The 8 Best Podcast Hosting Platforms in 2021 with Pricing

In this article, we’re going to dive right into the subject at hand…the list of the best podcast hosts in 2021. In this guide, we share a list of the most popular hosts, along with the pricing of each podcast host.

We assume you already know the importance of choosing a podcast host and why you would need a podcast host to run your podcast. Essentially, signing up with a podcast hosting company is required in hosting a podcast, so this will be an unavoidable cost as a podcaster.

How Much Does Podcast Hosting Cost?

In this article, we won’t dive into any of the free podcast hosts available…just the top paid podcast hosts. Just a forewarning, if you’re using a free service, chances are YOU are the product. Free often means the podcast host is monetizing off you somehow, usually by inserting ads in your podcast. Podcast hosts, like Anchor, offer free podcast hosting, but you’ll have to decide if this is worth the cost of not fully owning your own podcast.

In general, podcast hosting is relatively affordable. Podcast hosting cost ranges anywhere from $12 – $20 per month when you’re just starting out. The price usually goes up with your number of downloads increases. So when your audience grows, the podcast hosts also incur higher costs due to their associated bandwidth costs of more subscribers downloading your episodes.

Arguably, once your audience grows, the costs associated with podcast hosting will be less of a concern. We recommend you choose your podcast host based on what you enjoy using, versus basing your decision on cost. You’ll find that “upgrading” later to a better host might be more painful than what podcast hosting companies would admit in getting you to switch hosts.

What Are The Core Features of Podcast Hosts?

In choosing a podcast host, the good news is they’re all relatively similar in terms of feature set. In general, they all offer the core required features, such as:

Host your audio files
Host your podcast formatted RSS feed
Host your webpage with all your episodes

Those are the basics…and yes, podcast hosting is relatively simple. Since there are so many podcast hosts to choose from these days, podcast host platforms have developed more advanced features to help you more easily manage your podcast and even help grow your audience. These additional features range from host to host, so you’ll have to decide what features are important to you. Some of these features are:

Paid podcasts
Stats and analytics
Customizable webpage
Video podcasts
Audience email capture
Email marketing tool
Audio editor
Audio transcription

Here is Our List of Top Podcast Hosts

Here’s our top 8 podcast hosts, with a summary of their price range and rating found on G2 review site.

Podcast Host	Price Range	Rating (on G2)
Libsyn	$5 – $40 per month	4.8 stars
Podbean	$0 – $29 per month	4.7 stars
BuzzSprout	$12 – $24 per month	4.9 stars
Blubrry	$12 – $80 per month	not available
bCast	$15 – $75 per month	4.8 stars
Transistor	$19 – $99 per month	5.0 stars
Simplecast	$15 – $85 per month	3.9 stars
Castos	$19 – $99 per month	not available