audience that you can monetize.
SoundCloud is a good free hosting provider, but can we do better in 2021 and beyond? Let’s look at some of the best free SoundCloud alternatives for podcast hosting.
Founded in 2010 as an all-in-one podcast solution, Spreaker has been well-received as one of the most well rounded solutions in the market. And they do it on the cheap. Spreaker is a great spot to host your podcast, sure, but it’s the included ancillary services that make it stand apart.
Spreaker features an onboard recording and editing suite that has no rival at this price point. Meaning you can produce your podcast from soup to nuts, or idea to distribution, all within Spreaker itself. No need for additional digital audio workstation (DAW) software.
The free plan offers basic analytics, 15 minutes of live broadcasting, and full RSS distribution. Spreaker knows who their audience is and actively fosters creators towards a show that would make more sense on their paid platforms.
Enjoy your first month free with code “discoverpod.”
Podbean was founded in 2006, just two years after the term “podcast” was coined, making it one of the oldest providers on this list. Simplicity is the name of the game with Podbean, and it is designed for podcast creators with very limited technical knowledge.
This can be a double-edged sword. Viewed in a positive light, it liberates creators to focus on their content and worry less about getting caught in the gear trap.
Even at the free pricing level Podbean offers full RSS distribution, 5 hours of storage, and a dedicated Podbean app for iOS and Android. They do offer paid plans as well if your podcast’s trajectory is ascendant and you don’t feel like making a move.
After a decade in business Buzzsprout’s free plan still has a lot to like if you aren’t publishing a daily or weekly episode. The free plan does have some limitations that seem designed to steer you toward one of their paid options where you’ll find a plethora of extras.
That said, the free plan does hosting well. It distributes widely to all the major podcast directories and supports plenty of bandwidth. Even for shows with a higher file quality. If you sincerely think your podcast will be monetizing quickly, a layover at Buzzsprout’s free plan might be the right move for you.
Read our full Buzzsprout review.
$20 Amazon gift card when you sign up
If you’ve been podcasting a while, you’ve come across Anchor. It’s the Soundcloud alternatives for podcast hosting that is popular with hobbyist creators. And for good reason, they’re owned by Spotify and the corresponding deep pockets.
Anchor is free and has unlimited hosting. That alone would be enough to attract attention, but Anchor takes budding podcasters a step further.
Unlike some other hosts, Anchor doesn’t restrict your bit rate at all. If you have a music heavy show you want to broadcast at 256k, go for it. Married to the high quality audio capability are some next level analytics for a free host that are very useful when building an audience.
The free tier also includes some structured monetization that isn’t always found in the gratis offerings.
Red Circle is free. Their business model is unlike any other on this list. Red Circle doesn’t make money unless you make money. They work on a commission or arbitrage model and thus their financial incentives are more in line with the creator’s.
This works great for shows that are new and starting out. The last thing they need is new overhead when they’re focused on creating new content.
Commissions at Red Circle range from 4.5% on direct donations (a feature SoundCloud also launched last spring) to 50% on “programmatic” ads. The latter being basically commercials the podcast host themselves has nothing to do with.
When you’ve been at it a while and you’re starting to build a significant audience, your podcast hosting review will likely suggest a paid option. After all, you get what you pay for, right?
While free options are a solid baseline, paid options offer refined features like granular analytics, more monetization opportunities, and advanced marketing.
Several of the free options I covered above have paid tiers, but if you’re ready to make a paid move, look to these hosts. These SoundCloud alternatives for podcast hosting are dedicated to a paying audience. You may not need a stopover at one of the providers splitting their attention between free and paid.
What jumps out at you about Transistor.fm is that they want to be the podcast host for those with a lot of ideas. One of the first calls to action on the site is that you can host as many different podcast streams under one account as you’d like. Instead of trying to cram everything into a single show, break that audience up and get paid.
Their HTML5 based web player integrates well with most content management systems (CMS) meaning it’s easy to share across the web. You’ll want to be embedding all of your shows on all of your platforms.
The only thing holding you back with Transistor.FM is that you have a download cap. 15,000 downloads per month on their introductory plan. Caps are a bummer, but that’s kind of a first world problem isn’t it?
If you’re looking for professional options that won’t bankrupt the show and grow with you over time, Blubrry might be the host for you. The lower echelon of their pricing scale forces podcasters to cut back on some niceties, sure. The 100mb upload per month limit is going to force you to scale back the audio quality for example.
Burbrry’s “long tail” podcasting gives podcasters an opportunity to squeeze every drop of value from their archive. You can cut in evergreen audio segments globally into the archive. Without impacting your bandwidth quotas or ranking.
That means newer, more relevant ads, higher paying archive ads, and other updates that translate to more revenue.
The platform is literally stuffed with little addons like that. We did a much deeper dive on Blubrry before, and the platform just keeps getting better in the low end paid space. It won’t be for every show, but it requires a look.
As a relative newcomer to the podcast host game, Captivate was born out of one podcaster’s desire for simplicity and like minded goals. Frustration with the competition can be a powerful motivator.
Captivate’s pricing model is based on downloads per month. Their $19 per month plan will serve you up to 12,000 downloads. Plenty to monetize your show with a basic advertising model. So, it’s not like it breaks the bank.
Further, Captivate’s philosophy centers around building a podcaster community. They regularly push shows to be featured on their platform and do put some marketing umph behind their client’s work.
When you’re ready to look at paid hosting, this may feel like a homey place to land.
Lybsyn is one of the oldest podcast hosts in the space, having been around since 2004. It’s a company that gives off a vibe that they somehow invented the space. Other companies feel hip, experimental, and collaborative. Libsyn feels established and competent.
More than 75,000 podcasts are using Libsyn and those numbers convey a well deserved heft.
The old guard company delivers unlimited listens, a robust app ecosystem, and wide distribution. At their lower pricing tiers, they offer a steeper learning curve, and cost plus basic analytics.
Libsyn is a professional’s podcast host, so if you can get in at their higher pricing tiers, you’ll feel better about it. There are better free options available if you’re looking at their $5 per month tier.
SoundCloud is a familiar proving ground for many a podcast when they’re just starting out. As a free hosting solution it offers enough to serve as a proof of concept.
There are enough questions about the future of the SoundCloud business model that should give creators pause. It makes sense for podcast creators to take a proactive look at these SoundCloud alternatives for podcast hosting.
If for no other reason than to have your bases covered.
As the podcast industry has grown up, more mature, dedicated, hosting options have emerged. Both in the free and paid arenas.
SoundCloud was a giant, and maybe it will be again. But their trajectory is a reminder that, as creatives, we ought not leave all of our eggs in a single basket.
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