Last updated: 9/9/2024
Last updated: 9/9/2024
Podcasting can be incredibly rewarding, not just because of the creative expression it allows but also through the connections it fosters and the audience it reaches.
However, it involves more than just recording—there’s hosting, distributing episodes, managing social media, marketing, guest outreach, and more. With additional tasks like cross-promotion, analytics, and transcribing, the process can become quite overwhelming, demanding lot of your time and attention.
That's why we've scoured the web to find the best podcast tools you'll ever need. We've gone through the hard work of separating the wheat from the chaff and giving you the absolute milk.
Doesn't matter if you're a newbie in podcasting or you're an old pro, these tools will cater to all your needs from ideation to earning the first few bucks from your show.
But before we get into the nitty-gritty, here's a quick TL;DR of the best tools we came up with;
A podcasting tool is any software you can use to automate, ease, streamline, or improve any aspect of your podcast workflow. This can be hosting, monetizing, promoting, marketing, guesting, reaching out, transcribing, distributing, analyzing, etc.
These tools can be AI-driven or manually operated. To help maintain a balanced selection, we've included both types of tools in our list, giving you a broad range of options to streamline your podcasting journey.
Standout feature: Local and cloud recording options.
Pros:
Cons:
When it comes to recording, Zoom is close to an all-in-one recording software for your podcasting needs. From scheduling interviews, meetings, and even casual calls with your podcasting friends, Zoom is the tool that can do all that for you.
It is also packed with additional features that can enhance your podcasting experience. For instance, there's a scheduler for setting up meetings with guests, clip plus for cutting interviews, translated captions, and a whiteboard where you can put in any rough idea.
Pricing: Free, Pro ($13 per month) and a higher plan ($18 per month).
Standout feature: High quality, separate audio tracking recording.
Pros
Cons:
Among the ocean of choices when it comes to podcast recording, Zencastr is the audio quality champion which allows a podcaster and guest to record audio locally on their device in studio quality, then automatically uploads and syncs these tracks to the cloud.
This ensures that even if you or your guest have a poor internet connection during the call, your audio will still sound clear and uninterrupted in the final recording. We believe this is a game-changer for podcasters looking to produce professional-sounding episodes without the need for complicated setups.
Pricing: Standard ($18 per month), Grow ($24 per month), and Scale ($40 per month).
Standout feature: Remote recording
Pros:
Cons:
This tool is designed to make podcast recording easy and crisp as if everyone is in the same room with its features aimed at enhancing the interactivity of both the host and guest.
With Squadcast, you can ditch worrying over high-quality audio recordings from both parties. Each person's voice is recorded locally and individually for automatic backup on the cloud making editing your recordings a breeze.
Pricing: Hobbyist ($12 per user per month for 10 recording hours per editor per month), Creator ($24 per user per month for 30 recording hours per editor per month), and Business ($40 per user per month for 40 recording hours per editor per month).
Standout feature: Editing and enhancing audio with one click.
Pros:
Cons:
Podsqueeze is an AI co-pilot for podcast editing and audio enhancement. This tool takes care of the removal of the ums, filler words, repetitive words, and other distractions in your recording. It then goes a little further in editing both videos and audio using just one click.
Podsqueeze offers an extensive range of features that caters to both your recorded videos and audio.
For example, you can remove noise like silences and uhms with their audio cleanup, generate audiograms and podcast clips with their podcast clip maker, get customizable quote images in a jiffy, and many more.
Pricing: Free, Starter ($11 per month), Pro ($27 per month), Agency ($41 per month)
Standout feature: Automated audio cleanup.
Pros:
Cons:
Cleanvoice is one of the most distinctive audio cleanup tools on the web. Its primary work is cleaning and removing stutter words like ums, ahs, and distracting silences making it a prominent tool in audio cleaning and enhancing landscape.
But the big draw for many users is its use of AI in clearing and enhancing the audio and how clear your recordings are with minimal input from you.
Pricing: Free, Pay-as-you-go plan ($2.20 per hour when you buy at least 5 hours of audio) and ($1.10 per hour when you purchase at least 10 hours of audio)
Standout feature: Automatic audio leveling
Pros:
Cons:
It’s safe to call Auphonic an audio-fixer that fixes any stutter in your recorded audio. This tool makes your audio sound professional with minimal effort, handling tasks like leveling audio, reducing background noise, and adjusting loudness to meet broadcast standards.
Pricing: Free, recurring credits ($11 for 9h/m), one-time credit ($12 for 5 hours).
Standout feature: Cut audio with a click and drag.
Pros:
Cons:
Resound is one of the popular choices when it comes to podcast audio cleaning. And there’s a good reason for that. It’s a web-based tool that finds long and awkward pauses, makes your recording crispy, improves the pace of your episode, and boosts the deliverability of your speech.
Pricing: Free, Creator ($15 per month), Profesional ($30 per month), and Studio ($60 per month).
Standout feature: Editing your audio as you edit your transcript.
Pros:
Cons:
This podcast audio and enhancement tool does one simple thing that we like best. You can edit your audio by editing your transcript. Because the truth is that not all AI tools are completely perfect and that’s where human tweaking comes in. Many audio editing tools out there are heavily reliant on AI that there’s only a little room for human tweaking. Well, this is where Alitu surpasses most of the tools out there.
This tool is also easy to use. Simply import your show or start a new one with it and you’re set.
Pricing: No free plan and the paid tiers for Indie Podcasters start at $38, and $259 for Businesses.
Standout feature: Four-peat features (record, edit, publish, and host)
Pros:
Want a tool that can help you record, edit, publish, and even host your podcast? If having everything in a single tool is your speed, this tool will give you the pace that you need.
For example, it has the Studio, where you can record high-quality audio. There’s also the Editor - for editing podcasts in record time. Lastly, the Publisher - for publishing your podcast across.
Pricing: Free, Hobby ($10 per month) and Pro ($30 per month).
Standout feature: Get accurate transcripts and SRT files for captions and subtitles.
Pros:
Cons:
We've already mentioned Podsqueeze under the category of audio editing and enhancement tools but we're still mentioning it here again. Why? Because it is hard to pass on the best transcription tool out there.
The Podsqueeze transcript does more than just convert spoken words from a podcast episode or YouTube video into text. It excels by capturing all other aspects of a podcast episode and includes subtle features like automatically identifying speakers' names (which you can edit), using AI to refine your results and remember your voice for future use, among many other capabilities.
Pricing: Free, Starter ($11 per month), Pro ($27 per month), Agency ($41 per month)
Standout feature: Integration with top meeting tools.
Pros:
Cons:
Otter reigns as one of the best transcription tools for live meetings and recordings. With integration with tools like Zoom, Google Meet, etc, you don’t have to have a pre-recorded file in your Google Drive or a published YouTube video before you can get the transcript of your interview. You don’t even need to toggle Otter AI on when you join or conduct your interviews, Otter automatically joins.
Pricing: Free, Pro ($17 per month), Business ($30 per month), and Enterprise (reach out to learn more).
Standout feature: More than 40 language translations for transcript
Pros:
Cons:
Notta AI is a complete transcription package tool with AI to make the whole transcription process easier. If the features of Otter AI aren’t your speed, you can consider the additional features of Notta AI.
For example, you can transcribe a video by just inserting the URL and the team collaboration feature can make Notta a more ideal tool for podcast agencies or podcasters with a production team.
Pricing: Free, Pro ($15 per month), Business ($28 per month), and Enterprise (reach out to learn more).
Standout feature: Got a 4-step transcription process designed for 99% accuracy.
Pros:
Cons:
Scribie takes a huge turn from the tools mentioned on this list. Scribie is a platform of 100% human-verified transcribers. If you want a more advanced and accurate transcription for your podcast or any related content, Scribie will give you exactly what you need.
For example, if you have complex audio issues that are too advanced for AI tools and accuracy is what you prioritize, Scribie is essential for situations like this.
Pricing: Starts at $0.80 per minute ($48 for an hour).
Standout feature: Get an estimate of the clicks and views you can get on your topic.
Pros:
Cons:
Dubbed the SEMrush of the podcasting industry, Podsqueeze topic finder does more than just find you trending and about-to-trend podcast topics, it can also give you an estimate of the clicks your podcast can get if it is optimized and ranks on Google and also the amount of the views you can get on YouTube.
That way, you can get an overview of how well a topic will perform, how many views you can get, and how much exposure and visibility your podcast can amass - a feature that no other podcast topic finder tool can boast of.
Pricing: Free to use
Standout feature: Have more than 50+ sources to suggest topic ideas
Pros:
Cons:
Ever wanted a topic research tool that expands further than just the podcast industry? That is where Topic Mojo appears. It fetches data from all over the web and gives you cool insights that are relevant to your podcast niche. All you need to do is create an account, input your industry, and get started with surfing your keywords.
Pricing: Free, Pro ($90 billed annually), and Pro ($39.80 billed monthly).
Standout feature: Competitive intel to give you trends on competition trends.
Pros:
Cons:
Feedly is more than just a topic research tool. It can be likened to hiring private intelligent specialists who scour the web to give you reports on the most relevant new sources, tech blogs, newsletters, publications, magazines, journals, social media, and much more.
Insights from these reports can then be used to steer the trajectory of how you compose your topic research and better serve your audiences.
Pricing: Standard ($1200 per month), and Expert ($2400 per month).
Standout feature: Finding topics before they take off
Pros:
Cons:
Among many topic finders, Exploding Topics is close to being called the overall best topic research tool on the web. Not only do you get niche-specific and relevant topic insights but you will also get topic insights into what could trend in the next 12 months.
The tool also gives a huge competitive advantage to spot the not-so-obvious topic opportunities in your niche and even shoulder niches.
Pricing: Entrepreneur ($ 39 per month), Investor ($99), and Business ($249).
Standout feature: In-depth keyword analysis for a free tool
Pros:
Cons:
Ryan Rob is the whiz kid of the blogging industry. His free keyword research tool is powered enough to give you insights into the search traffic of any keywords, competitiveness, estimated clicks, monthly search volume, and much more.
There’s very little this free tool can’t do when it comes to finding relevant topics that your podcast audiences will like and could increase your podcast discoverability.
Pricing: Free to use
Standout feature: Detailed analytics of your show
Pros:
Cons:
Listnr is about as close to an all-in-one podcast production tool as it gets. With a wide range of features and options that can record, edit, host, and distribute podcasts, it can likely replace many other tools for many users.
What's really impressive about Listnr is its detailed analytics. It offers you an in-depth view of how your podcast is performing, the number of streams you get, the number of downloads, engagement rate, average listening time, and many more.
Also, they've got some good names for their pricing tiers :)
Pricing: Alpha ($19 per month), Beta ($49 per month), Gama ($99 per month), Theta ($199 per month).
Standout feature: Unlimited uploads and downloads
Pros:
Cons:
If you don't like the download limit on Listnr like us, you're definitely going to love Zencast as there's no download limit for your podcast. Zencast provides you with unlimited uploads, unlimited downloads, and a single push button to distribute your podcast on all directories.
But not only this, you can also get a dedicated podcast website for your show as part of their features and a podcast player where your audiences can listen to you directly without having to go over to other podcast apps.
Pricing: Hobby ($12 per month), Professional ($35 per month), Plus ($89 per month), Enterprise (reach out to learn more).
Standout feature: Best for beginner podcasters
Pros:
Cons:
Not just creating an account on RSS is an impressive start to a podcasting venture, you also get a 6 month free when you switch over from any other hosting platform to RSS.
RSS.com's framework is organized a little differently from most hosting platforms as it gives a strong emphasis on students, NGOs, and beginner podcasters to enjoy the thrill of podcasting without reeling in excess features and pricing plans.
Pricing: All-in-podcasting ($12 per month), Students & NGOs ($5 per month), and Podcast Network (#15 per month).
Standout feature: Most affordable hosting platform in the industry
Pros:
Cons:
If the cheap payment tiers of RSS.com aren't to your liking, Fusebox will do.
Simple podcast hosting “without breaking the bank” may at first seem like an overstatement but Fusebox actually starts with a pricing of $7.50 per month, giving them the most affordable podcast hosting platform in the industry.
Their podcast player that's embeddable almost anywhere online is pretty nice with cool customizable colors. The essential and detailed analytics plus free podcast transcript is the icing on the cake for Fusebox podcast hosting offerings.
Pricing: Starter ($7.50 per month) and Pro ($15.83 per month)
Standout feature: Download only or stream only
Pros:
Cons:
The truth is you can get a little lost on the Disctopia homepage as there's no section of the page dedicated to mentioning podcast hosting but Disctopia is still one of the cool guys in the podcast sphere.
With this platform, you can either make your podcast download only or stream only (that's the first time you're reading that on this list), sell merch for your podcast, and they dubbed themselves to offer more podcast hosting features than any other in the industry (that's debatable but we couldn't compare their features to hundreds of other hosting tools on the web).
Pricing: Creative (free), Creative Plus ($20 per month), and Agency ($100 per month)
Standout feature: Publish more than one show with a single plan
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Personal Brand ($18 per month), Professional ($48 per month), and Business ($98 per month).
Standout feature: Unlimited podcasts, episodes, storage and users
Pros:
Cons:
Beyond its primary podcast hosting capabilities, Podigee offers several other features that can breathe new life into your podcast. While advanced analytics are common in many hosting tools, Podigee sets itself apart with its detailed reporting. Additionally, it provides the opportunity to monetize your content directly, without the need for third-party platforms.
Originally designed in German, the Podigee website may not be the cheapest option, but it holds significant potential for managing both your podcast hosting and monetization needs effectively.
Pricing: Basic Plus ($19 per month), Advanced Plus ($39 per month), and Business Pro ($99 per month).
Standout feature: Huhhopper Studio
Pros:
Cons:
Dubbed the giant of the Asia podcast hosting demographic, Hubhopper is endowed with several nice features that make hosting, distributing, and managing your podcast seamless.
Hubhopper Is a hybrid podcast hosting platform designed to make the management of your podcast as easy as it can be with automation features included to help you produce viral podcasts.
Pricing: Free, Pro ($12 per month), Growth ($24 per month), and Premium ($499 per month).
Standout feature: Podcast audio player
Pros:
Cons:
There are website builders and there are podcast website builders. Podcastpage actually effectively draws this fine line between a website builder and a podcast website builder. With features exclusively aimed at podcasting, you can get more than just a website.
With features like podcast player directly from your website, integration with other tools, importing of all episodes, and automatically adding new ones, you can impress your podcast listeners with the perfect podcast website.
Pricing: Podcaster ($12 per month), Business ($18 per month), and Enterprise (reach out to learn more).
Standout feature: Create a website from your RSS feed
Pros:
Cons:
In the ocean of podcast website builders, Podpage takes the bar a little higher with its AI integration. Features like AI to supercharge your website creation, AI blog post writer, AI newsletter writer, and AI review summary are all powered to make the whole process easy and streamlined.
For example, you can always use the AI blog post writer to come up with post ideas and tweak the result manually to have optimized blog posts on your site ready to rank on search engines.
Pricing: Basic ($12 per month), Pro ($19 per month), and Elite ($39 per month).
Standout feature: Free custom domain
Pros:
Cons:
As they say, your podcast website should do more than display episodes. Onpodium takes this claim to the core as that's obvious in their features. With integrations to almost all podcast hosting platforms, custom domains, an option to import podcast reviews, and blogs, create custom pages, etc, you're sure to have a joyful ride with Onpodium when creating your podcast website.
Pricing: Starts at $15 per podcast website
Admit it or not, having guests on your show makes you more interactive, your show more engaging, and the overall breath of your podcast more lively. Here in this section, we cover a few, but the most relevant tools and platforms for finding podcast guests and collaborators.
Standout feature: Messenger app
Pros:
Cons:
If you've been in the podcast industry for a while, it'll be unusual to say you haven't heard of Matchmaker.fm yet. Just like the name suggests, this platform matches you with potential guests for your show.
It has over 70,000 shows and guests who are ready and eager to get featured on your podcast and share their valuable insights. It's feature-rich to cater for all your matchmaking needs
Pricing: Free and Pro ($129 per year)
Standout feature: Automatic matches
Pros:
Cons:
Nothing entices us better with Podmatch than its automatic matches and the streamlined processes everything goes by. Another interesting feature of Podmatch is the freedom for you to create a profile as a guest, host, or both.
Think about being able to bring guests to your show and also appear as guests on other podcasts. That's a very easy way to gain recognition and become a household voice in your niche.
Pricing: Host (Standard at $6 and Professional at $62 per month), Guest (Standard at $29 and Professional at $62 per month), Both (Standard at $35 and Professional at $62 per month), and Agency ($62 per month plus additional $31 per month for each managed clients).
Standout feature: Easy-to-use
Pros:
Cons:
Webicaster proudly believes that some guests want to be part of your podcast and it's their task to connect you with these guests. While you can get a decent number of guests from cold outreach and social media DMs, Webicaster gives you more of that in a more streamlined way.
Pricing: Free, Premium ($5 per month), and Professional ($250 per month).
Standout feature: Guest directory
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Either free or not publicly mentioned
Standout feature: Human matchmakers
Pros:
Cons:
A little turn from the platforms we've mentioned in this category. Kitcaster isn't a platform or a tool, it's a podcast booking agency that offers booking highly relevant podcast interviews based on your ideal outcomes. You set the expectations and Kitcaster delivers the result. That simple.
Pricing: Contact
Standout feature: Podcast database
Pros:
Cons:
Obviously the most expensive tool in this category but Rephonic is feature-packed to cover the price. One of the features that we really like is the pitch editor that makes crafting outreach pitch effortless. Choose from a range of templates or craft yours from scratch and you're good to go.
You can also use a target list to create a list of potential podcasts to get featured on or guests to have on your show. Either way, Rephonic is one of the most feature-rich podcast-matching platforms out there.
Pricing: Light ($99 per month), Standard ($149 per month), and Business ($299 per month).
Standout feature: Dynamic content tags
Pros:
Cons:
To get the full version of Mavsocial, you'll need to pay but this doesn't mean you're still limited with the features opened to you on the free version. This awesome tool helps you with all your podcast social media marketing and management needs. Have any podcast clips or audiograms to schedule? Mavsocial is a decent choice.
You can schedule, automate, create, promote, and even advertise with Mavsocial all from a single account.
Pricing: Advanced ($29 per month), Pro ($78 per month), Business ($249 per month), and Flexible pricing (starts at $399 per month).
Standout feature: Customizable voice model
Pros:
Cons:
Lately's homepage may seem a little techy when you read that they have the first world's Deep Social Platform, powered by Neuroscience-Driven AI. Anyways, Lately AI has arguably the smartest AI on the list. If automation and effectiveness in streamlining your podcast social media marketing is your priority, Lately AI will be your speed.
Pricing: Starter ($49 per month), Professional ($159 per month), and Growth ($319 per month).
Standout feature: AI scheduler
Pros:
Cons:
Neulink helps you manage, automate, analyze, schedule, and streamline your podcast repurposing from A-Z. Without this tool, you can manually create and repurpose your content for various uses but fortunately, Neulink takes out the hard task and automatically does the needful for your podcast on your social platforms.
Pricing: Standard ($15 per month), Premium ($25 per month), and Business ($49 per month)
Standout feature: Smart AI integration
Pros:
Cons:
Creasquare isn't just a repurposing tool but it also handles Content creation, generates captions, and also schedules using artificial intelligence. The icing on the cake of this cool tool is it's not limited to just written assets alone. You can create graphic designs, videos, and even copywriting content all with AI on the side.
Pricing: Basic ($25 per month), Professional ($50 per month), and Team ($80 per month).
Standout feature: Human-focused services
Pros:
Cons:
Amid AI and automation, the list takes a break with this social media marketing agency called Social Status. They help design bizz social media strategy for your podcast, community management, post boosting, social media posting, content creation, and monthly reporting.
Pricing: Contact
Standout feature: Subscriber landing page
Pros:
Cons:
You can't safely talk about monetization in the podcastsphere without mentioning Supercast once or more. Supercast is a podcast subscription platform built to help you bring in audience members to fuel your podcast passion with their monetary support.
Your subscription on Supercast isn't platform-limited as you can get host all of your content without getting boxed to a single platform. Subscriber landing page, unlimited subscribers, built-in emailing features, etc are the icing on the cake to the features of Supercast.
Pricing: All-in ($0.59/ month per subscriber).
Standout feature: Native ads on your terms
Pros:
Cons:
Unlike Supercast where you set up your premium content yourself, Podcorn on the other hand connects you with brands and fikter unique collaborations for you.
The framework consists of brands creating campaigns and then selecting podcasters (like you) to help run their campaign and they get paid in the process. It's native ads in your podcast and on your terms too.
Pricing: 10% service fee whenever you get paid.
Standout feature: Exclusive podcast subscription
Pros:
Cons:
Glow is a super detailed podcast monetization platform. Unlike most platforms in its category, Glow doesn't give you generic monetization options like “there's a few brands ready to monetize.”
Instead, Glow lets you choose your price, make a couple of clicks and your fans can make payments to your subscription.
Pricing: $0.50 per month per subscriber
Standout feature: Fully automated ads
Pros:
Cons:
Like Podcorn and Glow, Redcircle also invests in connecting podcasters with brands I'm a very easy and streamlined manner. Surrounded by monetization features, you can accept listeners' donations, sponsorships, and Redcircle RAP - this one offers a full suite of many advertising opportunities.
Pricing: Host read ads (70/30 split) and Programmatic ads (50/50 split).
Standout feature: Industry rankings
Pros:
Cons:
Podtrac is a podcast analytical tool with a whole range of features that detail almost every part of your podcast. This tool highlights important data that can help understand and grow your audiences in record time.
Its core offerings are tailored to podcasters’ show metric, advertisers and agencies, and the trends going on in the general podcast landscape - ensuring podcasters stay informed, up-to-date, and equipped with the right data in hand.
Pricing: Free and Grow Your Show ($20 per month)
Standout feature: Charts from Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Pros:
Cons:
Chartable is a popular name in the podcast landscape for detailed analytics and attribution platforms designed specifically for podcasters who are conscious about the performance of their show.
With features like smartlinks, smartpromos, audience insights, ranking, reviews, etc, Chartable helps podcast creators, networks, and advertisers track the performance of their shows and measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
Pricing: Indie (free), Pro ($50 per month), and Enterprise (contact)
Standout feature: Competitors analysis
Pros:
Cons
If you've ever wanted to steal a long peek into what a successful competitor in your podcast niche is doing right and you aren’t, SimilarPod is the tool for you.
It is a nifty podcast competitor analytics tool that gives users a concrete overview of analysis and insights of a certain competitor, how they're approaching their growth, what you're missing, and perhaps, helps you craft better ideas on how to grow your show and where to focus your marketing efforts.
Pricing: Free and Premium ($20 per month).
Standout feature: Podcast chart tracking
Pros:
Cons:
Tracking your podcast chart, reviews, download analytics, and attribution data all in one place is as close as it gets to being an all-in-one podcast analytics tool.
Podkite gives the type of x-ray scan on your podcast metrics that can change the trajectory of how you approach your podcast strategies and marketing efforts.
Pricing: $14 per month
Sometimes, the line between need and want can get blurry and you might really miss the most important things that matter. Having tried some of the tools on this list, getting reviews and recommendations from friends and buddies who have tried some of the tools on the list that we haven't, and having read reviews about the ones we haven't tried yet, we can tell you what you need to look out for when choosing a podcasting tool.
Here are the points we've come up with;
This is the most important of them all. Why? Because your goals will steer the trajectory of everything you do. For example, if your goal is to keep podcasting solo, you might switch from tools like Podsqueeze - an AI assistant for your podcasting need - to a tool that only provides one narrow feature like Scribie - transcription.
While it's crucial to choose a tool that offers specific podcasting needs you're seeking, it's also important to choose one that offers more than that. You might necessarily need the other features but that's better than needing it and having to subscribe to another tool.
We can't stress this enough. Pick a tool that reflects your current budget. Don't go for an expensive tool over the promises of you'll soon make it in podcasting. Podcasting, as well as other media industries, isn't a walk in the park and can take quite a while to pick off. That's why it's important to pick tools that give a nice blend of features and price.
And (breath in and out), we're wrapping up this long list of the podcast tools you'll ever need. Calling this the tools you'll ever need may sound like an extra stretch but when you look at the features and suite of each tool on this list, there's nothing you want in podcasting that you won't find in any of these tools.
So, which one are you checking out?
Repurpose your podcast content with AI