Amazing Podcasters,
Happy Wednesday! I have a question about podcast hosting.
What podcast hosting platform are you using?
I have one podcast on Simplecast at this time. However, there will be a fee for a 2nd podcast on it. Is it common practice for your platform as well?
I am preparing for launching a podcast for a volunteer project. What’s your recommendation for a podcast hosting platform with more than one show?
Thank you in advance!
I moved this over to the #workbench category.
I’m using Simplecast for two of my shows—the Podcaster Community show, and my Little Box of Quotes daily show—and then for Movers Mindset I’m self-hosting with Wordpress and some podcasting plugins.
I don’t recommend anyone, ever, self-host their podcast. And anyone who is capable of doing so will know when to ignore my recommendation to never do so.
I like Simplecast because it Just Works™ but I wish I could find a great podcast host that was supporting some of the new podcasting namespace features (like synchronized transcript display with playback.)
PS What is the podcast namespace? It’s a neat project led by James Cridland of PodNews fame.
I use Blubrry 400 MB plan for $20 per month. I could add an addition podcast.
I’m like Substack. First it’s free, and second it’s based on an email newsletter so even if you don’t have an episode you can contact your audience via email. So particularly good if your podcast is in support of some other activity or business.
It’s not perfect, but I’ve used a few hosts over the years and even self hosted via Feedburner when that was possible, and this has been the best method so far for me.
The main drawback is that you have to do some of the distribution setup yourself. So you have to register your podcast directly with Apple, etc. But you only have to do that at setup and there’s plenty of helpful advice to get it done.
What happens when you publish a new audio post; when Substack emails your subscribers, is the audio simply-click-and-it-plays inside my email reader? Or must I click back to Substack’s website to play the audio?
This feature of Substack really intrigues me as part of my Thoughts on Conversation newsletter. I’ve started writing on Substack and intend to start using their audio/podcast feature for the paying subscribers on Substack.
@craigconstantine Thank you for moving the post to the right place and for your experience with Simplecast. I don’t know about namespace so great to learn about it.
@DannyvLHealthHats It’s wonderful to know about the service of Blubrry. Do you pay more when you go over 400MB? Thank you, Danny.
@Mark I don’t know about the podcast/audio feature of Substack. I am very interested in exploring further. I am curious to know if a newsletter can include text and an episode of a podcast. Thank you for your insight and recommendation.
Yes. More over 400MB. I’ve never done that. My podcast is way more dense than yours
Hi @AmandaB
I have limited experience with the various platforms and am no expert, but I use Podbean and one of the main reasons for choosing it, apart from the good value (when you pay the full year), is that there is no extra charge of an additional podcast (at their lowest-priced paid plan, but not on their free plan).
Cheers,
Ron
@craigconstantine when then podcast email is sent, it looks like you can play it within the email, but it’s just a regular button “
Listen now”. That button links to the podcast episode webpage where you can then click on play.
I’ve attached a screenshot of one of the emails from a podcast I set up:
When you click on ‘Listen now’ you get taken here.
It’s certainly not perfect and what I did was to put out a second email later in the same week with the rough transcript and additional content that you wouldn’t get if you are listening via a podcast player. For this particular episode, I sent this.
I hope this helps.
THANKS! That’s super-helpful, and I think it will work just fine for what I’m imagining doing. (Sorry to hijack your topic @AmandaB 
Danny, This is very helpful. Thanks!
@Ron Thank you for sharing your Podbean experience. It seems like a good choice with its service and pricing. I will head over and learn more about it. Thank you!
This is very interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing how it works with a visual.
@craigconstantine I am just as curious as this. So thank you for asking such a good question so I can learn about it as well.
Captivate.fm and Transistor.fm are respected hosters that will give you multiple sites for one price @AmandaB
@Jey Thank you for the resource and recommendation. This is very helpful. Love our podcast community.
Hi Amanda, I’m currently using Podbean, and I highly recommend you also check them out here https://www.podbean.com/. For me, it’s one of the best podcast-hosting platforms right now. It’s helping me optimize and monetize my podcast. It is also a very secure platform, and its layout is surprisingly easy to use!
This is very helpful. I am volunteering to set up a new podcast so this is very helpful. Thank you, @Martintaylor
I’d have to say that Podbean is probably the best private podcast platform today for both podcasters and audiences. Podcast content creators can use it to create better quality podcasts and even monetize their content while listeners can easily use the platform to listen to their favorite podcasters. Companies are even using Podbean for enterprises which makes it a very versatile platform in my opinion.
@Martintaylor, can you give us a link to your podcast’s web page on Podbean? I’m curious to see what their pod pages look like…
