75. Which Is the Best Podcast Hosting Platform? | Podcasting Tips for Beginners

FAQ Friday answering the podcasting question of "Which Is the Best Podcast Hosting Platform?"

Resources Mentioned:
Buzzsprout Affiliate Link (save $20!): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1950787

This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Welcome to Podcasting for solopreneurs and FAQ Friday, where I answer a podcasting question in 5 minutes or less. Today's question is, which hosting platform should I use? This question comes from an anonymous participant in last month's podcasting power hour networking event. There are so many podcast hosting platforms for you to choose from. A podcast hosting platform is simply a place where your podcast lives on the Internet. Your hosting platform takes care of your RSS feed, which is the magical technology that delivers your podcast episodes to the places like Apple and Spotify. Again, there are so many options to choose from. I recommend choosing one that's a dedicated podcasting platform, meaning, that's all they do. All in one platforms like Kajabi that aren't built specifically to host podcasts, but they've added that as an additional feature, are often appealing because you don't have to pay for an extra tool if you're already using it for something else.

But the savings will most likely be negated by the headaches that you endure in the process. Some of the most popular dedicated hosting platforms are Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Podbean, and Captivate. My personal favorite is Buzzsprout. They have the most user friendly interface. Their customer support is super fast and super helpful. They make it really simple and easy to distribute your podcast to all of the popular places like Apple and Spotify, plus a bunch of smaller players that you've probably never heard of, but there are people out there using them. And they provide robust and insightful stats about your podcast's performance. It's also very reasonably priced at $12 a month for most podcasters.

Buzzsprout is where I host this podcast, and I'm a proud affiliate for them. I'll leave my link in the episode description. Using it will give you a $20 credit. And I can't talk about podcast hosting platforms without addressing Spotify for creators, formerly known as Spotify for Podcasters, formerly known as Anchor. This is not to be confused with just plain old Spotify, which is what you use to listen to podcasts. Confused much? Oh, goodness. So a lot of podcasters use Spotify for creators because it's free. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

So in exchange for not having to pay anything, you're also stuck with strict character limits for things like your show description, bare bones stats that don't give a lot of insight, and a support team that you can never get a hold of and isn't very helpful when you finally do. One of my clients hosted with them back when it was Anchor, and it was a nightmare when I had to contact support. Needless to say, we moved her to Buzzsprout after that incident. So while I know that free is very appealing, I think it's well worth a few bucks every month for a quality platform. And, yes, you can move your podcast to another hosting platform after you've started your podcast. Sometimes that goes smoothly, and sometimes that can be a bit of a headache. Plus, your stats start over at 0 on the new platform, so you're constantly adding old hosting numbers and new hosting numbers together to get your totals. I recommend just going with a quality platform from the get go.

Again, I'll leave my affiliate link for Buzzsprout in the episode description if you'd like to check them out and save $20. If you have a podcasting question, click the send me your question link in the episode description, and I'll answer it in an upcoming episode. Until next time. Happy podcasting.