Podcast Sites

• This research will provide an overview of these podcast sites: Buzzsprout, Podbean, Transistor, Simplecast, and Captivate.

Buzzsprout

• This is a podcast hosting site that offers a 90-day free trial. This site has compatibility with several directories. It allows one to create and publish episodes with ease, track progress, analyze statistics, promote content, and resources that are critical in addressing how the platform works.
• This site has above 100,000 podcasters. One can embed a podcast episode onto their website.
• While the free plan allows for up to two hours of content, they only keep it for 90 days. The pay plans range between $12 and $24 per month. These plans ensure that the content is kept on the platform indefinitely, the storage awarded is unlimited, and the bandwidth is 250GB every month covering between 20,000 and 40,000 episode plays every month.

Podbean

• Podbean offers features that ensure that one has everything they need to create, manage, and promote their podcast.
• This is a responsive platform that adjusts on different devices from desktop to mobile. The tools available are easy to use in editing, uploading, publishing, and customizing content. The platform offers beautiful templates with an embeddable podcast player. This platform avails tools that are critical in social promotion as well as monetization.
• The free package is limited to five hours of storage and a monthly bandwidth of 100GB.
• The other pricing options include $9, $29, and $99 per month when paid annually or $14, $39, and $129, respectively, on a month to month basis.

Transistor

• This is a podcast publishing platform that allows users to distribute their content via social media.
• This site offers a 14-day free trial. One may opt to get onto any of the other pricing plans: $19, $49, and $99 per month.
• This platform is of high quality and hosts notable podcasts: Drift, Honeybadger, and Cards Against Humanity. 
• This platform is ideal as it can host unlimited shows, each account can have multiple users, the domain name can be customized to fit with the brand, it is great at distributing content, and presents advanced analytics. 

Summary of our Early Findings

• This research set out to provide insights into five platforms but could only address three within our time limit.
• The next research task will proceed to address these two sites as well as additional information. You may select the research path you wish to explore from the choices provided below.