How to upload your podcast to Spotify for free

Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming apps used around the world. Not only does the app hold millions of songs and hosts thousands of artists, but it is also home to one of the most expansive catalogs of podcasts. This makes it a one-stop shop for everyone’s audio entertainment needs. If you want to tap into this ready audience, a podcast is a great jumping point. For those of you looking to get started with podcasts, here’s how you can upload a podcast to Spotify for free.

Can I upload my podcast to Spotify for free?

Previously, Spotify acted only as a podcast discovery service and not as a host. Users could not directly upload any podcast audio files to Spotify. They would need to rely on a separate host service like PodBean, Buzzsprout, SoundCloud, or even an all-in-one recording and hosting app like Anchor. The host would then feed the podcast to Spotify to distribute to an audience.

However, Spotify acquired Anchor in 2019. More recently, the company has integrated Anchor within Spotify through a rebrand called Spotify for Podcasters. The app and hosting service are now open for everyone to use, albeit monetization has largely been restricted to the US. Still, this makes Spotify a great app to start off as you can simply test the waters without committing to a subscription for a hosting service.

You can still choose to host your podcast elsewhere and use Spotify for its discovery and distribution services if that’s what you would like. You can use Spotify to interact with your listeners, check your analytics, and more. This gives you great flexibility and control, while still lowering the barrier to entry into the podcasting ecosystem.

Uploading on Spotify for Podcasters

So yes, you can now upload your podcast to Spotify for free through Spotify for Podcasters. Spotify for Podcasters provides unlimited free hosting, without any file size or bitrate limitations. There are no subscription plans or paid bundles that you need to worry about.

You can directly host your podcast on Spotify. The service will offer you the ability to distribute your content to other platforms, monetize your content (currently only in the US outside of podcast subscriptions), and give you access to all of its creation tools.

Spotify for Podcasters offers the following features to creators on its platform:

• For users hosting their show with Spotify for Podcasters:
  • The ability to upload and publish episodes.
  • Free hosting.
  • Access to recording and editing tools.
  • Video uploading.
  • Monetization features.
• Interactive features like Q&A and Polls.
• Advanced analytics to track a show’s growth, including streaming numbers and audience demographic data.

If you’ve used a different podcasting service in the past, Spotify for Podcasters also allows you to migrate your podcast hosting to the service, without losing your existing episodes or profiles on other platforms. Once your Spotify for Podcasters account is set up, you can also redirect your old feed to keep your listeners subscribed to your show and ensure they continue to get new uploads and episodes.

What are the requirements to upload a podcast to Spotify?

To upload a podcast to Spotify, you only need to sign up for Spotify for Podcasters. And that’s it. Once you have confirmed your email address and completed the signup, you can begin uploading your podcast to Spotify and publish it shortly thereafter.

Spotify for Podcasters lets you record audio right from your browser or from the app on Android and iOS. You can also upload previously recorded audio files and use the episode builder interface to trim and edit them to make them publish-ready.

The platform also gives you access to music from Spotify to add to your episode (for Music + Talk format of podcasts), add listener voice messages, and even add transitions with free music and sound effects.

Spotify for Podcasters places the following requirements on audio uploads:

• File size up to 250MB. For filers larger than 250MB, either compress it or split it into multiple files.
• Supported file types:
  • MP3
  • M4A
  • WAV
  • MPG
  • MOV
  • MP4

Spotify places no further requirements. However, if it is your first time uploading a podcast, you can stick to these recommended settings for your audio recording:

• Choose 96kbps as your bitrate. You can opt for 128kbps if you have lots of music elements.
• Choose constant bitrate (CBR) over variable bitrate (VBR) for recording a podcast.
• Choose mono recording over stereo recording for voice-focused podcasts.
• You can choose 44,100Hz/44.1kHz as your sample rate preference.

For your podcast, the best advice that can be given to a beginner is to focus more on the content than on the medium and other specifics. You do want to keep technical requirements in mind, but the platform is fairly flexible with what it can handle. So focus on the content.

How to upload a podcast to Spotify

Uploading your podcast to Spotify is very simple if you plan to also host it on the platform. Just follow these steps:

• Log in to Spotify for Podcasters at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/login. You can even make use of the Android app or iOS app for the same. The process remains the same, although there may be minor variations in the UI.
• If this is your first upload, you can simply follow the onboarding process that Spotify presents to you.

• Alternatively, you can click on New Episode in the top-right corner. You can then select Create an episode for the full journey of creating a new episode for your podcast. Or, you can choose Quick upload if you already have a ready-to-publish audio or video file.

• You can then either record an audio right from your browser, drag and drop audio files from your computer, reuse a previously uploaded audio, or do any of the other added actions that Spotify presents you with.

• Once your audio is ready and uploaded, you’d need to provide other details, such as the episode title, episode description, episode art, and some optional data points such as season number, episode number, episode type, and whether your audio content is clean or if it contains explicit content.

• If this is the first episode that you are uploading, Spotify will ask you to also set up your podcast. You have to provide the podcast name, podcast description, category, and language.

• If you don’t have a podcast image, Spotify also offers to make a cover image for your needs using free-to-use art from the internet.

• Once you have updated and set the cover art, you can proceed to publish your first podcast on Spotify. Hit the publish button, and your podcast will be made available to listen to on Spotify. Spotify will give you your Spotify link that you can share with others.

• Optional: When your podcast goes live, you can enable RSS distribution to set up other podcast platforms to feed off your Spotify for Podcasters account. This way, you can publish the podcast on Spotify but also have it go live on various other podcasting services such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, and more.

• Optional: You can follow Spotify’s prompts to set up monetization for your podcast.

As you can see, getting started on Spotify is very simple and seamless. The service makes it very easy to publish your first podcast, guiding you through the steps. You only need to focus on your audio content, and the rest can be offloaded to Spotify, at least when you are getting started. Once you have mastery over the process, you can jump in on the deep end with monetization, marketing, and analytics.

Spotify for Podcasters is a great tool for every podcast beginner. You no longer need to navigate external hosts and feeds, just to get started with podcasting and to know if podcasting is a good fit for you. The platform still retains the ability to do a lot more if the user is experienced and wants to do more. We love this balanced approach.

Try it out and let us know if Spotify for Podcasters works for you!

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