How to start a podcast
Three decisions: what you record with, what you edit in, and where the RSS feed lives. Only the third is expensive to change later, and it usually gets the least attention.
This guide is part of our independent creator software reviews. Where pricing matters, run the numbers in our pricing calculators or read a head-to-head comparison before you commit. Unfamiliar with a term? Check the creator tools glossary. For how we score and rank tools, see our review methodology.
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Podcast Hosting Platforms2,655 words
Everything you need to know about how to start a podcast fits into three decisions: what you record with, what you edit in, and where the RSS feed lives.
The third is the only one that is expensive to change later, which is why it deserves most of your attention and usually gets least.
For a first show, Buzzsprout at $15/mo on its Audio plan is the straightforward answer, because it publishes to the directories, the feed is portable, and there is no tier you have to grow into. Recording and editing can both start at nothing.
This guide walks the decisions in the order you face them, with prices from each vendor's published rate card and the billing unit attached, checked between June and October 2026. It does not quote hardware prices, because we do not verify them.
If you want a total for your own setup including equipment you have already priced, the podcast production cost calculator will add it up. The podcast launch checklist is the companion to work through alongside this.
The one irreversible decision
A podcast host stores your audio files and generates an RSS feed, which is a single URL that Apple Podcasts, Spotify and every other directory read to find your episodes.
Listeners subscribe to the directory, the directory follows the feed, and the feed points at your host. Changing hosts means redirecting that URL so the directories follow it to the new location.
That redirect is the whole reason the host matters more than the microphone. A host that supports a 301 redirect on your feed lets you move your entire back catalogue and every subscriber to a competitor in an afternoon.
A host that does not, or that owns the feed URL on its own domain with no redirect option, means starting again. So the question to ask any host before you upload episode one is not what it costs, it is whether you can leave.
This is also the honest answer to the free-hosting question. Spotify for Podcasters is genuinely free with no paid tier at all, checked 11 June 2026, and it distributes to the directories.
Before you commit a show to it or to any free host, read its own export and redirect documentation, because that is the feature that determines whether the decision is reversible. Our podcast hosting comparison goes into this in more depth.
Hosting platforms by fit
Grouped by what you are launching rather than ranked. The pricing models differ in a way that matters: some hosts charge by upload hours or storage, others by show count, and that choice decides which one is cheap for you.
A first show, flat pricing
Buzzsprout keeps it simple with three flat plans and no storage maths: Audio is $15/mo, Audio and Video is $25/mo and Multi-Podcast is $30/mo, checked 1 October 2026.
Everything you need to launch is on the entry plan, including the directory submissions, episode analytics and a basic show website. Best fit: a first podcast where you want the hosting decision to be over in ten minutes.
Transistor charges per account rather than per show, which makes it the cheapest route if you plan more than one podcast.
Starter is $19/mo ($15.20/mo billed annually), Professional is $49/mo ($39.20/mo billed annually), Business is $99/mo ($79.20/mo billed annually) and Enterprise starts at $199+/mo, checked 1 October 2026. Best fit: anyone launching two shows, or a business running a podcast alongside a client's.
Podbean has the most usable free tier among the paid hosts: Basic is $0/mo with 5 hours of storage and 100 GB of bandwidth, then Unlimited Audio is $14/mo ($9/mo billed annually), Unlimited Plus is $39/mo ($29/mo billed annually), Network is $99/mo ($79/mo billed annually) and Business is $129/mo ($99/mo billed annually), checked 13 June 2026.
Note the unit on the free plan: 5 hours of storage, not 5 hours a month. Best fit: launching on a budget with a view to upgrading once the show is established.
Growth and monetisation built in
Captivate is built around audience growth rather than storage, with marketing and calls to action as first-class features.
Personal is $19/mo ($17/mo billed annually, $204 a year), Professional is $49/mo ($44/mo billed annually, $528 a year) and Business is $99/mo ($90/mo billed annually, $1,080 a year), checked 15 June 2026.
Best fit: a show with a business behind it where the podcast has to generate enquiries.
RedCircle starts free with unlimited hosting for one podcast, then Growth is $19.99/mo ($180 a year, $15/mo) and Pro is $34.99/mo ($360 a year, $30/mo), with Enterprise quoted, checked 13 June 2026. The free tier with unlimited hosting is unusual in this category.
Best fit: a single show that wants room to grow without a storage ceiling.
Storage-metered and enterprise hosts
Libsyn is the oldest host here and prices by monthly storage allowance, which is a different mental model entirely.
Basic Audio is $5/mo for 162 MB of new content a month, Standard Audio is $15/mo for 324 MB, Pro Audio is $20/mo for 540 MB, and the video plans run from $40/mo to $150/mo, checked 10 June 2026.
Work out your episode file size before picking a tier, because the allowance is the constraint and the price is not. Best fit: podcasters who publish predictably and want the cheapest entry point.
Simplecast sits at the enterprise end, with Basic at $15/mo ($13.50/mo billed annually), Essential at $35/mo ($31.50/mo billed annually), Growth at $85/mo ($76.50/mo billed annually) and both Professional and Enterprise quoted through SiriusXM sales, checked 15 June 2026.
The analytics depth is the reason networks use it, and it is more than a first show needs.
Recording and editing software
Unlike hosting, these two decisions are cheap to reverse, so start at the bottom of the price range and move up only when something specific stops you.
For remote interviews, the tools that record each participant locally are worth the money, because a guest's wifi dropping no longer ruins the episode.
Riverside is free at $0/mo, then Pro at $29/mo ($24/mo billed annually), Grow at $39/mo ($34/mo billed annually), Webinar at $99/mo ($79/mo billed annually) and Business quoted, checked 1 October 2026.
Zencastr runs Standard at $20/mo ($18/mo billed annually), Grow at $30/mo ($25/mo billed annually), Scale at $50/mo ($42/mo billed annually) and Business at $100/mo ($84/mo billed annually), checked 13 June 2026.
SquadCast is free for 1 hour a month watermarked, then Hobbyist at $20/mo, Creator at $40/mo and Business at $80/mo, checked 11 June 2026. See the podcast recording software hub for the rest.
For editing, Audacity is free forever with every feature included, checked 13 June 2026, and it does everything a solo show needs: trimming, levels, noise reduction and export.
Descript is the alternative worth paying for, because it transcribes the recording and lets you cut the audio by deleting words.
Free is $0/mo, Hobbyist is $24/mo ($16/mo billed annually), Creator is $35/mo ($24/mo billed annually) and Business is $65/mo ($50/mo billed annually), checked 1 October 2026.
Our guide to editing a podcast covers the passes in order, and the audio editing software hub covers the field.
One more thing to decide before the table: video. Several hosts now charge separately for video episodes, and the gap is large.
Buzzsprout's Audio plan is $15/mo against $25/mo for Audio and Video, and Libsyn's video tiers run from $40/mo to $150/mo against $5/mo to $20/mo for audio.
If you are publishing to YouTube as well, the usual answer is to host the audio with your podcast host and upload the video to YouTube directly, which avoids paying twice for the same file.
Price comparison
Hosting plans and what they are metered on. Prices as published by each vendor, checked June to October 2026.
| Host | Free tier | Entry paid price | Metered on | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spotify for Podcasters | Yes, the only plan | None | Nothing stated | Lowest possible cost |
| Podbean | 5 hours storage, 100 GB bandwidth | $14/mo Unlimited Audio | Storage on free, unlimited on paid | Launching on a budget |
| RedCircle | Unlimited hosting, 1 podcast | $19.99/mo Growth | Features, not storage | One show with room to grow |
| Buzzsprout | No | $15/mo Audio | Plan type, audio or video | A first show, no decisions |
| Transistor | No | $19/mo Starter | Per account, unlimited shows | More than one podcast |
| Captivate | No | $19/mo Personal | Plan tier | A podcast with a business behind it |
| Libsyn | No | $5/mo Basic Audio | Monthly storage in MB | Predictable publishing, lowest entry |
| Simplecast | No | $15/mo Basic | Plan tier | Networks and deep analytics |
How podcast pricing works
Three metering models, and picking the wrong one is how a cheap host becomes expensive. Flat plans are Buzzsprout, Captivate and Transistor: the bill is the same whether you publish weekly or monthly.
Storage metering is Libsyn: the $5/mo Basic Audio plan allows 162 MB of new content a month, so a show that publishes two long episodes will outgrow it regardless of audience size.
Feature tiering is RedCircle and Podbean on their paid plans, where hosting is unlimited and the tier buys monetisation and analytics instead.
Bandwidth is the cost that catches people on the way up rather than at launch. A host that charges by storage usually does not charge by downloads, and a host with unlimited hosting usually caps something else.
Read which of the two your host meters, then check what happens when one episode gets ten times your usual downloads, because that is the month you will find out.
Across the whole stack, a realistic first-year software bill is smaller than most people expect. Audacity is free, Spotify for Podcasters is free, and Buzzsprout's Audio plan at $15/mo is $180 a year.
Add Riverside Pro at $29/mo only when you start booking remote guests, and Descript Hobbyist at $24/mo only when editing time becomes the bottleneck. Put your own numbers into the podcast production cost calculator rather than budgeting from a figure in an article.
Analytics is the other line item worth understanding before you pay for it. Every host here reports downloads, and download counts are the currency sponsors price on, so the number itself is the deliverable rather than a vanity metric.
What differs between tiers is the breakdown: which apps, which territories, and how far through each episode listeners get.
A first show needs the download count and nothing else, so do not buy a tier for the dashboard until a sponsor asks you for the dashboard.
Launching the first three episodes
- Record three episodes before you publish any of them. The format you think you have changes by episode three, and launching with a back catalogue means a new listener has something to binge.
- Pick the host on the strength of its export and redirect documentation, not its price. That is the only decision here that is expensive to undo.
- Record each remote participant locally. Riverside, Zencastr and SquadCast all do this, and it is the difference between a usable episode and a lost one when a guest's connection fails.
- Edit the first episode last. You will be faster at it, and you will know by then which parts of your own delivery need cutting.
- Submit to Apple Podcasts and Spotify through your host rather than manually, then confirm the feed appears in both before you promote anything.
- Write show notes with a real summary and timestamps, since those pages are indexable and they accumulate search traffic long after the episode drops.
Use the podcast episode planner to structure each episode before you record, and the show notes template for the publishing step. For the recording software decision specifically, the recording software guide compares the field in more detail than this overview can.
Adjacent comparisons
The hosting shortlist usually narrows to a pair. Buzzsprout versus Podbean is the flat-plan against free-tier decision. Buzzsprout versus Transistor is the one-show against multi-show question, and Transistor's per-account pricing settles it quickly.
On the recording side, Riverside versus Zencastr and Riverside versus SquadCast cover the local-recording tools, and Audacity versus Hindenburg is the free-against-paid editing decision. The podcast hosting platforms hub lists everything else.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a license for a podcast?
This separates into two questions and neither has a universal answer. Music is the real one: using recorded music you do not own generally requires a licence, and what that involves depends on the music, the territory and how the episode is distributed. Business registration depends entirely on your jurisdiction. Nothing in a buyer guide substitutes for checking both against your own situation, and for music specifically, start with a licensing library rather than a general article.
How much does podcast equipment cost?
We do not publish hardware prices, because we do not verify them and they change constantly. What we can say is that the software side of a first podcast can run at nothing: Audacity is free for editing and Spotify for Podcasters is free for hosting. If you have already priced a microphone and headphones, add them to the software figures in the podcast production cost calculator for a real total.
What are some popular podcast distribution platforms?
Apple Podcasts and Spotify carry most listening, with YouTube, Amazon Music and Pocket Casts behind them. You do not submit to each one separately in the ordinary case: your host generates one RSS feed and you submit that feed to each directory once, usually through the host's own dashboard. Every host in this guide handles those submissions.
Do podcasters get paid?
Some do, through sponsorship priced per thousand downloads, listener memberships, and whatever they sell to their own audience. None of it is automatic in the way ad revenue is on YouTube, since there is no platform paying you for downloads. The three streams that work earliest are usually sponsorship with a relevant brand, a paid membership, and a product sold to the audience you already have.
How much does a podcast with 5,000 listeners make?
No reliable number exists, and anyone quoting one is extrapolating from somebody else's deal. Sponsorship is negotiated per show rather than paid at a published rate, and what moves it is how specific your audience is to the advertiser, not how large it is. A 5,000-download show in a narrow professional niche can be worth more per episode than a general-interest show ten times the size.
Do podcasters have to pay their guests?
There is no standard practice and no obligation in the general case. Most interview podcasts do not pay guests, because the guest is getting exposure to a relevant audience. Paying a fee is a negotiated arrangement, usually where the guest is appearing in a professional capacity or the episode is effectively sponsored content. Agree it in writing before you record either way.
Is it too late to start a podcast?
The field is crowded and most shows stop early, which cuts both ways: competition for a general-interest slot is severe, and competition for a specific one often is not. What has not changed is the mechanism. A show that serves a narrow audience consistently finds that audience. A show that stops after four episodes does not, which is why recording three before you launch is the most useful thing in this guide.
The short version
How to start a podcast, reduced to the decisions that matter.
Hosting is the one you cannot easily undo, so pick on the export and redirect documentation first and the price second: Buzzsprout at $15/mo for a first show, Transistor at $19/mo if you plan two, Podbean's free Basic plan or Spotify for Podcasters if the budget is zero.
Record remote guests with local recording from the start, which means Riverside, Zencastr or SquadCast rather than a call app. Edit in Audacity for nothing until editing time becomes the bottleneck, then look at Descript. Record three episodes before you publish one.
Total your own stack in the podcast production cost calculator and work through the launch checklist rather than improvising the publishing week.
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