Is Libsyn The Podcast Hosting Site for You? (Review)

The entertainment industry has evolved through the years. From the simple phonogram used to record and playback devices, there are now various avenues where people can be entertained such as movies, television shows, and podcasts. If you want an all-in-one podcast solution to make your dreams a reality, then Libsyn is definitely for you! Libsyn is one the most prominent and oldest podcasting platforms that is available worldwide.

Libsyn is credible and will provide solutions to all your podcasting concerns. Check out this article to find out if Libsyn is the podcasting site for you.

What Is Libsyn?

Libsyn was established back in 2004, and it is considered as one of the podcasting pioneers to host and publish podcasts. Since then, it’s bloomed to be one of the leading and largest podcast hosting sites globally. Conversely, Libsyn3 is the third-generation publishing platform that is the culmination of years of experiences and practices gained by the founders by only working with the industry’s best. They specialize in iTunes and iPhone apps that offer podcasting solutions through their world-class tools, service, and support.

Libsyn has worked with a plethora of producers from beginners to professionals. Podcasters across the globe can record quality podcasts, market their podcasts to avid listeners, and even make money through their podcasts when they work with Lisbyn!

With everything that Libsyn offers, podcasters across the globe can maximize the platform for all their podcasting needs. Please read on below to know more about the features that they offer.

If you want to check out more Podcasting platforms, you can check our review of Spreaker.

Libsyn Membership Plans

With all the exciting features that Libsyn has to offer, it offers multiple subscription plans:

• Classic 50 has a 50 MB storage capacity. This is priced at $5 per month.
• Classic 250 has a 250 MB storage capacity. This is priced at $15 per month.
• Advanced 400 has a 400 MB storage capacity. This is priced at $20 per month.
• Advanced 800 has an 800 MB storage capacity. This is priced at $40 per month.

For monetization, you can choose double-opt-in advertising. However, only the Advanced 400 and Advanced 800 plans offer the MyLibsyn Premium Paywall.

For the Advanced tool features, the advanced plans offer downloadable stats reporting and Advanced IAB v2.0 Stats. Additional 200 MB and the app for iOS and Android can also be availed for an additional $10 per month for the advanced plans.

It is also important to note that Libsyn also offers an Advanced 1500 plan for $75 monthly which offers 1500 MB of storage space with all the features mentioned above. If you want more, they still got you covered! Libsyn also has an Advanced 3000 plan for $150 monthly that offers a whopping 3000 MB of storage space.

To know all the features these packages offer, you can check them out on their official website.

How to Sign Up for Libsyn

To start your Libsyn journey and turn your podcasting dream into reality, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Libsyn Sign-up Page using this link: https://signup.libsyn.com/
2. Fill in your first name, last name, public contact email, and password. Take note to check the “Sign me up to receive Libsyn service, community, industry, and podcast communications” line and the “I accept and agree to Libsyn’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy” buttons before moving on.
3. Set up your podcast by creating your custom URL (be as creative as you want!) as well as your timezone.
4. Choose your plan and fill out your credit card information.
5. Confirm that all the details you have entered are correct and create your Lisbyn account.

What Are Libsyn’s Features?

Libsyn offers a comprehensive podcast solution to fit all of your podcast needs. Let’s delve deeper into the features they have to offer so you have an idea of their service portfolio.

Automated Social Media Sharing

Social media automation is automating social media activities to optimize the results derived from social media channels. It assists marketers to save effort and time in managing, engaging, and enhancing social media platforms and brand awareness. Libsyn offers a pretty robust automated social media sharing feature so you can reach as much of your audience as you can!

Monetization

As part of their monetization strategy, Lisbyn uses a comprehensive podcast advertising activity that offers hand-picked ad slots, ad stitching, and targeting services. Users can also choose between live-read advertising and stitched advertising, depending on what they need.

OnPublish

The OnPublish feature allows its users to publish their podcasts to major podcast websites and apps such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Podcast. They provide a compatibility rate of 100% with most RSS feeds. Aside from that, this also connects you to your listeners on all the prominent apps, services, and platforms.

OnPublish also offers the latest integrations. Libsyn is always finding ways to add newer and fresher integrations, so you know that you will still relate to the latest integrations!

You can refer to the publishing tools below that OnPublish offers through Libsyn:

Remove or add new content

Lisbyn’s editing tools are very intuitive and user-friendly, where you can remove or add new content quickly! Say goodbye to many clicks because Lisbyn’s OnPublish feature makes you edit your content with just a few clicks!

Audience Diagnostics

In any business, data and analytics is an important aspect. In the podcast industry, knowing your audience demographics is a competitive advantage because you will produce content that they can relate to.

With Libdyn’s OnPublish feature, you have access to advanced statistics that will allow you to get to know your audience a little bit better and tell you the different ways on how they access your podcast so you can tweak your content and publishing strategy accordingly.

Destination Delivery

In the podcast industry, being able to know what platforms your target audience is listening to allows you to be more strategic in delivering your content at the right venue, at the right time. With Libsyn, you can customize your delivery destinations accordingly.

User Controls

In the podcast world, timing is everything. The time you publish your podcast makes a huge difference. Even if your content is the greatest and greatest out there, if you publish it at 10 AM where everyone is running errands or at work or in the middle of the night, you will not get as many likes as you would have if you published it in a more strategic time.

The User Control feature of Libsyn allows you to schedule your podcast down to the exact millisecond. In this manner, you are assured that you will have many listeners based on your target audience.

Custom Mobile Apps

The Custom Mobile App feature of Libsyn allows you to choose between an iOS app or an Android app for your podcast. Here, it will make your podcast app front and center so it can be downloaded by anyone, anywhere! What more is that Libsyn’s custom mobile app feature also allows you to customize your app’s look and feel with thousands of designs and colors to choose from.

It is more straightforward for you to share your podcast with your audience through this custom app feature. Let us look at some of the cool features of Libsyn’s custom mobile apps:

Car Mode Ready

We are sure that the majority of podcast listeners are those who are on the road. Who would not want to listen to their favorite podcast while they are idly driving by, right? This is why one of the top features of Libsyn’s Custom Mobile App is the Car Mode Ready feature. When rotated, the app illustrates playback controls for easier playback making it perfect for on-the-go people.

Compatibility

The custom mobile app can handle various media such as audio, video, text, and PDFs. Users can also easily filter what medium they want through the app!

Communication

With the custom mobile app, there are many ways to communicate. Because of this, social media integrations, podcast linking, the comment section, and voicemail lines are user-friendly and are very easy to access by users.

Custom Audience

Because anyone and everyone is accessing podcasts, user experience is essential. Since every user has his or her preference, this aspect can also become very challenging. Luckily, Libsyn provides an outstanding custom audience experience that encompasses auto-download, skip ahead, repeat, speed settings, a sleep timer, and continuous playback for easier use.

Sharing

One strategy to make sure that everyone can access your podcast is to share your podcast on various social media so you have a strong social media presence. Sharing your content through various social media platforms is now possible! Platforms such as Facebook, Email, IM, and Twitter can accommodate your episodes.

My Favorites

Through Libsyn’s custom mobile settings, users are allowed to keep track of their favorite episodes and download them for fast access when offline.

Notifications

Libsyn’s custom mobile app offers pretty robust notification and custom alert settings. Take note that for application publishers, the push notification feature is designed to speak directly to a user.

Through this, they will not get in spam filters or forgotten in your inbox. This makes the click-through rates higher compared to email. For just a measly $5 a month, you can have this excellent feature added to your podcast and potentially double your income! Push notifications will assist you in sending out new content and alerts your listeners via text and link alerts if your audience’s iOS device is enabled.

Libsyn Player

The Libsyn player allows you to publish your podcast to websites with their mobile-friendly player easily. In hare, this powerful and sleek player offers an array of ways to make the player an extension of your brand. In this light, it will also fit like a glove on your site. Let us dive in at some of its cool features:

Episode Playlist

The Episode Playlist allows you to systematically organize your podcast content per episode into one neat file. This way, your audience can quickly sift through your playlist and playback their favorite episode!

Custom Sizes

Podcast creators have different preferences on how they want to market their podcasts. Some prefer it to be front and center on their site, while others prefer to have samples of their podcasts on their site’s right or left panes. With the Libsyn player, you can customize your podcast’s size to fit your website or your style.

Thumbnail Settings

In any site, the rule is to have a nice and clean look, so your clients have a hassle-free and pleasant experience on your site. Through Libsyn’s Player, you are given options to choose thumbnails and deactivate them for a more clean and minimalist feel.

Custom Start Time

Another neat feature of the Libsyn Player is the Custom Start Time. With this feature, you can determine the precise time code where you want a particular episode to begin playing. This attribute comes in handy especially if you are going to highlight a specific time frame on your website.

Playback Direction

Playback Direction is an important feature to enable a hassle-free experience for your users. With this feature, you can adjust your playlist settings to play episodes oldest to newest or newest to oldest depending on your preference,

Custom Colors

Of course, personalization and customization are what the Libsyn Player is all about. Here, you can mix and match the player’s color to fit your style or your website’s brand!

Libsyn Pros & Cons

Libsyn vs Other Podcast Websites

Buzzsprout

Out of all the podcast hosting websites out there, Buzzsprout is probably Lisbyn’s biggest competition. However, if you have multiple podcast accounts in Buzzsprout, you will also have numerous bills and various statistics, which can be inefficient.

Acast

While Acast has mostly gotten glowing reviews with their podcast service, there have been reviews from a couple of users stating that they have experienced multiple technical glitches. Some of the issues include the podcast app freezing or becoming unresponsive, the inability to sign back in, and erratic download functionality.

Podbean

Podbean is another popular podcast hosting site. While it offers one of the best and user-friendly interfaces, some of its cons include limited security features where basically everyone can upload their content. There’s also no uptime guarantee, no back-up feature, and a limited refund period.

Why Is Libsyn the Podcast Site for You?

If you want value for your money with a podcast hosting platform that offers an end-to-end solution to all your podcast needs, then start your journey with Libsyn! It offers a comprehensive podcast features portfolio with a user-friendly interface and design, which is perfect for newbies and professionals in the podcast business. Its cost-efficient membership plans also are so affordable that you truly get value for your money. What are you waiting for? Jumpstart your podcast career with Libsyn today!