If you are looking for the simplest yet feature-rich podcast hosting platform, you could have certainly come across Buzzsprout.

It was founded on January 1, 2008, by Kevin Finn and Tom Rossi.

In the above graph, you can see how popular Buzzsprout is by looking at its trend.

The unique selling propositions of Buzzsprout are its simplicity and ease of use. Buzzsprout mainly focuses on simplicity. Whatever the features they release they make it very simple for users to get hands-on.

Also, Buzzsprout offers excellent monetization features like ad sponsors, affiliate marketplace, donation pages, etc. If you want to make a money podcast, Buzzsprout won’t disappoint you.

Let’s get started with the Buzzsprout review.

Features	Buzzsprout
Free plan available?	Yes. ➡ Limited to 2 hours each month. ➡ Episodes Hosted for 90 days
Premium pricing starts at 💲	$12/month
Has a mobile app for podcasters? 📲	No
Features	➡ Magic mastering filter to edit the audio files ➡ Integration with Canva ➡ Unlimited Storage ➡ Episode transcription services ➡ Visual soundbites
Podcast monetization options 💰	➡ Podcast ad sponsors ➡ Show support links ➡ Integration with Patron for selling products
Explore more	Explore more on Buzzsprout

What do we like about Buzzsprout 👍?

• Buzzsprout is one of the simplest podcast hosting platforms. It is suitable for beginners to intermediate to advanced users. It doesn’t need any learning curve.
• It has a unique feature called a magic mastering filter. With this, you can process and edit the audio without the need for any external tools. You just need to input the audio file, Buzzsprout handles all the editing work and makes the audio file sound professional. It optimizes the audio to follow the Apple Podcasts Authoring best practices. If you don’t know the audio editing and the technicalities, this will be a deal breaker for you.
• For the transcription of episodes, Buzzsprout has integrations with services like Temi and Otter.ai. Using these tools, you can add transcripts for maximizing search engine visibility. Note that these are not for free. If you are using Otter.ai, first you need to transcript it inside Otter.ai and then import the file in Buzzsprout. While Temi charges $0.35 per minute and you can transcribe inside the tool.
• For designing the podcast artwork, it integrates with Canva. With this, you can create and upload the artworks directly within Buzzsprout, without leaving the platform. Note that as of now, it integrates with the free Canva tool. But if you already have a Pro account, you can design them by logging in to your Canva account and then upload to Buzzsprout.
• Buzzsprout has recently released a podcast website. This eliminates the need for platforms like WordPress or Wix. Now, you can manage your own website within Buzzsprout giving you more flexibility. It also helps in SEO as well and helps your podcasts get featured on SERPs. This in turn brings more traffic (or listeners) to your podcasts.
• Buzzsprout has an affiliate program where you can promote other brands and services within your podcasts and earn money. This is lacking in tools like Spreaker. As of now, there are only two brands available, but going forward you can expect the team to add more.

What we don’t like about Buzzsprout 👎?

• Unlike its competitors like Spreaker and Podbean, Buzzsprout lacks a mobile app for both listeners and podcasters. As a podcaster, the mobile app helps you record, edit, and publish the episodes on the go, anywhere at any time. If you travel more and you need mobile apps, this may be a serious con. For listeners, this is not a serious issue as most of them listen to podcasts with Google Podcasts or Apple Podcasts.
• Unlike Spreaker, Buzzsprout lacks a dedicated ad campaign manager. You need to manually review, manage, and track each of your campaigns to analyze their performance.
• The built-in affiliate marketplace just offers 2 brands for you to promote. As a result, you will spend more time searching for affiliates to promote on your podcast.

Upfront bottomline✨:

If you are a beginner and are looking for an easy-to-use tool, Buzzsprout would be the best bet. For monetization, Buzzsprout offers features like support show links (like donation pages), dynamic ads, an affiliate marketplace, integration with Patreon (for selling premium podcasts and memberships), etc.

Also, with its one-click podcast distribution, you can distribute your podcast to 18+ platforms. This helps you in getting more listeners and traffic for your podcasts.
The best thing with Buzzsprout is its magic mastering feature. With this, you can edit and process the audio files eliminating the need for third-party services.

But this is not a complete replacement for premium audio editing tools. Because it doesn’t come with post-production audio services like replacing the audio file, trimming, or editing the audio after publishing. If you need these features right inside of the podcasting tool you can consider tools like Simplecast.

Latest updates 🎈

Recently in 2022, Buzzsprout introduced Buzzsprout Ads, a powerful way to promote podcasts on the 114,000+ active shows it hosts. Also, it has released a new share page for your podcasts. You can view your podcast online everywhere from this single page.

To know all its future updates, you can click on this link.

User interface and ease of use

Buzzsprout’s interface is very neat and minimal. You can find all the tools right inside the dashboard and access them within 3 to 4 clicks.

Buzzsprout has logically arranged the features and made it super easy even for beginners to use this tool.

Also, the Buzzsprout interface loads quickly. There is no delay in page loading.

Bottomline: Buzzsprout is very easy to use. Whether you are new to Buzzsprout or an existing customer, Buzzsprout will assist you at each step of your podcast creation to till monetizing it.

Creating podcasts in Buzzsprout

As a first step, you can either create your podcasts from scratch or import the existing ones from other podcast hosting sites as well.

While creating your first podcast, you need to enter the podcast title, description, and add the cover artwork as well. Buzzsprout has made it super easy to create podcast artwork as it integrates with the Canva tool.

In the description, you can include the target keywords to increase the search engine visibility of your podcasts. This gives you an SEO boost.

After this, you need to start uploading your episodes. Buzzsprout supports almost all audio types like Mp3, OGG, AAC, M4A, AIFF, etc. For each episode, you can add custom artwork and episode web page, episode summary, add tags (for easier search and categorization), etc.

If you are on the free plan, you can upload only 2 hours of content. But note that, the free plan hosts the episodes only for up to 90 days. So, it is recommended to switch to the paid before you make the podcast live.

Buzzsprout gives you unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage on all its paid plans. The plan varies depending on the uploading time you need. Will see about this later.

Bottomline: Creating podcasts is very easy in Buzzsprout. If you are a beginner or a pro podcaster, Buzzsprout is very easy to get started. It is not recommended to publish the podcasts if you are on the free plan, as they will vanish after 90 days.

Editing the podcasts

Buzzsprout offers good features to edit podcasts and makes it easy for the audience to consume the content.

You don’t need to use any external tools to edit your audio files. Buzzsprout comes with a magic mastering feature where it optimizes your raw audio files to match the industry standards.

This tool automatically removes the unwanted noise and sweetens the audio with the appropriate dB filtering, hum reduction, etc. Magic mastering eliminates the need for tools like Auphonic.

But it doesn’t offer post-production audio services like replacing the audio file, editing or trimming the audio, etc. If you need these features you can consider tools like Simplecast.

Or along with Buzzsprout, you can use external audio editing services, at an additional cost without purchasing a magic mastering addon.

Note: You need to get magic mastering at an additional cost on top of the plan, like an addon. If you are on the $12 /month plan, you need to pay $6 to get this. On the free plan, this feature is not available. If you want to know more about how it processes your audio, you can refer to this guide.

Also, Buzzsprout has a built-in audio optimization feature. You just need to upload the file, Buzzsprout will convert the file to MP3, encode it to mono or stereo, and add ID3 tags.

Episode transcription

Adding a transcription for episodes helps in increasing search visibility by search engines. This means, your podcast will more likely appear in SERPs when people type in search engines. This way you can get more audience to your podcasts.

This service is only available on paid plans. For this, Buzzsprout provides integration with Otter.ai and Temi.

For Buzzsprout users, there is a 20% OFF available on their paid plans. To avail this offer, use the discount code “BUZZSPROUTROCKS”.

If you are using Otter.ai, first you need to transcribe the episodes inside of Otter.ai and then import the file to Buzzsprout.

You can also use Temi, which will transcribe your episode(s) for $0.25 per minute. Even, you can manually add the transcripts by typing.

Chapter markers

You can add chapter markers to the episodes making it easy for listeners to navigate your podcast. This way, listeners will be aware of what’s upcoming and they can skip to the sections they want to hear.

It is important that you need to add chapter markers before making the episodes live, as after downloading the files listeners cannot access them.

Visual soundbites

Buzzsprout supports audiograms i.e. visual soundbites. With this, you can create small video bytes to share on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. This is a great way to repurpose the content and share it on multiple platforms.

While sharing the audiogram, you can add the link to your full episode. People can subscribe to your podcast if they like your clip, and listen to more.

Bottomline: Buzzsprout takes care of all the editing work. You just need to upload the audio files. The features like magic mastering eliminate the need for external services, thus saving money. If you are not good at podcast editing, Buzzsprout is a lifesaver.

Podcast player

With Buzzsprout you have individual episode players, single episode players, and multiple episode players.

You can access both single-episode and multiple-episode players from your account’s player page. You can customize these players as needed.

It also gives the embed code to display on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, etc.

You can also create custom players using tags for easy listening. For example – if you want to embed only the coaching-related episodes on your website, you can add a custom code to display all the episodes with the tag “coaching”.

After you specify the tags to create a player, the platform will give you the embed code. You just need to copy and paste it on the website you want to embed it.

Buzzsprout gives both Javascript code and the iFrame code. While embedding, if the code is not supported, you can contact the support team for assistance.

Pro tip: If you are a coder, you can do some modifications and custom code the order and the size of the player you embed. For example – you can make the player small, or large, limit the episode number, update the episode order, etc.

For the users, the Buzzsprout podcast player gives these features –

• Rewind 10s
• Forward 30s
• Speed controller
• Download the episode
• Episode description, episode no, season no.
• Share the episodes on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
• Subscribe to the podcast.

But there are no features to add custom CTAs – like Join the newsletter and Join the community. If you want, you can add these links to the episode descriptions.

Also, for the listener on the front, the player looks very simple without too many distractions.

Bottomline: Buzzsprout allows you to embed either the single-player or the multi-player episodes on your site. You can even customize the codes to modify how the player should appear.

Storage and hosting

In all of Buzzsprout’s paid plans, there is unlimited storage available. However, it does not support unlimited content hosting (uploading).

The pricing plan varies based on the uploading time. You can only upload 3 hours of content per month on its lowest plan, which costs $12 per month.

If you need more upload time, you need to pay an extra fee i.e. $4 per hour.

When it comes to bandwidth, there are no restrictions available. It handles unlimited traffic on all its paid plans.

Monetization

Buzzsprout provides various monetization strategies like podcast ads, affiliate marketplace, show support links, and sponsors.

Let’s discuss them one by one.

Podcast sponsors

Buzzsprout has integration with Podcorn which helps you find the right sponsors to promote your podcasts. If you already have sponsors to promote you can add them inside of the Buzzsprout dashboard.

Podcorn tracks all the sponsorships, downloads, number of listeners, and conversions you got.

Podcast Ads

The best thing with Buzzsprout ads is that you will find the ads at a cost as cheap as $100 and it goes up to $1000. You can automate the process to add ads as pre-rolls, mid-rolls, or post-rolls. You can process the audio as needed, add voice effects, and control how the audio should transit in the beginning and at the end.

Support show links

Buzzsprout allows you to add support show links in your podcasts where your fans can donate to the content they are consuming. As you can see in the above screenshot, you can add links to your Patreon pages, PayPal, Cash App, Podfan pages, etc.

The links you add will appear on the Buzzsprout public web pages and in the players as well, making it easy for users to access them.

Affiliate marketplace

Buzzsprout has an affiliate marketplace where you can promote the brands and products that are relevant to your niche. For this Buzzsprout has partnered up with Instacart and Allswell. Apart from these, you can promote other custom brands as well.

Bottomline: Buzzsprout offers various ways to monetize your podcast – like dynamic ads, affiliate marketplace, donation pages, and Patreon programs. Unlike Spreaker, it doesn’t have a dedicated ad campaign manager, but it is not a big deal. If you want to know more on this, you can refer to my Spreaker review post.

Analytics

Buzzsprout provides detailed analytics for you to analyze how your podcast is growing over time. The stats give data on episode downloads, devices, apps used by listeners, geolocation, etc.

When it comes to episode downloads – you will get data on the number of downloads for the first 7 days, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and all time.

The apps and the technology data give you insights like – the top app your listeners are using, the device, and the category of the device – mobile/desktop, etc.

Buzzsprout, as of now, doesn’t offer user retention graphs. These graphs help you know how the users are engaging with your podcasts, how much % of the podcasts they are listening to. If these graphs are important for you, you can consider Podbean.

Podcast distribution and integrations

Buzzsprout allows you to distribute your podcast to other platforms with its RSS feed. With this, you can distribute to almost all the major podcast sites like Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and much more, with just a click of a button.

Distributing the podcast to Apple Podcasts, automatically distributes it to – Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend.

Along with this, with Buzzsprout you can also share the episodes on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, right inside the tool.

Pricing

Buzzsprout has three paid plans. The lowest pricing starts at $12/mo, while the highest plan costs $24/mo.

The pricing plan varies depending on the uploading time. If you are on the free plan, you can upload only 2 hours of content each month. Also, on the free plan, the episodes will be hosted only for up to 90 days. So, make sure before you make the show live, you switch to any of the paid plans.

The magic mastering feature costs an additional fee depending on the plan you choose. Refer to the screenshot above for more details.

All its paid plans support unlimited storage and bandwidth so you don’t have to worry about the traffic load on your website.

Buzzsprout alternatives

Buzzsprout vs Spreaker

Buzzsprout is very easy to use, whereas Spreaker needs some learning curve if you are a beginner.

The major deal breaker while choosing between these two platforms is that Spreaker offers mobile apps for both listeners and podcasters. With this, you can record, edit, and broadcast the episodes on the go.

Compared to Spreaker, Buzzsprout has some unique features like a magic mastering filter, integration with Canva, a brand new podcast website, etc which are lacking in Spreaker.

Buzzsprout vs Podbean

Buzzsprout is a very simple-to-use tool unlike Podbean, which requires some learning curve to get started.

Podbean excels over Buzzsprout with its unique features like –

• Podbean apps which support selling premium podcasts with in-app purchases.
• Comes with over 18+ free plugins and services increasing the flexibility of the tool.
• Has an integration with Alexa allowing your podcast to be available on all Alexa devices.

When it comes to monetizing your podcasts both these tools offer a good number of strategies.

Wrap up

Buzzsprout is a feature-rich podcast hosting platform that comes at an affordable price. It has unique features like magic mastering, integration with Canva for designing the podcast artwork, and integration with Otter.ai and Temi for transcribing the episodes.

Also, Buzzsprout offers various monetization strategies like show support links, affiliate marketplace, sponsor ads, and much more.

Go with Buzzsprout if –

• You need a simple podcast hosting solution.
• Need built-in features to edit your audio files.
• Need integrations with transcription services.
• You need powerful monetization features.
• You don’t need mobile apps.

I hope you found this post on Buzzsprout review helpful.