Podcast Hosting Reviews: Simplecast vs. Libsyn

When starting a podcast, your goal is to partner with a platform that can meet all of your needs and help you thrive. There are many options available, but not all podcast hosts are made equal–which is probably why you’re currently researching and reading reviews on a bunch of different hosts right now! Let’s get down to business and give you the information you came here for: how Simplecast stacks up against Libsyn.

Ease of use and design

At Simplecast, we know it's a lot easier to get your work done when that work is easy to do! That's why we prioritize good design and good user experience–your dashboard is intuitive and modern, to make your workflow easier. Additionally, we've got some of the best looking players in the business, so no matter where your listeners find you, you're always putting your best foot forward.

Pricing

With affordable pricing and unlimited uploads, we want to help you thrive. To that end, our pricing is per show. We’d never want to punish you for success, so our download caps are super generous, and built off of studying how our creators use our platform. Additionally, we like to use metrics we know our customers can easily understand–it’s way simpler to count your shows, versus how many MBs of content you’ve uploaded that month.

Libsyn currently doesn’t offer unlimited bandwidth and storage on any of their price models except for their highest tier. The highest amount of bandwidth they allow creators is just 1500MB. That amount of storage will cost you $75 per month. If you need extra space, it will cost you another $10 extra per month. In comparison, Simplecast’s basic plan, which includes unlimited storage is $15/month.

Migration

We’ll start with the good news: If you’re moving your show from your current host to Simplecast, it’s free and easy. If you move your show and choose Libsyn, as of 2017, up to 10MB of your show is $25–after that, you’ll need to contact a support specialist for a quote.

Analytics

In order to make some important decisions about your show (can you monetize? Is your show length working? Are you growing?) you need to have a firm grasp on your analytics. Libsyn currently offers basic analytics as a $2/month supplement to their basic plan, and as an included service with their $15/month plan. These basic analytics cover daily, monthly, and yearly download data. Unfortunately, you’re not able to export that data out use outside of Libsyn on the basic plan. On their $20, $40, and $75 monthly plans, Libsyn offers basic analytics, as well as information on geography, application, and web referrals. On the more expensive plans, you’re able to export your data.

Simplecast’s $15/month plan offers total downloads per city, total downloads in completely customizable date ranges, listener locations, unique listeners, listening methods, top ten rankings of your most successful episodes, and downloads per episode–exportable, so we’re not holding your data hostage.

The other issue here is IAB Certification–on Simplecast. all plans are IAB Certified. That means whether you're just getting started or are well on your way, you can stand behind you data with confidence when you present it to potential sponsors or advertisers. On Libsyn, only their Advanced plans are certified–otherwise, you're using Libsyn's own metrics, rather than the industry standard.

Social Media Integration

Social media is one of the best ways to get the word out about your podcast. However, it's highly unlikely that someone will listen to your entire show if it shows up on their Twitter or Instagram feed. Recast by Simplecast is changing the game when it comes to sharing your content on social media. Instead of sharing your entire podcast at once, Recast allows you to clip just part of your show to share online as a well-designed audiogram. Once you have made your clip you can post it to a variety of platforms.

Libsyn does offer a social media publishing service called OnPublish; however, unlike Recast, it is one size fits all. OnPublish allows you to publish your entire podcast to your social media pages. As mentioned before, this may not be the most beneficial approach.

Social media is a great tool, but you must remember that most audiences crave brevity. Twitter posts are capped at 280 characters for a reason. People want to be able to scroll through your posts. If they like what they see, they will click on a link to your website. In contrast, if a viewer sees a 38 minute long podcast on their timeline - they may scroll past it without stopping to learn about the content.

Final Decision

When it comes to creating a podcast that will grow with your audience, Simplecast is the obvious solution–especially when you tally up the costs. In order to get all of the features on Simplecast's Basic $15 plans, you'd have to pay $20 on Libsyn, plus and additional $10/month per 200mb, which Simplecast includes.

From posting clips on social media, to publishing your content on a sleek audio player, we’ve got audio creators’ best interests at heart. With a low monthly cost and a full feature set, we hope you’ll choose Simplecast to be your podcast host.

Looking to make a switch? Start your two-week free trial today! When you’re ready to go steady, use code LIBSYN to get a month free when you start a yearly plan.