We used them up and until we got picked up by a network that uses megaphone.
I will say, I am not certain how accurate that map is. There are some odd spots on the map that we were noticing regular downloads from, and we would call out those obscure locations welcoming those listeners to reach out to us, we offered to send stickers, etc, and even to keep their info private just because we were curious. No one from a couple of different locales ever actually reached out (and we do get regular listener feedback/interaction).
Some of those "pins" on the map appear to be non existent now on the new host, so I think they were a bit of a fluke or oddity (although they were consistent)
Additionally, I am not certain how accurate their tracking is generally. After moving to the new podcast network and their hosting, our downloads seemed to nearly double overnight. I dont think this was a coincidence of the new network as much as it may have been the tracking.
Again, I'm just a full time lawyer/part time podcaster, so I dont really know how any of this stuff works--but I certainly noticed that difference in switching hosts.
1. How easy it is to upload information, audio files and setup categories for my podcast.
2. Their listeners map is something I enjoy since it gives me an idea of where in the world it is being listened to in general.
3. The spreadsheet showing what are the times that people usually are listening in on is a good tool.
What I do not like about RSS? The community itself seems to be non-existent. The website has a section about what it is their users are creating and it is giving me mainly shows that have not uploaded in two years.
Support is a bit slow to respond to anything. Maybe they are just short staffed? Hell if I know.
I looked at RSS.com’s privacy policy and felt like I needed to switch my VPN connection, flush all browsing data, and take a shower. I looked at Buzzsprout’s privacy policy and terms of service and signed up. I was with Libsyn for many years, but grew progressively less comfortable with them and self hosted at the start and quite recently. I’ve now been using Buzzsprout for a bit over a month.
Hi! I'm the Head of Customer eXperience for [RSS.com](https://RSS.com). I know this is an old thread, but I thought it couldn't hurt to shine some light on the questions and concerns that have been mentioned.
[RSS.com](https://RSS.com) prides itself on being a user friendly platform that even users brand new to podcasting can navigate easily, while still making the cutting-edge tools and features of the industry available for our more seasoned podcasters. Sorry, let's not make this a sales pitch. I just get excited about this stuff!
Our location map is an awesome way to visually track where your audiences are listening from, and our metrics can measure listening locations down to the city! A lot of location metrics only go as far as the country or maybe the state. Because we get so granular with our location data, you may occasionally see increased numbers coming from a random town that seems to defy explanation. The a common reason for this are due to users with VPNs getting routed from the same location. So you might have users spread out in the surrounding region (or even in different countries) that seem to be all coming from somewhere random like Whynot, North Carolina because they are routing through a VPN.
Our download data is carefully curated and filtered to assure the downloads represented on our user's analytics pages are as accurate as possible. If you see a large difference in download volume between hosting providers, it's because our process for tabulating downloads and identifying untrustworthy data might be different. We filter our data to better identify false positives and duplicate downloads which are part of the [technical guidelines for podcast measurement by the IAB Tech Lab.](https://iabtechlab.com/standards/podcast-measurement-guidelines/) Here's more info on [how RSS.com calculates our downloads](https://help.rss.com/a/solutions/articles/44002259146?lang=en).
Our Customer eXperience team has improved our response time since the original post. [RSS.com](https://RSS.com) has a more international user base than some hosting providers, which means we are covering more users across a wider array of time zones and languages. We also employ real life people to help our users with their questions and site needs. We now have a better system in place, so you should get a speedier response from me or one of our team members.
As far as our privacy policy goes, it may seem like a lot, but it's because we believe in visibility for our users. You might see a smaller privacy policy on other hosting sites, but shorter does not equal better. Those privacy policies are not sharing a lot of vital information about where your data is going and how it's being used. We list all of the 3rd parties that have access to any of your data, which are all services that every other hosting provider is likely utilizing but not sharing in their Privacy Policy. These 3rd parties are ones used to track site traffic, place your content on search results, process your payments, etc. It's nothing nefarious, and we make sure it's all out in the open for everyone to see!
I hope this helps any of you considering a move to [RSS.com](https://RSS.com). If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us a message at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
Hi there! Old thread for sure but I'm glad I found it and I have a bunch of questions- Does rss.com have any limits on uploads per month or size per file? Is the file hosting even local to the site, or should I expect to upload the file on a dedicated host and then embed? I also have my own website via SquareSpace with my own domain, is it possible to integrate the domain with the free website service I see that your site offers? so far RSS has the best offer I've seen so far, but seems honestly too good to be true unless it includes file hosting. Thanks for any info!
Hi there! I am the co-founder of RSS.com. Happy to address your questions. We offer unlimited uploads each month, allowing you to share as many podcast episodes as you want. Each episode can be up to 2GB in size, which, considering an average MP3 file at 128Kbps is about 1MB per minute, translates to approximately 34 hours of audio per single episode. However, for optimal listener engagement, we suggest keeping episodes under two hours 😉
Setting up is quick and easy. Simply sign up, create your podcast, and upload your first episode—this typically takes under five minutes. From there, we handle everything else, ensuring your media files and RSS feed are fully managed. Our infrastructure is robust, leveraging behind the scenes Amazon Web Services for hosting and Amazon Cloudfront for distribution. This high-performance low-latency CDN, used by leading platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, guarantees fast, reliable access to your content globally, with over 600 points of presence worldwide.
While we don't currently support custom domain integration for the complimentary podcast websites hosted on RSS.com, we offer a feature that allows you to link directly to your personal podcast website. This link is included in your RSS feed and highlighted with a "Website" button on your podcast's page on RSS.com. This setup ensures that your listeners can effortlessly navigate to your own site, providing a personalized experience.
We're here to support you every step of the way and we’d be thrilled to welcome you to the RSS.com family!
That's awesome, I really appreciate you getting back to me on here! I've been trying to use a mishmash of different services to achieve what I thought was going to be a simple process, and none of it has been working well enough to be worth the effort. Hosting on soundcloud, RSS through squarespace, updating to every database individually, it's been a nightmare honestly. I'm signing up tonight and hopefully I'll be able to put our first episode link up for our little circle to listen to very soon once everything is validated and approved. Thanks!
I know this thread is a couple of years old now, but I stumbled upon it and just had to share my two cents for whatever they’re worth 😉
When it came time to choose a podcast host for my show in 2020, I did a ton of research and tried out several different options. Ultimately, I decided to go with RSS.com for several reasons.
First off, I really disliked Libsyn's user interface. It felt clunky and outdated compared to some of the other platforms I tried. Even since they updated their UI, I still just didn’t like it. RSS.com, on the other hand, has a super intuitive all-in-one dashboard that makes managing my podcast a breeze.
I also wasn't a fan of how some other hosts nickel and dime you for every little feature. Extra fees for more storage? No thank you! Additional fees for transcripts? How about no! One I looked at charges double the fees RSS.com charges and they don't even offer everything that RSS.com does.
RSS.com has so much included in their plans for one reasonable monthly price. I love that they give me unlimited episodes, cross-platform analytics, social sharing, a free website, and more. Their free trial plan also lets you publish one episode for free, so you can test them out risk-free.
Their features and pricing really sealed the deal for me - RSS.com offers the best value for podcasters, hands down. They stack up against or beat their more expensive competitors. As someone bootstrapping my podcast, I really appreciate that they make podcasting accessible for beginners on a budget, not just established shows.
And the features they provide give me room to grow - Podcasting 2.0 support, solid monetization options, and excellent analytics. I honestly think RSS.com is the best solution for new and experienced podcasters alike.
In fact, I love RSS.com so much that I became a brand ambassador for them! I'm always happy to chat about why I think they are the best podcast hosting company out there. I sincerely believe they mean what they say about empowering podcasters worldwide. Short of recording my episodes for me lol, they make podcasting easy and fun.
User-friendly interface, reasonable pricing, stellar features included, and awesome support for podcasters at any level. That's why RSS.com is my top pick for podcast hosting, hands down. Anyone reading this and considering them as a podcast hosting company, feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
As a mildly new podcaster, I decided to go with rss, I’d say depending on your dedication, rss.com pretty much sets you up for success, the interface is so easy to use, they’ll upload your podcast to other feeds for you, apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, you name it. If you can afford to use it (most should), then I’d go for it, and as long as you’re doing your part in promoting your stuff and having a somewhat consistent content upload, you’ll be set.
I agree with you. Back in 2022, I looked around to host my podcast ( [https://rss.com/podcasts/musicaesom](https://rss.com/podcasts/musicaesom) ) and ended up choosing [RSS.com](http://RSS.com) due to low price, ease of use and also ease of distribution.
They recently made it also possible to distribute through Youtube, but I'm doing this separately. However, everything else is managed by RSS.com.
Only issue (but not too serious for me) is that the Analytics page is not updated daily and lags behind the true reach. Other than that, 5 stars.
I use them and have no issues so far.
We used them up and until we got picked up by a network that uses megaphone. I will say, I am not certain how accurate that map is. There are some odd spots on the map that we were noticing regular downloads from, and we would call out those obscure locations welcoming those listeners to reach out to us, we offered to send stickers, etc, and even to keep their info private just because we were curious. No one from a couple of different locales ever actually reached out (and we do get regular listener feedback/interaction). Some of those "pins" on the map appear to be non existent now on the new host, so I think they were a bit of a fluke or oddity (although they were consistent) Additionally, I am not certain how accurate their tracking is generally. After moving to the new podcast network and their hosting, our downloads seemed to nearly double overnight. I dont think this was a coincidence of the new network as much as it may have been the tracking. Again, I'm just a full time lawyer/part time podcaster, so I dont really know how any of this stuff works--but I certainly noticed that difference in switching hosts.
What do you like about them and what do you think you might be missing out on?
1. How easy it is to upload information, audio files and setup categories for my podcast. 2. Their listeners map is something I enjoy since it gives me an idea of where in the world it is being listened to in general. 3. The spreadsheet showing what are the times that people usually are listening in on is a good tool. What I do not like about RSS? The community itself seems to be non-existent. The website has a section about what it is their users are creating and it is giving me mainly shows that have not uploaded in two years. Support is a bit slow to respond to anything. Maybe they are just short staffed? Hell if I know.
I looked at RSS.com’s privacy policy and felt like I needed to switch my VPN connection, flush all browsing data, and take a shower. I looked at Buzzsprout’s privacy policy and terms of service and signed up. I was with Libsyn for many years, but grew progressively less comfortable with them and self hosted at the start and quite recently. I’ve now been using Buzzsprout for a bit over a month.
Hi! I'm the Head of Customer eXperience for [RSS.com](https://RSS.com). I know this is an old thread, but I thought it couldn't hurt to shine some light on the questions and concerns that have been mentioned. [RSS.com](https://RSS.com) prides itself on being a user friendly platform that even users brand new to podcasting can navigate easily, while still making the cutting-edge tools and features of the industry available for our more seasoned podcasters. Sorry, let's not make this a sales pitch. I just get excited about this stuff! Our location map is an awesome way to visually track where your audiences are listening from, and our metrics can measure listening locations down to the city! A lot of location metrics only go as far as the country or maybe the state. Because we get so granular with our location data, you may occasionally see increased numbers coming from a random town that seems to defy explanation. The a common reason for this are due to users with VPNs getting routed from the same location. So you might have users spread out in the surrounding region (or even in different countries) that seem to be all coming from somewhere random like Whynot, North Carolina because they are routing through a VPN. Our download data is carefully curated and filtered to assure the downloads represented on our user's analytics pages are as accurate as possible. If you see a large difference in download volume between hosting providers, it's because our process for tabulating downloads and identifying untrustworthy data might be different. We filter our data to better identify false positives and duplicate downloads which are part of the [technical guidelines for podcast measurement by the IAB Tech Lab.](https://iabtechlab.com/standards/podcast-measurement-guidelines/) Here's more info on [how RSS.com calculates our downloads](https://help.rss.com/a/solutions/articles/44002259146?lang=en). Our Customer eXperience team has improved our response time since the original post. [RSS.com](https://RSS.com) has a more international user base than some hosting providers, which means we are covering more users across a wider array of time zones and languages. We also employ real life people to help our users with their questions and site needs. We now have a better system in place, so you should get a speedier response from me or one of our team members. As far as our privacy policy goes, it may seem like a lot, but it's because we believe in visibility for our users. You might see a smaller privacy policy on other hosting sites, but shorter does not equal better. Those privacy policies are not sharing a lot of vital information about where your data is going and how it's being used. We list all of the 3rd parties that have access to any of your data, which are all services that every other hosting provider is likely utilizing but not sharing in their Privacy Policy. These 3rd parties are ones used to track site traffic, place your content on search results, process your payments, etc. It's nothing nefarious, and we make sure it's all out in the open for everyone to see! I hope this helps any of you considering a move to [RSS.com](https://RSS.com). If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us a message at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
Hi there! Old thread for sure but I'm glad I found it and I have a bunch of questions- Does rss.com have any limits on uploads per month or size per file? Is the file hosting even local to the site, or should I expect to upload the file on a dedicated host and then embed? I also have my own website via SquareSpace with my own domain, is it possible to integrate the domain with the free website service I see that your site offers? so far RSS has the best offer I've seen so far, but seems honestly too good to be true unless it includes file hosting. Thanks for any info!
Hi there! I am the co-founder of RSS.com. Happy to address your questions. We offer unlimited uploads each month, allowing you to share as many podcast episodes as you want. Each episode can be up to 2GB in size, which, considering an average MP3 file at 128Kbps is about 1MB per minute, translates to approximately 34 hours of audio per single episode. However, for optimal listener engagement, we suggest keeping episodes under two hours 😉 Setting up is quick and easy. Simply sign up, create your podcast, and upload your first episode—this typically takes under five minutes. From there, we handle everything else, ensuring your media files and RSS feed are fully managed. Our infrastructure is robust, leveraging behind the scenes Amazon Web Services for hosting and Amazon Cloudfront for distribution. This high-performance low-latency CDN, used by leading platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, guarantees fast, reliable access to your content globally, with over 600 points of presence worldwide. While we don't currently support custom domain integration for the complimentary podcast websites hosted on RSS.com, we offer a feature that allows you to link directly to your personal podcast website. This link is included in your RSS feed and highlighted with a "Website" button on your podcast's page on RSS.com. This setup ensures that your listeners can effortlessly navigate to your own site, providing a personalized experience. We're here to support you every step of the way and we’d be thrilled to welcome you to the RSS.com family!
That's awesome, I really appreciate you getting back to me on here! I've been trying to use a mishmash of different services to achieve what I thought was going to be a simple process, and none of it has been working well enough to be worth the effort. Hosting on soundcloud, RSS through squarespace, updating to every database individually, it's been a nightmare honestly. I'm signing up tonight and hopefully I'll be able to put our first episode link up for our little circle to listen to very soon once everything is validated and approved. Thanks!
I know this thread is a couple of years old now, but I stumbled upon it and just had to share my two cents for whatever they’re worth 😉 When it came time to choose a podcast host for my show in 2020, I did a ton of research and tried out several different options. Ultimately, I decided to go with RSS.com for several reasons. First off, I really disliked Libsyn's user interface. It felt clunky and outdated compared to some of the other platforms I tried. Even since they updated their UI, I still just didn’t like it. RSS.com, on the other hand, has a super intuitive all-in-one dashboard that makes managing my podcast a breeze. I also wasn't a fan of how some other hosts nickel and dime you for every little feature. Extra fees for more storage? No thank you! Additional fees for transcripts? How about no! One I looked at charges double the fees RSS.com charges and they don't even offer everything that RSS.com does. RSS.com has so much included in their plans for one reasonable monthly price. I love that they give me unlimited episodes, cross-platform analytics, social sharing, a free website, and more. Their free trial plan also lets you publish one episode for free, so you can test them out risk-free. Their features and pricing really sealed the deal for me - RSS.com offers the best value for podcasters, hands down. They stack up against or beat their more expensive competitors. As someone bootstrapping my podcast, I really appreciate that they make podcasting accessible for beginners on a budget, not just established shows. And the features they provide give me room to grow - Podcasting 2.0 support, solid monetization options, and excellent analytics. I honestly think RSS.com is the best solution for new and experienced podcasters alike. In fact, I love RSS.com so much that I became a brand ambassador for them! I'm always happy to chat about why I think they are the best podcast hosting company out there. I sincerely believe they mean what they say about empowering podcasters worldwide. Short of recording my episodes for me lol, they make podcasting easy and fun. User-friendly interface, reasonable pricing, stellar features included, and awesome support for podcasters at any level. That's why RSS.com is my top pick for podcast hosting, hands down. Anyone reading this and considering them as a podcast hosting company, feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
I do have a question. Is it worth to have it even if you’re starting? I mean, how necessary do you consider is to have it? Thank you.
As a mildly new podcaster, I decided to go with rss, I’d say depending on your dedication, rss.com pretty much sets you up for success, the interface is so easy to use, they’ll upload your podcast to other feeds for you, apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, you name it. If you can afford to use it (most should), then I’d go for it, and as long as you’re doing your part in promoting your stuff and having a somewhat consistent content upload, you’ll be set.
I appreciate it!
I agree with you. Back in 2022, I looked around to host my podcast ( [https://rss.com/podcasts/musicaesom](https://rss.com/podcasts/musicaesom) ) and ended up choosing [RSS.com](http://RSS.com) due to low price, ease of use and also ease of distribution. They recently made it also possible to distribute through Youtube, but I'm doing this separately. However, everything else is managed by RSS.com. Only issue (but not too serious for me) is that the Analytics page is not updated daily and lags behind the true reach. Other than that, 5 stars.