According to the Edison Research on Podcast in 2019, 51% Americans have listened to a podcast and 90 Million Americans listen to podcasts every month. There are are currently over 800K active podcasts out there and the number is growing with a fast pace. Podcasting has got a growth of 122% since 2014 and why is that because educated and technology loving people love to listen to podcasts. So if you are charismatic, have knowledge in a specific domain or want to share funny stories with people to make them laugh, you can start a podcast. But the question is, where to host a podcast? Don’t worry, there are best podcast websites to host your podcast and some of them offer free podcasting. Podcast hosting websites make easy for the internet users to download, like and subscribe to the podcasts of your choice.
But before beginning with, I would like to share that Rusell Brunson who is the owner of ClickFunnels has a famous saying:
People pay more for the same content packaged in a different way
Though it’s a bit out of scope of my current topic but I want to highlight the importance of podcasting. For example, if you are going to buy a marketing book to read and after searching, you find a podcast of the same book in episodes, you will get that podcast for a similar or high price. So it was the same book but available on a podcasting site and you can download or listen to podcast in your car or home. That’s why podcasting is bringing a huge growth in people’s businesses.
1. What is a Podcast?
A Podcast is an audio file in MP3 format that can be downloaded easily on your computer or mobile. The term podcasting is a derived from iPod which is Apple’s electronic device to store and play audio files merged with broad casting. A podcast is an audio series, a series of lectures, radio programs or other popular events. One of the best advantages of listening to a podcast is you’ll learn a lot of stuff that relates to your job or business. The podcast hosts most of the time invite entrepreneurs and businessmen who share the ideas with people on popular podcasting platforms. So you can listen to hundreds of thousands of podcasts for free. In my opinion, it’s a great way to learn and gain extra knowledge while you are driving your car.
Podcast Inventors
The two guys Adam Curry and Dave Winer are the inventors of podcasting back in 2004. The word podcast gained so much reputation and it was declared as the word of the year in 2005 and in 2013, Apple announced 1 Billion Podcast Subscribers.
Now podcast can be created by anybody with 3 tools that almost everybody have, a microphone, a digital video camera and a personal computer with recording software. You can now share your knowledge with the world and podcasting platforms are great earning resources. You can pitch your products in your each podcast episode, affiliate income or you can find podcast sponsors.
2. Host a Podcast for Free
After going through the general overview of a podcast, it brings up the next question in our mind, where to host our podcast so that people can subscribe to the podcast episodes and download them easily. There are a number of best podcast websites that offer podcasting for free. Just like we need the best web hosting to host our website or a successful blog, similarly we need best podcast websites to host our podcast episodes.
So in the beginning, we are looking for best podcast sites that offer free podcast hosting. Here is a list of the world’s best podcasting platforms that are considered as the best place to upload a podcast.
- Buzzsprout
- Podbean
- Anchor
- Podomatic
- Spreaker
i. BuzzSprout
Buzzsprout is ultimately one of the best podcast websites and No.1 podcasting platform with great features. It is super easy to get started with and offers simple solutions to host a podcast. For a beginner, you can upload 2 hours each month that will last for 90 days and you will not need any credit card to sign up. It’s easy to upgrade at Buzzsprout and you have the choice to cancel your plan at anytime without being bounded for a year or more. Yes, that’s right as the podcast hosting plan is available on monthly basis.
Features
Though there are certain limitation in the free plan but still you can enjoy a lot with Buzzsprout.
- It’s an easiest way to start a podcast for free with quality hosting
- You can list the podcast in the world’s popular directories like Spotify, Alexa, Apple and Google Podcasts
- Track the statistics of the listeners of the podcast like the devices and location of your listeners
- Code to add the podcast player on your website, you can even customize it
- Share the podcasts over social media platforms
- Just like we do SEO for web, Buzzsprout helps with the optimization of our podcasts
Create a Podcat – Sign Up
You will just need to enter your name and email address to sign up and start a podcast. Just sign up here, put your name and email address. Buzzsprout will send an email about the sign up and further instructions to set a password. Congratulations as you are all set to start your first podcast.
Buzzsprout Paid Plans
There are 3 paid plans that Buzzsprout offers ranging from $12 to $24/month with unlimited storage and team members. Furthermore these paid plans include custom players, detailed statistics, podcast directories and 250GB monthly bandwidth.
ii. Podbean
It is a free podcasting website with advanced and state of the art podcasting features. Podbean makes it really easy and simple for beginners to start a podcast and it helps the new podcasters to find new listeners as well. That means Podbean not only gives you a free podcasting platform but it also holds your back to become a great podcaster.
The podcasting company is continuously evolving their platform by introducing new tools, features and integrations. For instance, if I talk about audio to video conversion for Youtube sharing on autopilot is a fantastic feature. I don’t have enough words to express my appreciation for the great work Podbean is doing for starters.
Features
Podbean is a simple, user friendly and the best podcast website to publish and promote your podcast. Let’s take a look at some of the iconic features.
- Podbean is enriched with all the required tools to publish a podcast
- You can manage, publish, integrate, monetize, syndicate and analyze your podcast under one roof
- Switching to Podbean is very simple and it completes in just 3 simple steps
- Easily embed your podcast on your own website, blog or social profiles
- Beautiful podcast themes with Podbean’s free themes
- Mobile apps for both iPhone and Android users
- Get a free Podcast website in the free plan
Get free 5 hours and 100GB/month, a free theme & a free website all at one place
Create a Podcast- Sign Up
You have three choices to sign up on Podbean. You can sign up using Facebook, Google or your email account and no credit card is required to sign up for free plan. While you sign up by email, put a professional username and your free podcast will be like “mysite.podbean.com“. It is free for life podcast site that you own.
Podbean Paid Plans
To enjoy more unlimited podcasting features and to build a highly professional podcasting site, Podbean has 3 plans ranging from $9 to $99/month. You can see the pricing structure and each plan’s features here.
iii. Anchor.fm
Since I am looking for best podcast sites for publishing a podcast for free, Anchor is a 100% free hosting platform with no limits on storage or bandwidth.There are no other charges or monthly fee to host a podcast on Anchor which means it is completely free to use.
Anchor is unlimited free podcast hosting, never pay a single cent for your podcast
It’s amazing to read about the Anchor’s co-founder views on free podcasting. We have now free video uploading sites like Youtube and Vimeo, free web hosting sites and free storage sites, why shouldn’t we have free podcasting sites. That’s the Anchor’s founder vision about free podcast website, therefore it is absolutely free.
Features
- Unlimited podcast hosting, zero costs and no limits
- Distribute your podcast to 9 popular platforms
- Anchor helps new podcasters to monetize podcast by sponsors
- Host a podcast with multiple people from anywhere around the world as long as you have the Anchor app
- Build the podcast episodes with the help of episode builder
- Trim, edit or modify the recorded podcast with free editing tools
- Switch to Anchor in just 3 simple steps
In order to get more podcasting tips, you can visit the Anchor blog on Medium.
iv. Podomatic
Podomatic makes it simple for podcasting beginners to simply host their podcasts for free. In Podomatic Basic plan, you get 15GB monthly bandwidth and 500MB storage for free. So for a newbie, Podomatic shares the instructions at every step until you are ready to rock with your first podcast. That’s why I recommend Podomatic as a great start for podcasting career.
There are just 4 steps to start a podcast on Podomatic.
- Record the podcast
- Upload it to Podomatic
- Publish the podcast with Podomatic in popular podcast directories
- Use Podomatic promotional tools to promote your podcast
Features
Now let’s check out the free features of Podomatic.
- Embed the podcast episodes on your blog or social media platforms
- Podcast app for both iOS and Android users
- You can store a recording of up to 6 hours in free plan
- Get basic stats in the free plan
- Helpful tips and instructions for beginners
- 30 day trial for pro plans
In pro plans the price ranges from $8.32 to $20.82 on monthly basis if you sign up for an annual term.
v. Spreaker
Spreaker has both free desktop and mobile apps to create podcasts from the comfort of your home. Furthermore, if you want to host interviews in the podcast, you can connect the Spreaker’s desktop app to both skype and Google hangouts. More importantly you can follow your favorite podcasts as well and download them to listen when offline.
A chatbox for listeners, that’s a cool feature
Features
In Spreaker, the Free plan is known as “Free Speech” and here are the features that you’ll get in Free Speech.
- 15 minutes of live podcast for free
- No limits on listeners
- 5 hour audio storage
- For each show, get a RSS feed
- Get the basic statistics of your podcast including plays and downloads
- Schedule the episodes as per your own convenience
- Live streaming app
- Distribute your podcast on all popular platforms
- Easy upgrade or downgrade billing options
- Auto publish to Youtube
Spreaker has a huge knowledge base with amazing articles for podcast lovers. Additionally there are tools to add sound effects in the background, these are some of the major reasons it is among the best podcast websites we have. The price range for paid plans range from $6 to $45 per month.
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