How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify: At-a-Glance
If you want to grow an audience around your podcast, you should make it as easy as possible to find, and listen to.
That means being available everywhere people are consuming audio.
Spotify is one of the biggest podcast listening platforms on the planet. It’s quick and easy to make your show available there.
Here, I’ll show you how to do it via five great podcast hosting services – Transistor, Captivate, Alitu, Buzzsprout, & RSS.com
You can also upload your podcast to Spotify using their own hosting, and I’ll discuss that.
I’ll also show you how to access your Spotify stats, and to find out if your audience are secret Taylor Swift fans.
Read on for the full guide…
Why List Your Podcast on Spotify?
Spotify is one of the biggest podcast listening platforms on the planet. It accounts for 34% of all downloads on podcast hosting platform Buzzsprout, second only to Apple Podcasts. By getting listed on Spotify, your show is going to become available to millions of potential listeners, in over 75 countries
And the good news is that it’s quick and easy to make your podcast available on Spotify. This guide will show you a few different ways to do it.
A quick heads up that some of our hosting provider links here are affiliates because we recommend them all highly. If you decide to sign up through one, we’d earn a small commission, though at absolutely no extra cost to yourself!
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify Directly
Spotify has had podcast hosting built-in since it acquired Anchor. This means you don’t need to use a third-party podcast hosting provider, and as Spotify for Podcasters (Spotify’s hosting service) is free, you don’t need to spend any money, either.
A word of caution before you dive in, though, is that Spotify for Podcasters, like Anchor before it, isn’t the most reliable hosting service. I’ve seen many issues with it over the years, the latest being the case of a popular show being deleted by Spotify.
Of course, this alone isn’t the basis not to host your show there, and it’s unlikely to happen to you. As James Cridland at Podnews rightly points out, this is a rare incident, and we do hear more negative stories about Spotify’s hosting because it’s free, and so many people use it. But, he also sums up well:
Mistakes will happen. Perhaps, though, if your podcasting has become a little more serious, it’s worth paying for podcast hosting with a smaller company – for the personal touch you get, even when things go wrong.
Spotify for Podcasters is a good way to test the waters in podcasting, though. If you stick at it and start to gain traction, you can always move your show to a dedicated hosting provider further down the line. Here’s how to set it up:
Firstly, log in to (or create an account for) the Spotify for Podcasters portal. Then, in the top left-hand dropdown menu, click ‘add or claim your podcast’
Select Don’t have a podcast yet? Start one now
You then may need to grant permission to connect your account to Spotify for Podcasters (formerly Anchor). Once you’re in, you can create your podcast series from scratch, filling out the podcast name, description, and other essential details.
Once you’ve created your podcast, you’ll need at least once published episode to launch your show and make it available in the Spotify directory. This could be a short trailer or an episode zero.
Here’s our guide on how to record a podcast if that’s all new to you. At the time of writing, you can still record inside Spotify for Podcasters (as you could with Anchor), but they’ll be removing their recording and editing tools in June 2024. It looks like Spotify will increasingly push users towards Riverside.fm for the actual content creation, and we’ll likely see tighter integration (or an even closer relationship!?) announced in the near future.
If you host your show on Spotify for Podcasters, simply publishing one episode will make it available on Spotify. But remember to submit your RSS feed to Apple Podcasts, too.
So that’s the most direct way to publish a podcast on Spotify. But, as we’ve covered, it’s perhaps not the most optimal. If you’d rather be the customer, not the product, then paying for a dedicated hosting provider won’t break the bank, and can offer you more security, flexibility, and peace of mind.
Let’s kick on and look at how to upload a podcast to Spotify via some excellent podcast hosting services.
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify With RSS.com
RSS.com allows you to create an account and upload up to one episode for free, but you’re better off opting for their $11.99/month annual plan. This gives you unlimited episodes, duration, monetization features and more.
RSS.com offers automatic distribution to Spotify and other major podcast directories. Once you’ve signed up for an account and uploaded an episode, click the “Distribution” tab from your Dashboard, enable “Automatic Submission,” and then enable Spotify and any other directory you’d like your podcast automatically submitted to.
Use the promo code THEPODCASTHOST to get two free months on the standard monthly subscription.
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify With Alitu
Alitu is an all-in-one podcast-maker app. It’s one single place where you can record, edit, publish, and distribute your podcast. You get access to absolutely all of its tools and features for $38 per month (or get two free months when paying annually). This means you don’t need to pay for additional subscriptions to call recorder, audio editing, transcription, and hosting services.
Once you’ve created your podcast inside Alitu, you just need to go to Settings > Distribution. You’ll then see a ‘Copy RSS Feed’ button and an ‘Add to Spotify’ button. The latter takes you to their podcaster dashboard, and you simply claim your show by copying in your RSS feed.
How to Make a Podcast With Alitu
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify With Captivate
Captivate‘s lowest price tier is $19 a month. You can start and run as many podcasts as you like on Captivate. Their payment tiers work by capping the overall number of monthly downloads from all your podcast episodes, combined. For the $19, that number is 30,000 downloads a month. To put things in perspective, here’s a guide on ‘typical’ download numbers for podcasts.
After signing up and creating your podcast in Captivate, you just need to click ‘Distribute’ on the main menu. Again, you’ll see a list of places you can submit your podcast to, and Spotify is one of them.
Read Our Full Captivate Review
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify With Transistor
Transistor is another top-tier hosting platform. They offer a 14-day free trial, and their lowest-paid tier is $19 a month. They work the same way as Captivate, so you can run as many podcasts as you like. Your overall combined download limit this time would be 20,000 per month.
To get a podcast on Spotify via Transistor, sign up and create your podcast, then look for the ‘Distribution’ option in the menu on the left-hand side of the page. There, you’ll find all your submission options alongside Spotify itself.
Read Our Full Transistor Review
How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify With Buzzsprout
You can start using podcast hosting provider Buzzsprout for free, but you’re better off opting for their $ 12/month plan. That way, your episodes won’t be deleted after 90 days, and you can upload more content, too.
Once you’ve signed up and created your podcast, you simply need to click the Directories tab, and you’ll see all the places you can get listed. Again, naturally, Spotify is one of them.
Read Our Full Buzzsprout Review
How to Submit or Claim Your Podcast on Spotify
I’ve covered a range of podcast hosting options here, but there are many more services on the market. No matter where you host your show, though, you’ll have an RSS feed, which you can use to submit your podcast to Spotify.
To do this, log in to the Spotify for Podcasters portal. You can do this with any Spotify user account.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll find an ‘add or claim your podcast’ option in the top left-hand corner.
Next, click ‘Get Started’.
You then just need to paste in your RSS feed – this is a unique URL for your podcast. You’ll find it in your hosting provider dashboard.
If your podcast is already listed on Spotify, you can also use this method to ‘claim’ it. This will let you see your show’s Spotify stats, demographics, and other useful info.
Spotify Verification Email
When claiming an existing show in Spotify, they’ll contact you via the email address associated with your podcast hosting account. That’ll give you instructions on how to verify and confirm everything.
Spotify Users Podcast (& Music) Stats
Once you’ve claimed your podcast in Spotify, you can despair in the fact you’ve discovered yet another place to obsessively check stats. Remember, these are only stats from Spotify, and not other listening platforms like Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict, etc.
You’ll even get to see the guilty listening pleasures of your audience in the ‘Artists they’re listening to’ section. This is based on the most streamed artists of the past 28 days. I had someone called Billy Eyelash as my audience’s top pick. I’ve no idea, either…
There are demographic stats, which might come in handy for your media kit. You can also look at episode stats to see completion and listener drop-off rates. These can give you a useful sample in identifying segments of your show that hold attention and the bits that have your listener reaching for the skip forward button.
Sharing Your Spotify Links
You can grab a direct link to your Spotify podcast listing once you’re listed there.
You can do this in both the Spotify desktop and mobile apps.
To get your show’s link in the desktop app, click the little ‘more’ button (the circle with three dots in it) to the left of the ‘Play’ and ‘Follow’ buttons. Then click ‘Copy Show Link’.
In the mobile app, the ‘more’ button is up in the very top-right corner of the screen. Again, it appears as three dots. Click it, then click ‘Share’, and then ‘Copy Link’.
Add these links to the subscribe page on your podcast website – make it easy for your listeners to find your show anywhere audio is consumed.
Bonus tip: You might even want to create a public Spotify playlist with your best episodes.
Reach a New Audience on Spotify
Millions of people are listening to podcasts on Spotify right now. If you’ve launched your podcast, it’s well worth being available there.
If you’ve not started your podcast yet, our podcast launch course can get you there quickly, leaving no stone unturned. In Launch Essentials, Colin walks you through the entire process, from defining your target audience and choosing a format to equipment and software.
And if you’re looking for somewhere to host your new podcast so you can push it out to places like Spotify, be sure to check out Alitu. Not only is Alitu a podcast hosting provider, but it also has every other feature needed to run a podcast. These include call recording, editing, text-based editing, auto noise reduction, volume levelling, and AI-generated transcription and shownotes. Check it out with a week’s free trial and see for yourself!
Originally posted on March 19, 2024 @ 3:28 am