The Best Podcast Hosting Platforms of 2023

If you haven’t jumped the podcasting bandwagon yet, I refer you to eye-opening statistics from the latest annual study by Edison Research.

• 59% of Americans aged 12 and above have listened to a podcast in 2021.
• More than 100 million Americans listen to at least one podcast a month.
• There are more podcast listeners (24%) than churchgoers (23%) among American consumers.

Whether you like it or not, podcasting is here to stay and engage with people willing to listen.

However, if you’re looking to start a podcast, the first thing you’ll need to do is to sign up with a podcast hosting company to store your .mp3’s and create your podcast feed. But it can’ be just any site, it has be the best podcast platform. And just like when you start a website or blog you need a web host, when you start a podcast you need a media host.

There are many different podcast hosting platforms and podcast sites to choose from. To that end, it can be difficult to decide which one to go with.

Some companies have been around a long time and new ones are popping up all the time. The best podcast sites offer a range of features that can make content creation and podcast distribution a breeze. There are paid versions, as well as free podcast hosting options.

The good news is whether you’re looking for podcast sharing sites and want to start a brand new podcast, save money and move to a cheaper provider, or simply upgrade your current hosting platform – we have you covered with our selection of the best platform for podcasts.

In this post, you will discover the different podcast hosting platforms to upload and leverage your audio content to build an audience and monetize your podcasts.

Let’s get started.

What Makes A Great Podcast Hosting Provider?

Choosing the right platform for your podcasts is one of the most important parts of starting your podcasting journey. Before you buy a pair of good headphones and a microphone you should choose a podcast hosting provider that will fit your particular needs as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach for podcast streaming services.

The most basic podcasting hosting sites offer you the space to store your files so that your audience can easily download them, however, the top podcast platforms do much more than that.

The best podcast hosting sites or podcast distribution platforms provide advanced analytics reports on your listeners, marketing tools to grow your audience, social sharing options, 24/7 support, and more. Additionally, they may include features like streaming compliance, file storage, and unlimited bandwidth. They can also help you with a free website and domain.

Lastly, sometimes the best podcast providers offer tools for easy insertion of ads during your podcasts, including CTAs to your product and services in order to monetize your podcasting journey.

In this guide–best podcast hosting–we will do our best to show you the most interesting podcast publishing platforms and options so that you can save your precious time and focus on recording your first episode.

What are the Best Podcast Hosting Platforms?

Here are our top picks for the best podcast hosting sites:

1. Buzzsprout

Best overall podcast hosting

Among all the best podcast websites, Buzzsprout is one of the easiest-to-use podcast hosting sites around and our #1 pick. It’s rare for podcasting sites to have 5-star ratings from 700+ happy customers, but Buzzsprout easily boasts great reviews from thousands of happy users.

They’re a host that’s been in business since 2009 and is trusted by over 100,000 podcasters, making it one of the best podcasting platforms. Plus, they’re one of the only companies that offer a totally free plan with unlimited team member accounts.

Their free plan only allows you to upload two hours of content hosted for 90 days–a fairly generous free feature as far as podcast streaming platforms are concerned. If you’re serious about podcasting, you can scale up and upgrade your plan based on how many hours of content you need to upload per month.

When you upgrade to one of their paid plans ranging from $12-24 per month, Buzzsprout hosts your files indefinitely and gives you unlimited storage and 250GB of bandwidth per month (enough for 20,000 to 40,000 downloads).

It also has one of the most vibrant podcast communities on Facebook, where its customer support takes care of questions and concerns regarding the platform.

Key features

• Get more people to hear you by listing your podcast in the top podcast directories.
• Track the progress of your podcast by monitoring its stats.
• Optimize uploaded audio files using the Magic Mastering™ technology.
• Make your podcast more accessible to search engines and PWD by transcribing it.
• Help listeners browse through your podcast much easier using chapters.

Buzzsprout Pricing

Buzzsprout offers a free tier that lets you upload two hours worth of audio a month, and each episode is hosted for up to 90 days. The paid plans (starting at $12/month) let you host your podcast indefinitely.

Also, you get more hours of uploaded audio files a month as you upgrade your plans.

2. PodBean

Best budget option

PodBean takes away the guesswork from creating a podcast. Create your account by signing up for a free account and uploading your audio files to turn into a podcast.

This way, you can focus on what you have to say as PodBean will take care of hosting podcast concerns and technicalities.

Key features

• Set up a free website account to showcase your podcast.
• Distribute your podcast to all destinations where people get their podcast fix.
• Use the platform’s built-in dynamic advertising system to monetize your podcast.
• Engage with your audience even more with live audio streaming.
• Record, edit, and publish your podcast using its native app on Android and iOS.

PodBean Pricing

The free plan lets you upload up to five hours worth of audio content, offers 100GB monthly bandwidth, and lets you create a free basic podcast website.

Paid plans give you unlimited hours and unmetered bandwidth, as well as monetization features, which makes it one of the top podcast hosting sites you can choose from.

3. Transistor

Best for data-driven podcast hosting site

If you’re considering where to host podcasts, consider using Transistor, where you can get advanced podcast analytics to track and monitor your podcast’s performance.

Aside from the usual metrics (average episode downloads, number of subscribers, etc.), the site breaks down the number of visitors each of your episodes has over a period.

It can also show you which apps listeners use to consume your content and shows you the map where your listeners are from.

Key features

• Create as many podcasts as you want on the same account at no extra charge.
• Set up the podcast player on your site so visitors can play it without leaving your page.
• Invite people to help collaborate with your podcast.
• Use the RSS feed to easily import your podcast to a different hosting platform.

Transistor Pricing

Transistor does not have a free plan, but you can sign up for its free 14-day trial and play with all its features. It offers a monthly or yearly subscription across three plans. The higher the plan, the more times people can download your podcasts in a month, and the better the privacy settings are for your exclusive content.

4. RSS.com

Best for Students

RSS.com is one of the top podcast-hosting sites that has been around since 2005. They have few packages, with all plans offering unlimited podcast storage and episode length. This is great if you plan on releasing a lot of episodes or if your episodes have a generally chunky file size. Apart from that, RSS.com really focuses on podcast monetization by leveraging existing partnerships to help you find the perfect sponsors or offering the ability to dynamically insert advertisements in high-traffic podcasts.

RSS.com also offers a wide range of podcast-related features, such as:

• Episode statistics and cross-platform analytics
• Free website for your podcast show
• Embeddable player for your existing website
• Auto submission to major podcast directories such as Spotify or Apple Music

As you can see, RSS.com is a very versatile, all-in-one podcast hosting, that will work both for beginners as well as more advanced podcasters.

RSS.com Pricing

RSS.com has three different pricing tiers: The first plan, Student & NGO is $4.99 per month, and as the name suggests is targeted at students and non-profit organizations. When it comes to the features, it offers the same set as the main $8.25/month ‘All-in-One Podcasting’ plan with an unlimited number of episodes and length of recordings. RSS.com also offers an Enterprise plan with additional monetization functionalities focused on dynamic ads and extended support. All above-mentioned prices assume annual billing, which applies 35% discount on the monthly price.

Whether you’re a student or an individual looking to launch their show on a robust podcasting platform, you should give RSS.com a try!

5. Castos

Best podcast hosting site for WordPress sites

Most podcast hosting site features are too restricted that it either encourages you to pony up for a higher plan or migrate to another host. So if you’re wondering where to host podcasts with ease, look no further than Castos.

Castos is considered one of the best podcast services thanks to its unlimited storage and bandwidth. This way, you can publish as many shows and gather as many listeners as you can.

Key features

• Manage all your episodes on your WordPress site with the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin.
• Republishing your podcast on Youtube to generate even more listeners.
• Automatically transcribe your podcast to improve accessibility and SEO performance.
• Create pages for each of your shows to connect with your respective audiences better.
• Analyze podcast data in one simple and easy-to-understand dashboard.

Castos Pricing

Castos has three paid plans available. Each plan differs in terms of the number of private subscribers allowed per account. Higher plans also have access to Youtube Republishing, Headliner Audiogram Integration, Advanced Analytics, and more.

6. Captivate

Best podcast hosting site for growing your audience and influence

Captivate provides all the tools that podcasters need for making their voices heard, which makes it stand out among other podcasting services. With the platform’s simple interface and 24/7 customer support, you don’t have to worry about your podcast setup.

Key features

• Collaborate with unlimited team members available for all plans.
• Promote your CTAs onto your podcast player to help you increase conversions.
• Integrate your podcast with your WordPress site using the CaptivateSync™ plugin.
• Monitor the performance of your show using its IAB-certified statistics and analytics.
• Link to popular podcast players like Overcast to expand your show’s reach and get more subscribers to it.

Captivate Pricing

You can sign up for a 7-day free trial on any of Captivate’s three plans. All of them possess the same features – the only difference is the number of podcast episode downloads allowed in a month. The higher the plan, the more times people can download your podcast.

7. Sounder

Best podcast hosting site for growth and discoverability

Sounder’s embedded player is well-designed and intuitive, episodes are easily searchable by keyword, they provide transcriptions, and you can conduct the in-stream audio searches among other key features that make it a very robust free or paid hosting platform as well as podcast distribution service.

Notably, Sounder is also very easy to use. Not only is the dashboard simple and straightforward, they can also be counted to provide exceptional customer support. 

Key features

• Up to 20k streams monthly 
• Powerful SEO features to make audio files displayed prominently in the search results
• Embeddable podcast player with a sleek design
• Easy automated publishing of podcast content to YouTube

Sounder Pricing

Sounder starts with a free Basic Plan that covers one podcast, up to 5k streams a month, 2 seats, podcast and episode pages, analytics, Sounder audio player access, free episode transcriptions, in-stream audio search, and 72-hour turn-around time for support. 

The first paid tier is available at $12.99/monthly, which offers everything from the free plan with more robust features; and a custom plan with flexible pricing that lets you tailor solutions to your needs.

8. Resonate

Best full-service podcast service provider available

Sometimes, it’s not enough to record, upload, and publish your podcast to your hosting. You need to make sure that the quality of the podcast is up to standard and it is launched properly–and that’s where full-featured podcast platforms come in.

While Resonate Recordings can do these for you, it also offers a hosting platform to groom your podcast to success making it the best place to host podcasts.

Key features

• Upload edited and pre-produced podcast files to your hosting and publish them.
• Lets you host podcasts and distribute to different directories in a single click for increased reach.
• Track the growth of your podcast by analyzing its statistics on your dashboard.
• Embed the latest podcast episodes on your site so people can hear it from there.
• Create a microsite or simple landing page to engage with your podcast better.

Resonate Pricing

Resonate Hosting has a free 14-day trial for its two plans. The only difference between the two is the Premium plan gives you access to its microsite creator. Other services like Podcast Launch (starting at $199), Podcast Production (starting at $59), and others are paid separately.

9. Simplecast

Best podcast management and analytics platform

Like Transistor, Simplecast helps you parse your listeners and your podcast’s performance using its advanced analytics feature making it one of the best podcast distribution platforms. The feature-rich platform allows you to easily uncover data about your audience so you can better understand how to create content that will resonate with them better.

Key features

• Encourage listeners to share clips of your podcast on social media using Recast®.
• Develop websites, apps, and dashboards using the Simplecast API 2.0.
• Manage different podcasts with collaborators under a single account.
• Create a website for your podcast with the help of its intuitive drag-and-drop builder.
• Seamlessly Migrate your podcast show to Simplecast with a few clicks of a button.

Simplecast Pricing

Simplecast has a free 14-day trial for its three plans. Each plan offers at least two team members, one-click distribution, basic podcast analytics, and more. Higher plans get advanced data like Location analytics, Unique Listener reports, Technology analytics, Detailed Device analytics, and much more.

10. Fusebox

Most innovative podcast software player

Co-founded by Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, Fusebox (originally Smart Podcast Player or SPP) made it easier for listeners to choose which podcast episode to listen to on the user’s website.

Since then, it has come up with even more innovations to help podcasters develop creative ways to present their episodes to their audience. making it rise as one of the top podcast sites.

Key features

• Feature your podcast using the full player, single-track player, and site-wide sticky player.
• Encourage listeners to sign up for your email list from the podcast player.
• Generate transcripts automatically to improve engagement and SEO.
• Allows for multiple speeds so people can listen to more episodes in one sitting.
• Allows people with hearing disabilities to still enjoy your podcast with accessible design and downloadable transcript PDFs.

Fusebox Pricing

The free plan gives you access to its site-wide sticky player and most of its transcript features. The Pro plan contains all the free plan features plus all the podcast players and their more advanced options.

11. Blubrry Podcasting

Best hosting platform for busy business owners

Blubrry gives you all the tools to set up your podcast and share your ideas to target listeners. However, what makes the platform unique is its turnkey Pro-Production Services that offers done-for-you podcast episodes from its expert in-house podcast team. It is arguably the best platform to start a podcast if you’re looking for the convenience of turn-key audio hosting sites.

Key features

• Includes free WordPress site on all plans.
• Publish your podcasts and distribute their episodes from your WordPress site using the PowerPress plugin.
• Customize embeddable podcast players on your site pages or social media feed.
• Receive insightful data about your audience by tapping into the platform’s advanced analytics.
• Get email and phone support for all your podcast questions and concerns.

Blubrry Pricing

All four plans include all features, making it the best podcast software option if you want to save money. The difference is the monthly storage (starting at 100 MB). Higher plans get a much larger storage capacity.

For plans with higher storage and bandwidth, the Pro Hosting plan starts at $100 per month.

Blubrry also offers Internal Private Podcasting (starting at $150/month) and Pro-Production (podcast on autopilot for $950/month with four DFY shows).

12. Spreaker

The simplest way to create a podcast

Lots of podcast platforms out there are loaded with features that you might not need. Spreaker keeps things extremely simple by offering the essential features in exchange for slightly cheaper entry plans. So if you’re wondering where to host a podcast, this is certainly a cost-effective option. While it’s not the best free podcast hosting option, it’s definitely one of the more affordable podcast hosting websites you can try.

Key features

• Schedule the episodes of all your podcasts and automatically share them on social media from your CMS
• Set up a live streaming podcast to increase interaction with your listeners.
• Monetize your podcasts by enabling dynamic ads or manually inserting them.
• Gain valuable insights about your listeners using its IAB-certified analytics.
• Get your podcast promoted on curated lists and the most popular podcast directories.

Spreaker Pricing

The free plan allows for multiple podcast hosting. The other paid plans give you access to customizable RSS feeds, programmatic monetization, and more. The Publisher Plan ($120/month, perfect for enterprises) lets people download your podcast 60,000 times monthly along with premium support and collaboration features.

13. PodcastWebsites

Most professional podcast hosting & website builder

If you’re new to podcasting and don’t have a website yet, then this solution is perfect for you. PodcastWebsites is one of the best podcast upload sites where hosting a podcast is simplified.

PodcastWebsites makes the entire process of creating a website where you can generate revenue from your podcast business easy.

Key features

• Offers training to help you launch a successful podcast through the Podcast Success Academy.
• Create daily podcast backups and set up website security to ensure safety at all times.
• Integrates well with Fusebox’s versatile podcast player.
• Get quality 24/7 support from experienced podcasters for your questions and concerns.
• Connect your site with email platforms like MailChimp, Aweber, and Clickfunnels to grow your subscribers effectively.

PodcastWebsites Pricing

There are two plans to choose from: New! and Popular. Regarding podcast hosting and advanced download statistics, the first RSS feed is included in both plans. But for additional feeds, you must pay $10/month per feed.

14. Audioboom

Best hosting platform for taking your podcast to the next level

If you feel you’ve plateaued with your current podcast hosting site or are wondering how to start a podcast from scratch, consider Audioboom. Established podcasters get better monetization opportunities to further grow their audience and revenue. So while you have podcast hosting free options, investing just a little bit more in this podcast hosting software can certainly take your podcast to new heights.

Key features

• Accommodate your listeners by distributing your episodes on Deezer, Stitcher, and more.
• Embed your responsive player on your website or share it on social media.
• Understand the habits and behavior of your listeners by looking at your analytics.
• Invite collaborators and manage their permissions to get your podcast off the ground
• Monetize your podcast with dynamic ads and sponsorships (for 10,000 monthly plays)

Audioboom Pricing

Podcasters can sign up and enjoy the creation of unlimited episodes a month with 10,000 plays max (for Standard Plan) or 25,000 max (for the Plus Plan). Podcasters with over 10,000 plays per episode gain access to better features such as live reads and host endorsements from top podcast advertisers, branded content partnership opportunities, and more.

15. Libsyn

The most reliable podcast hosting site

Even before “podcasting” was born, Libsyn has been at the forefront of hosting users’ audio content to its listeners since 2004. Up to this day, this podcasts platform continues to deliver top-notch hosting features to all its podcasters.

Key features

• Get IAB-certified podcasting statistics to drive bigger impact and results.
• Optimize your episodes on Apple to spruce up your podcast and get more listeners.
• Integrate with the most popular podcast platforms and services using OnPublish.
• Monetize your podcast by selling access to your content or opting into ads.
• Offers ad stitching tools, private podcasting, and other enterprise solutions.

Libsyn Pricing

Libsyn has four paid plans. The higher the plan, the greater the monthly storage (starting at 50 MB a month), which is pretty standard as far as platforms for podcasts go. Also, the Classic features don’t have access to monetization and advanced tools.

16. Soundcloud

Best platform for audio content creators

Known for streaming free music from upcoming artists and musicians, Soundcloud has also become a place for podcasters to share their content. Still, Soundcloud holds its own among the best platforms for podcasts.

Key features

• Make money from the content you upload on Soundcloud using Repost.
• Plan your podcast episode releases like a pro to build anticipation.
• Improve the sonic quality of your audio files to match the quality of their content.
• Receive exclusive partner offers for sample tracks and DAWs.
• Get free educational resources to make better sounding podcasts.

Soundcloud Pricing

The free Basic plan lets you upload any audio as long as it’s not longer than three hours. Repost lets you syndicate and monetize your content to grow your audience further. There’s also an opportunity to apply for their premium services program for greater reach.

Finally, the Pro Unlimited plan gives you access to its premium features like scheduled releases, mastering up to free tracks and more.

17. Podomatic

Best freemium podcast hosting platform

Most platforms listed here offer limited trial periods to get you to sign up for their premium services. Podomatic flips the script by allowing people to sign up for free and enjoy generous limits for growing their audience, making it one of the most popular podcast platforms. Free podcast platforms usually offer limited features, but Podomatic features pretty great options.

Key features

• Upload and store up to six hours (500 MB) worth of audio content for free.
• Allow listeners to enjoy 15 GB bandwidth (good for 180 hours) a month.
• Connect with your Patreon account to build an audience willing to pay for your content.
• Play your podcast on Facebook and Twitter feeds.
• Pay anytime you’re ready to upgrade your account – no trial periods!

Podomatic Pricing

The free plan is good enough to help beginners establish themselves first as a podcaster. Once the demand for their episodes increases, they can level up to paid plans with high podcast server capacity for greater storage and bandwidth.

Even More Podcast Platforms

And here’s a bunch of alternative podcast web hosting platforms you might want to check out:

• Podcast Blastoff
• Acast
• ShoutEngine
• Podigee
• Zencast.fm
• OmnyStudio
• Pinecast

Podcast Hosting FAQ

Podcast Hosting Sites – Summary

The podcast hosting platforms featured above should prove to you that there’s one for every type. For example, podcasters looking to level up might want to check out RSS.com’s monetization opportunities. For those whose target audience are persons with disabilities, they will find lots to love with Fusebox’s auto transcription feature.

Beginners can do with a podcast hosting service that’s simple and easy to use, such as Buzzsprout which possesses most of the key features that all podcasters look for in a hosting site.