Podcast Hosting Cost Calculator (2026): Compare 12 Hosts
Last updated: October 2026
No affiliate links on this page. The calculator runs on the same data as our podcast hosting price tracker, read off each host’s own pricing page, and it updates when the tracker does.
A weekly one-hour podcast can be hosted for free on RSS.com, Spreaker, or Spotify for Creators. On a paid host, the same show costs anywhere from $144 a year (Podbean, paid yearly) to $300 (Libsyn). Run three shows and the spread gets silly: about $180 a year on Acast, $190 on Transistor or Castos, and $948 on Podbean. Put your own show in below and it does the math for every host we track.
Podcast hosting cost calculator
Example: one weekly one-hour show at about 500 downloads an episode, so about 4.3 upload hours and 2,167 downloads a month. Cheapest plan on each host whose published limits fit, cheapest first.
| Host | Cheapest plan that fits | Billed monthly | A year, cheapest way to pay | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSS.com | Free | Free | Free | |
| Spreaker | Free Speech | Free | Free | |
| Spotify for Creators | Free | Free | Free | |
| Podbean | Unlimited Audio | $17 | $144 | |
| Simplecast | Basic | $15 | $162 | Billed per show |
| Acast | Essential | $25 | $179.88 | |
| Buzzsprout | Audio | $18 | $180 | Annual plans pay $2 an hour past their hours, billed monthly |
| Transistor | Starter | $19 | $190 | |
| Castos | Essentials | $19 | $190 | |
| Captivate | Personal | $19 | $204 | |
| Blubrry | Advanced 6 | $25 | $260 | |
| Libsyn | Advanced | $25 | $300 (no yearly option) |
Prices from each host’s own pricing page, checked 2026-09-24 and 2026-10-25. Hosts that do not publish a price for extra shows (Libsyn, Blubrry, Simplecast, Spotify for Creators) only appear for a single show. Riverside is left out because it prices by recording hours. No affiliate links.
How does the calculator work?
It turns your show into the three things hosts actually cap. Upload hours: episodes a week times length, over the 4.3 weeks in an average month. Downloads: episodes times downloads per episode. Shows: how many podcasts you run. A plan fits when every limit the host publishes covers your numbers, and the table shows each host’s cheapest plan that fits, with a year priced the cheapest way you can pay for it.
Four things it leaves out on purpose. Riverside, because it prices by recording hours, not hosting. Acast’s free Starter plan, because it stops at 5 episodes in total unless your show joins Acast’s ad marketplace. Podbean’s free plan, because its 5 hours of storage are a lifetime total that never resets. And extra shows on hosts that don’t publish a price for them (Libsyn, Blubrry, Simplecast, and Spotify for Creators), so those only show up when you run one podcast. Guessing an add-on price would make the whole table look more certain than it is.
Why the plan price isn’t your bill
Every host caps something different, and the cap your show hits first decides what you pay. Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Blubrry, and Podbean meter what you upload each month. Captivate, Transistor, and Simplecast meter downloads instead, so long episodes cost them nothing but a growing audience eventually does. Castos caps neither. And Podbean’s cheaper plans cap the number of shows, which is why three podcasts there land on its $99-a-month Network plan.
So try your show twice: once as it is today, and once at the size you’re hoping for in a year. If the cheapest host changes between the two runs, pick for the bigger show. Moving hosts later means a redirect and a re-import, and nobody enjoys doing that twice. The full breakdown for running several podcasts is in the best podcast host for multiple shows.
Is paying yearly worth it?
Once the show is sticking, usually yes. On the hosts that offer it, yearly billing cuts the entry plan by 10 to 40 percent, and Acast has the widest gap: $25 a month month to month against $14.99 billed yearly. The calculator already prices each year the cheap way. Pay monthly for your first few months anyway. A yearly plan on a show you abandon in March is the most expensive hosting there is.
FAQ
How much does podcast hosting cost per month? Among the 12 hosts we track, paid plans start at $7 a month (Blubrry Standard 1.5, for an hour and a half of uploads), and most entry plans cost $17 to $20 billed monthly. RSS.com, Spreaker, Acast, Buzzsprout, Podbean, and Spotify for Creators also have free plans, each with limits.
Does the calculator include overage fees? No. It only picks plans whose limits cover your show, so you never land on one that bills extra. If you go past your hours anyway, Buzzsprout keeps publishing and charges for the extra time, $4 an hour on its $18 monthly Audio plan and $2 an hour on yearly plans.
Is free podcast hosting good enough? For a first show, often. The catches are in the details, like Buzzsprout’s free plan dropping each episode after 90 days. Free podcast hosting compared lays out every free plan’s limits side by side.
How current are these prices? They come from the price tracker’s last check of each host’s own pricing page, and the tracker is re-checked on the first of every month. The raw numbers are free to download on our podcast hosting data page.
What’s the cheapest host overall? It depends on the show, which is the point of the calculator. For our pick among the cheap options, and why, see cheapest podcast hosting.
