When coming up with a podcast, it’s extremely important to choose a good website hosting platform because it forms a good foundation for your podcast venture.
In your search for the same, you could have come across Podbean and hence need some insight on it right? Well, I can tell you for a fact that you landed on the right post because here, I will provide you with all the essential details about Podbean.
Through this Podbean review, you will get to find out what Podbean is, how it works, its distinctive features, customer reviews, pros, and cons, how to use it, pricing, and comparisons with its competitors.
Without wasting time, let’s get started.
Name: Podbean
Website: www.podbean.com
Owner: David Xu
Price: Depends on the plan that you choose
Overall Ratings: 92 out of 100
Table of Contents
What Podbean Really is
This is a platform that provides both free and premium podcast hosting packages both for individuals and businesses.
It has all the features you need for starting, promoting, and monetizing your podcast so that you are able to get started easily and scale your podcast channel without struggles.
So if you are looking for a place where you can easily step foot into podcasting and get give it a try before you commit, Podbean is a good place to look.
Also, if you are a well-established organization that is looking to invest in your organization’s podcast channel with all the many useful features that will help you achieve different podcasting, then Podbean is a good option.
It offers a user-friendly interface for all its users that is very easy to understand and work with.
You don’t require any programming knowledge or podcasting background to make it work.
The platform was founded in the year 2006 and its headquarters are found in Wilmington, Delaware.
It has been providing resourceful podcasting services for more than ten years now and it has been getting better every year. New features have been launched that have helped increase the value of the podcasts the users create.
Podbean serves more than 500, 000 podcasters, over 11, 200, 000 episodes, and over 7.7 billion downloads.
It is quite a popular platform in the podcasting industry and honestly, I have come to love it as well due to the quality features it offers and the simplicity of use.
How Podbean Works
Podbean simply works by helping you create a podcast channel, run it smoothly, and make it profitable.
They offer you a place to build the channel and give you podcast hosting services that will help you have all the resources you need to run the channel without any issues.
What this means is, if you want to launch your podcast channel and get people to listen, download, and stream your podcast episodes, you will just need to join Podbean and do it.
With its help, you will also be able to get your podcasts featured in other well-known podcast stores like Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, and even Spotify, among others, where you will get your podcast a massive audience that is looking for what you are offering.
Podbean will help distribute your episodes to almost all well-known platforms that give people who love podcasts a place to listen and download them.
They also give you various options that you can use to monetize your podcast. And you get to choose the one you want to work with as your preferred income stream.
You can choose to use the premium podcast service where you have users buying your monthly or yearly premium subscriptions or the Patreon program or even the built-in dynamic advertising system to leverage ads on your channel.
And the good thing is that, when it comes to ownership of your content, Podbean doesn’t own any of your content, you have sole ownership of everything that you decide to put out there.
And the only way that Podbean will own your work is if you decide to either sell or freely give it to them.
Features of Podbean
Other than the features I have already mentioned, here are other features that you enjoy if you decide to use Podbean include:
• Easy to use podcast publishing services
• A free domain (and premium ones, if you want) for your podcast website.
• Ability to make quick uploads of your episodes to you channel
• Ability to access and manage your podcast channel through the Podbean App that is available for iOS and Android, that even allows you to record your episodes using your smartphone
• Ability to make email integration so that you easily share your new episodes with your mail subscribers
• Ability to share your new episodes on social platforms
• Ability to add a podcast player to your website and customize it the way you want
• Ability to track the progress of your website by showing you the downloads, trend history of your podcast channel and website
• Important performance analyses that include statistics on how you are retaining your users and location information that helps you know where your podcast is being listened to in large volumes so that you know which people to target with your next episodes and how to meet their needs well
• Ability to do live streams on your channel that give you a real-time experience of engaging with your listeners.
• Ability to make use of income-generating opportunities for live streams such as selling virtual tickets to users
• The Podbean app also helps your listeners access your episodes on the go
Podbean Customer Reviews
Generally, Podbean has received a lot of positive feedback. The fact that it provides a fairly simple backend area that even beginners are able to use without needing help with it, is making it win more users that are working with its competitors.
The pricing plan and podcast analytics are also areas that the users find interesting about it.
Although there are a few complaints here and there, by and large, it is a good platform.
Here is what users have said about it:
The Positive Reviews
“We’ve been using it to host our show A-Town and I’ve been pretty happy with it. The price is good, and unlimited everything is awesome so I don’t have to worry about managing space or anything.”
“Currently using podbean to manage a single show. Price point is great and stats are also useful.”
“Use podbean every day and have no issues. I find it easy to use”
“As a personal anecdote, our podcast uses Podbean and it’s perfectly suited to our humble little show. We submitted our feed to Stitcher and iTunes and it’s been integrated without a hitch. It works great for us.”
The Negative Reviews
“There are times when it is glitchy and not as responsive.”
“It is very hard to find a detailed explanation for refunds and cancellations on their annual premium plan. I would like to consider this upgrade, but not before I can appropriately research it.”
“The auto-download and delete is not always functioning correctly and can fill up my memory quite fast if I am not paying attention.”
You can read more Podbean user reviews here and here.
Podbean Pros and Cons
The Pro’s
~ It is beginner-friendly because one doesn’t need any technical knowledge on coming up with a successful podcast and hence anyone that has ever dreamt of coming up with a podcast can do so easily.
~ It’s easy to make money because of the many in-built monetization options.
~ It’s affordable since the price plans are not extremely expensive
~ No matter the plan that you choose you can still create an incredible podcast.
~ It offers a wide range of features and functionalities to users and hence gives them value for their money.
~ It offers great customer support 24/7
The Con’s
~ It lacks a backup feature to help you back up your channel’s data, which is extremely important because what happens if you lose your podcast recordings?
~ It offers a limited refund period
~ There are also limited security features
How to Use Podbean
To get started with Podbean, you need to create your account first and then choose the subscription plan that you want to work with.
From there, you can create your podcast channel and set it up properly and then start uploading your episodes.
Here are steps to help you do that:
You will first want to set your podcast logo, choose your category, and podcast title. Then, you will briefly state what your podcast is all about. To do this:
Step 1. Log into your Podbean account
Step 2. Click on ‘Settings’ then move on to “General”, where you can edit your account details
Step 3. click on “Update options” so that your changes take effect
Step 4. You now want to select your theme by clicking “Distribution” then “Podcast Website” to get a glimpse of the various themes provided.
Step 5. Customize other areas of your podcast website such as layout, header theme, and color by clicking on “customize” and adding the features you want to use
Step 6. Click on “Submit” to save your changes
To start publishing content on your podcast, this is what you need to do:
Step 7. Click on “Episodes” and then go to the “Episodes List” page. Then head over to “New Episode” so that you can start adding a new episode
Step 8. Select the file that you want and start uploading it on your podcast
Step 9. Start editing the episode’s title, description and then lastly hit ‘publish’ to make it accessible to your users
It’s as simple as that!
From there, you should make an effort of publishing regularly, do high-quality editing, use good quality equipment, and promote your podcast to other popular podcast websites and social channels to make it succeed.
Podbean Pricing Plan
With Podbean you get 4 subscription plans which include basic, unlimited audio, unlimited plus, and business.
This is what each plan comprises:
√The Basic Plan (Completely Free)
With this plan, you get:
~ 5 hours total storage
~ 100 GB monthly bandwidth
~ Both the mobile app and podcast players
~ Your own podcast site and RSS feed & iTunes support
~ Access to free themes
~ The basic comprehensive podcast stats
√Unlimited Audio Plan
(You pay $9 monthly billed annually, or $14/month)
With this plan, you get:
~ Unlimited storage space
~ Unmetered bandwidth
~ Both the mobile app and podcast players
~ Ability to map your own domain
~ Both iTunes and RSS Feed support
~ Access to the pro themes
~ Advanced custom design
~ For monetization, you get premium sales and Ad Marketplace
~ Comprehensive podcast stats
√Unlimited Plus Plan
(You pay $29 monthly billed annually, or $39/month)
With this plan you get:
~ All the features and functionalities in unlimited audio plan and on top of that, you get an upgraded “Full” custom design and access to the other monetization options such as patron program and PodAds – The Saas for podcast Advertising.
√Business Plan
(You pay $99/month billed annually or $129 per month)
With this plan you get:
~ Access to all storage and bandwidth functionality
~ Access to the mobile app and podcast player
~ Access to all service and functions
~ Access to all monetization opportunities
~ Full access to business podcasting that is unlimited multiple admins, groups, a private podcast with SSO authentication, live chat support, remove Podbean branding, engagement intel, and Podbean pro app.
Competitor Comparison
Let’s take a look at how PodBean compares to other similar podcast hosting platforms.
PodBean vs Buzzsprout
Buzzsprout is another great podcast hosting platform that offers amazing resources for podcasters.
Not only does it offer what Podbean offers in terms of features, but it also has other extra and really useful features such as the ability to have multiple podcasts that your team can access, giving you free access for 90 days, and other podcasting tools that take your podcast game to the next level.
Its pricing plans are also slightly lower than Podbean since you get options like the free plan, the $12 per month plan, the $18 per month plan, and the $24 per month plan which is the highest plan.
Sadly, they don’t offer live streaming so if that is something on your priority list, then Podbean is better for you. Other than that, Buzzsprout for me is the winner between the two.
Podbean vs Anchor
Anchor is a podcasting platform that also provides you with all the tools and features that you need for your podcast.
Regarding how it compares to Podbean, it offers free and unlimited hosting without limiting you in any way on the size of files that you can upload.
However, its major downside is that most of the features it has con only be accessed by people in the United States only. Although they are planning to expand soon. At the moment, Podbean wins this one.
Podbean vs Libsyn
Libsyn is a podcast hosting software that has most of what Podbean has. Its pricing plans are also slightly lower than those of Podbean. However, if you look at what you get in terms of value, you will realize that Podbean offers more value than Libsyn.
I think the higher plans account for the extra value you get. For instance, you get more storage space for your podcasts with Podbean than what you get with Libsyn.
So, in this case, I would still go with Podbean.
Podbean vs Soundcloud
SoundCloud is at the forefront of audio/music sharing and when it comes to providing hosting for podcasts, it hasn’t been left behind.
It is very popular with music although it doesn’t compare with Podbean when it comes to podcasts.
Yes, it does offer some cool features that can you get up and running with your podcast, But Podbean definitely offers more useful features and is more focused on podcasting than SoundCloud.
I would recommend Podbean here again.
Podbean vs Spreaker
Spreaker offers a wide range of tools and features for your podcast. It has almost all the features you get with Podbean including live streaming and an app you can use on iOS and Android.
But if you check the Spreaker’s user ratings, you will notice it has been rated poorly compared to Podbean and there are quite some complaints about it from the users. (https://www.g2.com/products/Spreaker/reviews)
Based on user ratings, Podbean takes the trophy yet again.
My Final Thoughts
Looking at all we have covered here, we can agree that Podbean definitely has something great to offer to its users.
It offers value for the money you pay for the plans.
It may not be as good as Buzzsprout but it surely does offer you many resources that make your podcasting experience much better.
And one thing I came to note is that most popular websites that also do podcasting, use Podbean.
So I totally recommend that you use it.
However, if you are looking for a podcast hosting service that offers you more features than Podbean for much lower costs, but doesn’t give you the ability to do live streams, then Buzzsprout is the real deal.
I hope this review has been insightful and it has helped you understand Podbean better.
If you have any questions or you would need help with anything related to podcasts, feel free to reach out through the comments and I will be more than happy to help. 🙂
