Podcasts have become a popular form of digital media, with Podbean being one of the most renowned podcast hosting services. Ted Talks and The Daily are just two of the 460k+ podcasts hosted by Podbean, but with so many hosting platforms available, is Podbean really the best? Let’s find out.
This review and walkthrough provide an in-depth analysis of Podbean’s features, evaluating their advantages and drawbacks to determine if it meets expectations.
About Podbean
Podbean is renowned as one of the most effective podcast hosting and management services on the market. Established in the United States in 2006, the company now boasts hundreds of thousands of users globally.
Podbean offers a simple and user-friendly platform to make podcast management, publishing, and analytics stress-free. Its enhanced share and embedding tools make promoting, managing, and editing podcasts easy with point-and-click convenience.
Podbean offers a variety of features to help with the marketing, monetization, and online presence of your podcast, though to a limited extent. Plus, you can tailor the aesthetic of your podcast site with Pro themes. Its more advanced plans also provide the ability to host video podcasts and make private podcasts.
With an easy-to-use interface and powerful hosting capabilities, it’s no surprise that over 600,000 podcasters have used Anchor to create 12 million episodes and drive 9.8 billion downloads.
Main Features
Podbean is a good podcasting platform, offering an array of features that can be beneficial when creating your podcast. It is an “all-in-one” solution that makes podcasting easier and more convenient.
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Live Stream
Easy Scheduled Publishing
Professional Website
Embeddable Player
Analytics & Statistics
Mobile App
Audience Engagement
MonetizationPricing & Plans
PodBean offers four different plans – one free and three paid – which range in features and monetization opportunities. All plans are straightforward to use, and the cost is a fixed price.
- Free Plan – The PodBean free plan permits users to store up to 500MB of audio files in the MP3 format and offers 100GB of bandwidth, which translates to a maximum of 7k downloads and five hours of total episodes.
- Unlimited Audio Plan – For those looking for more features, the Unlimited Audio tier offers an unbeatable deal – unmetered and unlimited storage and bandwidth for just $9 per month! Plus, get your own branded or mapped domain name, custom site design, and the ability to monetize your podcasts.
- Unlimited Plus – For podcasters who are becoming increasingly successful, the Unlimited Plus Plan is the ideal choice. For a fee of $29 per month, they can monetize their content with the Patron program and benefit from PodAds, a dynamic ad insertion technology.
- Business Plan – The Business Plan at Podbean costs $99/mo annually or $129/mo when billed monthly, is ideal for larger networks. It provides dedicated customer service, multiple user logins, content segmentation, advanced engagement stats, and the removal of Podbean’s branding. These features make the Business Plan an attractive option for large companies seeking a comprehensive SaaS platform.
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| Intuitive design, even for beginners! | No audio improvements available |
| Access to post-production tools to tweak your podcast episodes. | Limited customer assistance provided |
| A complimentary website to host your content. | Only live chat assistance offered on business plans |
| Comprehensive analytics to monitor your progress. | No backup option provided |
| Distribution to all the popular podcast platforms. | Podcast websites are less feature-rich than WordPress websites |
| A gratis plan to get you started. | |
| Streamline ad placement to monetize. | |
| Automatically share content to social media. | |
| An accompanying mobile app. |
PROS
CONS
Final Verdict: Start Your Podcasting Journey With Podbean Today!
Podbean is a great, user-friendly podcast hosting service for beginners and experienced podcasters. It is also one of the most affordable options available, and the generous free plan allows you to try out its main features without any financial risk. However, there are a few limitations, such as the inability to do video podcasting on the free plan and the lack of a backup feature. Despite these drawbacks, Podbean still offers excellent overall value for the money and is a great choice for anyone looking to get started with podcasting.
We strive to provide the most comprehensive reviews possible, but we know there’s always room for improvement. If you have any suggestions, please share them with us.
