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GUIDE 14 OF 17Podcast hosting: where your episodes live
What a podcast host does, why you should not host MP3s on your own website, and how to compare hosts.
Your finished MP3 needs somewhere to live that can handle thousands of downloads and produce an RSS feed. That’s a podcast host (sometimes called a media host). It’s different from the web host that serves your website.
What a podcast host does
- Stores your audio files and delivers them quickly to listeners anywhere.
- Builds your RSS feed from the title, description and artwork you enter, and updates it whenever you publish.
- Reports downloads, ideally to an industry-standard measurement so numbers are comparable.
- Distributes your feed to apps, or helps you submit it.
- Often adds a simple show website, embeddable players, transcripts and ways to earn money.
Why not host MP3s on your own website?
You can: a podcast feed is just a text file with links to audio. But each listener downloads the whole file, so a 30 MB episode with 1,000 downloads uses 30 GB of bandwidth. Most website plans aren’t built for that, and a popular episode can get you throttled or billed. You also lose download statistics and automatic feed updates. Our file size calculator estimates the bandwidth for your show.
Free vs paid hosts
| Free plans | Paid plans | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | None | Usually a monthly fee, sometimes by upload hours or downloads |
| Watch for | Ads inserted into your episodes, limits, unclear ownership of the feed | Download caps, overage charges |
| Good for | Trying podcasting, school projects | Shows you plan to keep for years |
Choosing a host: checklist
- Can you leave? Check that the host supports a permanent 301 redirect of your feed if you move. This is the most important question; without it, changing hosts can lose subscribers.
- Can you use your own domain for the feed or website?
- What are the limits on storage, upload hours per month and downloads?
- Are statistics measured to an industry standard?
- Does it support the features you want: seasons, private feeds, transcripts, chapters, video, dynamic ad insertion?
- Who owns the content? Read the terms; you should keep all rights.
Tip: keep your original WAV masters and show notes in your own backup, whatever host you use. Hosts close and change their terms; your archive shouldn’t depend on one company.
Picked a host? Next, upload your episode and submit your feed.