Here are the 18 most valuable tools for hosting, optimising and promoting your podcast

Welcome to Amp 99’s extensive guide where we’ll explore the most valuable tools for hosting, optimising and promoting your podcast effectively. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced podcast host, these tools are crucial for building awareness of your podcast and reaching your audience in a meaningful way. Are you ready?

Let’s get started!

Podcast hosting platforms

Podcast hosting platforms are the foundation of your podcast. These platforms make it easy to upload, organise and share your podcast across different streaming services, allowing you to reach a wider audience. Hosting platforms like Spreaker, Buzzsprout, Spotify for Podcasters and Libsyn offer a variety of valuable tools to manage and distribute your episodes, while at the same time providing detailed listener statistics.

Prices vary, but what these tools have in common is that they’re crucial for publishing via RSS feed and maximising the visibility, reach and engagement of your podcast. By choosing the right platform, you can create a professional podcast experience for your listeners and reach a wider audience – whether you’re a beginner or an experienced podcast host.

Below, you can read more about the tools’ features and pricing, and find links to the tools we recommend:

The most widely used podcast hosting platforms:

Spreaker

1. Allows you to easily upload episodes, manage your library and access detailed statistics.
2. Offers a free version, but additional features are available from €20/month.

Read more about Spreaker here: https://www.spreaker.com/

BuzzSprout:

1. Allows you to easily upload episodes, manage your library and access detailed statistics.
2. Offers a free version, but additional features are available from €20/month.

Read more about Buzzsprout here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/

Spotify for podcasters (previously Anchor.fm)

1. An integrated part of Spotify’s podcasting network – providing an extensive platform for creating and distributing podcasts.
2. Is a free platform.

Read more about Spotify for Podcasters here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/

Libsyn

1. Offers access to solid analytics tools, advanced distribution options and the opportunity to create revenue through advertising and premium content.
2. Prices start at $7/month.

Read more about Libsyn here: https://libsyn.com/

Editing tools

“Overall, editing tools help you produce professional podcasts that stand out and attract a larger audience”

A professionally edited podcast is essential to attract more listeners and plays a crucial role in advertising and promoting your podcast by making it possible to edit and improve the sound quality. Hindenburg and Audacity are both tools that allow you to cut, mix and add sound effects to your podcasts, resulting in a professional sound experience for your listeners. With editing features like equalizer adjustments and noise reduction, you can fine-tune the sound quality and minimise unwanted background noise, improving the sound clarity and creating a more pleasant listening experience.

By using editing tools, you can create well-edited podcasts that attract and retain listener attention. These tools allow you to trim and arrange sound files to help you achieve the desired sound and optimise the audio track to match your content and branding. Overall, editing tools help you produce professional podcasts that stand out and attract a larger audience. By using these tools, you can improve the quality of your podcasts and increase their appeal – things that are crucial to succeed in the competitive world of podcasting.

Below, we’ve gathered some information on both Hindenburg and Audacity:

Some of our favourites:

Hindenburg

1. Allows you to easily cut, mix and add different sound effects. Intuitive editing features – automatic level adjustment and noise reduction.
2. Prices start at DKK90/month.

Read more about Hindenburg here: https://hindenburg.com/

Audacity

1. Open-source sound editing software that offers features like cutting, mixing, equalizer and noise reduction.
2. Audacity is free software.

Read more about Audacity here: https://audacityteam.org/

Graphic tools

When it comes to advertising and promoting your podcast, visual content is crucial. Graphic tools play an important role in this process as they make it possible to create professional visual content. With these tools, you can design a wide range of graphic elements, including images, infographics, videos and graphics for social media that can be used to market your podcast effectively.

With graphic tools like Canva, Headliner and Midjourney, you can create professional and eye-catching visual materials that highlight your podcast’s message and attract attention from potential listeners. These tools allow you to adapt templates, add text, images, graphics and even animations to create unique and engaging visual content that stands out on different platforms. By using graphic tools, you can also create short video clips from audio content, like podcast clips, which increases the visibility of your podcast and engages your audience across different channels. You can share these videos on social media, your website or relevant platforms to reach a wider audience and attract new listeners.

Overall, graphic tools allow you to make visual content that strengthens your podcast’s branding, increases its visibility and engages your audience more effectively. By using one or more of these tools, you can maximise the potential of your podcast and achieve greater success with your podcast.

In the fact box below, you can find more information on the three tools we recommend:

Some of our favourites:

Canva

1. Allows you to design visual content – graphics, images and short videos.
2. Offers a free version. Canva Pro costs $119.99/year.

Read more about Canva here: https://canva.com/

Headliner

1. Create short video clips from audio content. Upload your file, adjust the look of your video and share it on social media.
2. Can be used for free, but paid plans start at $7.99/month.

Read more about Headliner here: https://headliner.app/

Midjourney

1. Create images and graphics that can boost the message of your podcast. Generate professional visual content in no time.
2. Prices start at $10/month.

Read more about Midjourney here: https://midjourney.ai/

Link sharing tools

Sharing links to your podcasts across different platforms is crucial to increasing your visibility and reaching your audience. Link sharing tools therefore play an important part in your advertising strategy, as they make it possible to create customised and dynamic links that effectively guide listeners to your podcast on different platforms. Tools like Pod.link, Linkfire and Chartable can help you create a more engaging and seamless experience for your listeners, no matter where they are or what device they’re using.

These tools also allow you to customise your links with branding elements and click tracking to give you insights into how your links are shared and distributed. Additionally, they make it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and identify the areas where you can optimise to reach an even larger audience.

Link sharing tools therefore enable a more strategic approach to marketing your podcast by increasing the visibility, engagement and efficiency of your promotion efforts.

Read more about Pod.link, Linkfire and Chartable in the fact box below:

Some of our favourites:

Pod.link

1. Allows you to create universal links to your podcasts.
2. Pod.link is a free tool.

Read more about Pod.link here: https://pod.link/

Linkfire

1. Allows you to create dynamic links that automatically direct your listeners to the relevant platform.
2. Prices start at $9.99/month.

Read more about Linkfire here: https://linkfire.com/

Chartable.com

1. Allows you to create tailored links to episodes as well as track listener statistics, reviews and compare performance.
2. Offers a free version, but additional features are available from $50/month.

Read more about Chartable here: https://chartable.com/

Revenue and community-building tools

For many podcast hosts, the opportunity to monetise their content is a crucial part of the process. Platforms like Patreon and Supercast allow you to create membership models or paid subscriptions where listeners can support you financially in return for exclusive content or other benefits. By offering membership models through Patreon or paid subscriptions via Supercast, you can create a steady stream of income that helps cover production costs and potentially generate a profit. These tools also make it possible to build a closer relationship with your listeners by offering exclusive content or rewards. This strengthens the community around your podcast, increases credibility and promotes loyalty among your listeners.

With tools like these, you have full control over which reward levels or subscription levels you offer as well as what content your listeners get access to. This gives you flexibility to tailor your offerings to your listeners’ interests and needs. However, it’s important to be aware of the fees and costs that platforms charge, as they can affect your overall revenue. The competition on these platforms can also be tough, so it’s crucial to differentiate what you offer and create unique content that attracts and retains your members or paid subscribers.

Overall, revenue and community-building tools allow you to take a more strategic approach to advertising and promoting your podcast by creating a stream of income and at the same time strengthening your connection to your listener community.

We’ve gathered some information on Patreon and Supercast below:

Patreon

1. Allows you to create a membership model for your listeners to gain financial support through subscriptions or donations.
2. Patreon is a free tool, but they take a percentage of the revenue you generate.

Read more about Patreon here: https://patreon.com/

Supercast

1. Allows you to create paid subscriptions where listeners pay for access to exclusive content or benefits.
2. Prices start at $0.59/month.

Read more about Supercast here: https://supercast.com/

Analytics tools

“Overall, analytics tools are an essential part of every podcast advertising strategy in the competitive world of podcasting”

To measure the success of your podcast advertising strategy, it’s important to have access to analytics tools. The platform Podtrac gives you access to in-depth insights into your podcast’s performance and listener base, which are crucial for adjusting your advertising strategy and targeting your ads to the most relevant and engaged segments of your listener base.

By using analysis features like those Podtrac offers, you can get detailed data on your listener demographics, their geographic location, which devices they use and even ad tracking. This insight allows you to better understand your audience, identifying trends and measuring the impact of your advertising strategy. By analysing this data, you can make more informed decisions on how to best market your podcast. You can target your ads to specific segments of your listener base, adjust your content to their preferences and even optimise the placement of your ads to maximise their impact.

Overall, analytics tools are an essential part of every podcast advertising strategy in the competitive world of podcasting. By using these tools correctly, you can maximise the efficiency of your advertising strategy, target your communication more precisely to your target audience and achieve greater success with your podcast.

Read more about Podtrac below:

Podtrac

1. Delivers detailed data and insights into the performance of your podcast. Features like listener demographics, geographic location, device analytics and ad tracking.
2. Offers a free version, but additional features are available from $20/month.

Read more about Podtrac here: https://analytics.podtrac.com/

Promotional tools for social media

In order to promote your podcast effectively on social media, it’s important to have access to tools that help with planning, automating and analysing your posts. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social allow you to plan, analyse and optimise your social media campaigns across different platforms. This is crucial for maximising your presence and engagement on social media.

One of the key features of these tools is that they allow you to plan your social media posts in advance. By creating a detailed content plan, you can schedule your posts to be shared at optimal times based on the activity of your target audience. This ensures that your content reaches your followers when they’re most active and engaged, which can increase your reach and interaction across platforms. Besides planning features, the tools offer advanced analytics features that give you insights into the performance of your campaigns. You can track engagement, clicks and conversions to evaluate the effect of your strategy and make any necessary adjustments. This insight is crucial in order to understand what works and how you can optimise your campaigns to reach your goals.

Although these tools offer a wide range of features, you need to be aware of the costs of using them. The price of these platforms can vary and it’s important to weigh the costs against the value they add to your social media strategy.

Buffer

1. Allows you to plan and analyse your social media posts across platforms.
2. Offers a free version, but additional features are available from $6/month.

Read more about Buffer here: https://buffer.com/

Hootsuite

1. A tool for social media management. Planning of posts, monitoring conversations and analysing performance.
2. Prices start at €99/month.

Read more about Hootsuite here: https://www.hootsuite.com/

Sprout Social

1. Allows you to plan posts, engage your audience and analyse results in real time.
2. Prices start at $249/month.

Read more about Sprout Social here: https://sproutsocial.com/

If you want to read more about how to get off to the best possible start with your podcast advertising strategy, you can read our blogpost ‘Getting started with podcast advertising – the ultimate guide’ 

Summary – the key to a successful podcast!

“Whether your goal is to make a profit on your podcast, build a strong brand or just share your knowledge with the world, the tools mentioned in this blogpost are essential for a successful podcast”

When summarising the tools we’ve explored in this guide, it becomes clear that every single tool plays an essential role in building a successful podcast. But let’s direct our attention to the most crucial aspect of getting your podcast out into the world: marketing and promotion. These tools are not just technical resources; they provide the foundation for reaching your listeners and establishing your podcast’s presence on the market. Whether your goal is to make a profit on your podcast, build a strong brand or just share your knowledge with the world, the tools mentioned in this blogpost are essential for a successful podcast.

From hosting platforms that make it possible to share your episodes with the world, to editing tools that polish the sound quality, and social media tools that increase your online visibility, there’s a wealth of resources available for podcasters at all levels. These tools not only offer technical improvements but also open the door to creative opportunities and strategic approaches to reaching your target audience in the right way.

But remember – it’s not only the tools that define the success of your podcast. Your passion, your engagement and your understanding of your audience play an equally crucial role. No matter how advanced the tools are, they can never replace the unique connection you build with your listeners through authentic and meaningful content. So, while we praise the tools that can help us reach our goals, we can’t forget the core of our podcast journey: our passion for the subject and our engagement with our listeners.

At Amp 99, we wish you good luck on your podcast journey, and we hope that this guide has been informative and inspiring for you. No matter where you are on your journey, remember to keep learning, experimenting and developing. Remember that we’re always here to support you on your way to success. Feel free to contact our director, Bjørn Vestergaard, at bjorn@amp99.com at any time! We’re ready to help you reach your podcast goals!