Podcast Host Lab publishes the data behind its price tracker as free downloads. Journalists, researchers, librarians, and other podcasters can use it, chart it, and republish it under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. The only condition is credit: name Podcast Host Lab and link to the tracker. There are no affiliate links on this page or in the files.
Key numbers to quote
Each line stands on its own, so it can be quoted as written. Prices come from our own checks of each host’s pricing page. The download figures are Buzzsprout’s published stats for the shows it hosts.
- Of the 12 podcast hosts in Podcast Host Lab’s price tracker, the cheapest paid plan is Blubrry Standard 1.5 at $7 a month (October 2026).
- The median entry-level paid plan across 12 podcast hosts costs $19 a month billed monthly, and 7 of the 12 start between $17 and $20 (October 2026).
- Annual billing cuts the monthly cost of an entry plan by anywhere from 10% at Simplecast to 40% at Acast, across the 9 podcast hosts that offer it (October 2026).
- For a weekly one-hour podcast, the cheapest paid hosting plan that fits is Simplecast Basic at $15 a month, and RSS.com, Spreaker, and Spotify for Creators host it free (October 2026).
- Six of the 12 podcast hosts in the tracker changed a price or plan between November 2025 and October 2026.
- Podcast Host Lab has logged 19 verified price and plan changes across the 12 podcast hosts it tracks since January 2023 (October 2026).
- Libsyn raised its 3-hour plan with stats from $7 to $12 a month in December 2025, a 71% increase.
- In September 2026, the median Buzzsprout podcast got 27 downloads in an episode’s first 7 days, against 28 in October 2020, while the bar for the top 10% rose from 231 to 412.
- To reach the top 25%, 10%, 5%, and 1% of Buzzsprout podcasts in September 2026, an episode needed 96, 412, 1,007, and 4,586 downloads in its first 7 days.
- Podcasts hosted on Buzzsprout got 85.5 million downloads in September 2026, 12.8% fewer than in September 2025, while the number of active podcasts on Buzzsprout fell 6.9% to 111,813.
Podcast hosting prices today
Every plan we track across 12 podcast hosts and Spotify for Creators: the month-to-month price, the annual price per month, upload limits, number of shows, and video support, each with the pricing page it came from. Prices are read off each host’s own pricing page with the monthly and annual switch checked both ways, and re-checked on the first of every month.
Download the current prices (CSV, checked September 24, 2026, corrected September 25 and October 25). The same numbers, with commentary, are in the podcast hosting price tracker.
Price changes since 2023
Nineteen verified price and plan changes, newest first. Each row names the change, the old and new prices, and links to the Internet Archive copies of the host’s pricing page on either side of it, so every change can be checked in two clicks. The newest, Buzzsprout’s October 2026 billing change, has only the before copy so far, because the Internet Archive has not saved the page since August.
Download the price changes (CSV).
Chart: two entry-plan price stories
Castos raised its entry plan from $19 to $29 a month in November 2023 and reversed it by April 2024. Libsyn’s 3-hour plan with stats cost $7 a month until December 2025, when it went to $12. Lines start at the first verified snapshot, and the dots mark the snapshots we read. The chart may be reused as is, with its source line intact.
Buzzsprout download benchmarks, 2020 to 2026
The median Buzzsprout podcast gets about as many downloads per episode in its first 7 days as it did in 2020: 28 in October 2020, 27 in September 2026, and never outside 26 to 33 in between. The bar for the top tiers is what moved. Reaching the top 10% took 231 first-week downloads in October 2020, 484 at the peak in October 2023, and 412 in September 2026.
We pulled every month Buzzsprout has published, October 2020 to September 2026, into one file. Each of the 72 rows has the median, top 25%, top 10%, top 5%, and top 1% thresholds. It also has active podcasts, monthly downloads, and new episodes, plus a link to the Buzzsprout page the row came from.
Download the Buzzsprout benchmarks (CSV, 72 months, read October 25, 2026). The original numbers, month by month, are on Buzzsprout’s platform stats page.
Each panel has its own scale, and all of them start at zero. The chart may be reused as is, with its source line intact.
One caution if you compare years. The top-tier bars climbed from early 2021 to late 2023, and the median barely moved. The top 10% went from 236 in January 2021 to 420 in January 2023. We couldn’t find an explanation from Buzzsprout. Its stats page and its help article on how it measures downloads don’t give one, so we don’t either. The top 10% line climbed steadily rather than in one jump: its biggest one-month move was 17 downloads, in October 2022.
How we checked it: each row was read off Buzzsprout’s page for that month on October 25, 2026, and the month shown on the page had to match the month we asked for. Then we compared 15 of those months with Internet Archive copies saved at the time, from November 2020 to August 2026. All 15 matched exactly, so those months read the same today as they did when the archive saved them. The file links each archive copy.
This is Buzzsprout’s data, not ours, and it covers only shows hosted on Buzzsprout. It is not a measure of podcasting as a whole. Podcast Host Lab is a Buzzsprout affiliate and earns a commission when someone signs up through our links elsewhere on the site.
The compiled file and chart are free to reuse under the same Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license as the rest of this page. The only condition is credit: name Buzzsprout as the source and Podcast Host Lab as the compiler, and link to this page. Copy this line: Source: Buzzsprout global stats, compiled by Podcast Host Lab, podcasthostlab.com/data, accessed [date].
How to cite this data
Copy this line: Source: Podcast Host Lab Price Tracker, podcasthostlab.com/podcast-hosting-price-tracker, accessed [date]. In a short piece, “according to Podcast Host Lab’s price tracker” with a link is plenty.
How the numbers are checked
Current prices come from each host’s live pricing page, read in a browser with both billing options. The history comes from Internet Archive copies of each pricing page back to January 2023, and a change goes in only once the archived pages on both sides of it have been read. Our editorial standards explain how corrections work.
Questions or corrections
Spotted a price that changed, or want the data in another format? Email hello@podcasthostlab.com. We update the files after every monthly check.