Today in this blog post, we will be reviewing Buzzsprout vs Spreaker. These are two of the best podcasting platforms available today.

Buzzsprout is best for beginners while Spreaker is suitable for intermediate to advanced podcasters.

Both Buzzsprout and Spreaker offer enough monetization strategies to make money from your podcasts. These include – affiliate marketplace, dynamic ads, Patreon pages, sponsors, etc.

Buzzsprout’s main USPs include – simplicity and ease of use. While Spreaker’s USPs include – powerful monetization and mobile apps for podcasters.

Here is a quick breakdown of the features in Buzzsprout vs Spreaker.

What do we like about Buzzsprout over Spreaker?

• Buzzsprout’s main selling propositions are its ease to use and simplicity. Even a beginner can get started easily with this platform. While with Spreaker, there is a learning curve needed for using the ad campaign manager and creating audiograms integrating with Headliner.
• Buzzsprout comes with a built-in magic mastering feature that replaces audio editing tools like Auphonic. Using this feature, Buzzsprout optimizes your audio file (without any quality loss) to match Apple Podcast’s best practices. Spreaker lacks this feature.
• Buzzsprout integrates with the Canva tool (free tool, not the Pro) helping you in designing the artwork for your podcasts. You can create beautiful artwork with over 25,000 free templates, stock photos, fonts, and customizable logos available, without leaving Buzzsprout.
• Buzzsprout comes with support show links with which you can let your fans support your shows with donations. You just need to add links to your payment gateway, membership, donation, Patreon pages, etc. This is a really simple and effective way to monetize your podcasts.
• On Buzzsprout’s paid plans, you can upload episode transcripts. For this, Buzzsprout integrates with Otter.ai and Temi. Adding transcriptions helps in increased discoverability by search engines, also it eliminates the need for manual note-taking for listeners and helps people with hearing disabilities.
• Buzzsprout has recently launched a brand new podcast website eliminating the platforms like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. You need not buy hosting as well. Just create the website and you are good to go. Having a website gives you an SEO advantage and makes your episodes appear on SERPs.
• Buzzsprout offers excellent support. It has a YouTube channel, a private highly-engaging Facebook community, and award-winning customer support.
• Buzzsprout has a built-in affiliate program where you can promote other brands on your podcasts. You can also promote custom brands if they are not available inside of Buzzsprout.
• Buzzsprout has an API to integrate it with the third-party services and the tools you need.

What do we like about Spreaker over Buzzsprout?

• Spreaker’s unique selling proposition is its mobile app . It offers mobile apps for both listeners and podcasters. It has both iOS and Android apps, for listeners to consume on the go, anywhere, anytime. But, it doesn’t come with in-app purchases similar to say Podbean. Most of the time people will be using their Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or Overcast to listen to your podcasts – so BuzzSprout didn’t bother creating one.
• It has a Studio app for podcasters and it has podcast editing and live broadcast recording features. There is also a chat feature available to connect with your listeners in real time.
• It also has built-in programmatic ad monetization where you can insert the relevant ads dynamically. With this, you don’t need to edit the podcast audio to insert the ads.
• On its publisher plan, Spreaker comes with an ad campaign manager. This helps you market your events, podcasts, and products with promotional ads. You can create, manage, and monitor the ad performance all from a single dashboard.

Common downsides:

• Unlike Podbean which offers various free plugins to increase the functionality of the tool (like SEO meta tags, and importing the files from Dropbox, integration with HLS video, etc ), both these platforms don’t offer any such plugins.
• Both these tools don’t come with retention stats to analyze how the listeners are engaging with your content. This type of stats you will get in Podbean.

Upfront bottomline:

The final choice of choosing between Buzzsprout and Spreaker depends on your needs.

Buzzsprout is best if you –

• If you are a beginner and need an easy-to-use platform.
• Need features like magic mastering to edit the audio right inside of the platform.
• Need transcription services right inside the tool.
• Need monetization features like affiliate marketplace, ads, and show support links.

Go with Spreaker if –

• You are an advanced podcaster and you have experience in running the ads, creating audiograms, etc.
• Most of your listeners are mobile users and a mobile app is very crucial for you.
• You personally need a mobile app to record and share the episodes on the go.
• You mainly run ads for your podcasts and need a dedicated ad campaign manager.

Overview

Buzzsprout is one of the most simple and easy-to-use podcast hosting platforms. It is the best choice for beginners. Spreaker is also easy to use, but it needs some learning curve.

It is also more feature-rich compared to Spreaker. Its unique features include – integration with Canva, Otter.ai, Temi, a magic mastering filter, an affiliate marketplace, etc.

While Spreaker’s unique features include an ad campaign manager and mobile apps for both listeners and podcasters.

User interface and ease of use

Buzzsprout’s main selling proposition is its ease of use and they focus on simplicity.

In Spreaker, you can access all the features in the right sidebar. With both, you can access all features within 3 to 4 clicks.

If you are a beginner, Buzzsprout would be the best bet for you. Even though they release more features and updates, they make them user-friendly.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout’s unique selling propositions are its ease of use and simplicity. If you are just beginning your podcasting career, I recommend you start with Buzzsprout.

Podcast creation and editing

Creating a podcast with both these tools is easy.

If you are on Buzzsprout’s free plan, the episodes can be hosted for up to 90 days and are limited to just 2 hours each month. So it is recommended to switch to paid plans before making them live.

If you are new to Spreaker, it helps you with a guided tutorial on setting up a podcast.

With both these tools, you can import the podcasts using the RSS feed from other platforms as well.

When it comes to editing the podcasts, with both you can choose the language, category, and add podcast description (make sure you use the relevant keywords to help the audience discover your podcast), artwork, etc.

With both, you can add chapter markers – Which helps the audience to consume the content easily in chunks. Also, they can see what’s coming up next, increasing the learning experience.

I really liked that both these tools allow you to create visual soundbites (audiograms) right inside the platform to share on social media platforms. This is a great way to repurpose your content. You can customize the appearance of your Soundbite like – the video size, colors, background, and text.

Buzzsprout has this visual soundbites feature built-in, whereas Spreaker integrates with a tool called Headliner, for creating the soundbites.

Tip: While posting the soundbite on social media sites, you can add a link to the full episode. This helps people to click your full podcast and helps you in converting them into subscribers.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout excels with its magic mastering and visual soundbite features. These are built right inside Buzzsprout. Whereas with Spreaker, you need to integrate with external tools at an additional cost, to avail these features.

Podcast player

With Buzzsprout you can choose to have a separate player for all your episodes or have multiple episodes in a single player.

You can customize the player progress color, player style, artwork, etc.

With Spreaker, you can choose either the dark theme or the white theme. Also, you can customize the player’s primary color, change the visibility of certain elements of the widget player, use photos as a background for the player, and much more. You can refer to the image above to know all the features available.

With both tools, you can embed the podcasts on your own sites hosted on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or any other CMS platforms. You can embed either the JS (JavaScript) code or the iframe code. Note that Buzzsprout has recently released a podcast website where you can have all your podcasts on a single page and promote it to the audience.

In Buzzsprout, you can add tags to the podcast episodes, and on the site, only display the playlist of the episodes with a particular tag. If you need, you can even customize the embed code with custom CSS as well.

Podcast player front-end experience:

Both tools’ players have rewind, forward, speed controller, and share features. In addition to these Spreaker also has like and comment features.

If you want to display any custom link or add CTAs you need to add that in the episode description.

Podcast website:

Buzzsprout has recently released a podcast website and it now has the ability to have a dedicated share page for your podcasts. With this, you will have an SEO advantage and your podcasts will more likely appear on SERPs. With Spreaker, you need to integrate with WordPress, to create a podcasting site.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout supports three types of podcast players. You can add tags to effectively manage and display the podcast on your website. If you need, you can custom code the player’s appearance. Spreaker, on the other hand, supports podcast themes and has good customization features.

Storage and hosting

Buzzsprout supports unlimited storage on all of its paid plans. But it doesn’t support unlimited hosting of content. Its pricing plan varies depending on the uploading time. On its lowest plan costing $12/mo, you can upload only 3 hours of content.

Spreaker, unlike Buzzsprout, gives unlimited storage only on its highest plan at $120/mo.

Both platforms handle unlimited bandwidth on all plans. So you don’t have to worry about the traffic loads on the website. If you need unlimited episodes, downloads, and storage with no duration limits you can consider going with tools like RSS.com.

Winner: Buzzsprout. With Buzzsprout you will get unlimited storage on all its plans (starting at $12/mo), while with Spreaker you need to spend $120/mo to get unlimited hosting.

Monetization

Both Buzzsprout and Spreaker offer various monetization tools to make money podcasting.

Buzzsprout has an affiliate marketplace, support show links, podcast sponsors, and recently it has introduced the ads feature as well.

With Spreaker, they mainly have ads for monetization. They support programmatic ad monetization. Spreaker lacks an affiliate marketplace and support show link features, but it integrates with Patreon allowing you to sell podcast memberships or subscriptions.

Let’s discuss them one by one.

Affiliate marketplace

With Buzzsprout’s affiliate marketplace, you can promote the brands or products relevant to your niche and earn revenue.

Apart from these, you can add your own custom brands as well to promote in your podcasts.

Support show links

With this, you can share your podcast links and collect donations from your fans and followers to support your podcast. Here, you can add links to your payment pages, memberships, donation pages, Patreon pages, etc.

Buzzsprout displays these links in the description of each episode.

Podcast sponsors

With this, you can promote other products or services and get paid for the work. Buzzsprout has partnered up with Podcorn to help you find the right sponsors for your niche.

Podcorn takes care of all the downloads and listener tracking. It provides you full control of your rates, creative formats, and scheduling.

If you already have sponsors, you can just add them to Buzzsprout and start promoting them.

Podcast Ads

With both these tools you can run advertisements within your episodes and earn money.

Buzzsprout supports podcast advertising for any budget. It goes from as low as $100 to as high as $1,000.

With both, you can automatically add pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls. Also, you have full control over how the ads should begin and end with transitions, you can manually review/approve/delete them.

The good news is that Spreaker supports programmatic ad monetization which allows you to dynamically target your pre-recorded ads in real-time. As a result, it is very easy for you to generate revenue through your podcast without having to worry about finding sponsors or partners. Because Spreaker’s built-in technology searches for the high revenue ads relevant to you and inserts them in the desired position.

Spreaker has a dedicated ad campaign manager, only available for its Publisher plan users (costing $120/mo). The tool lets you create and configure ad campaigns, specify target audiences and adjust traffic, as well as track the entire process.

Winner: Spreaker. Spreaker has a programmatic ad monetization feature that helps you quickly find the ads in real-time and start generating revenue. Also, its dedicated ad manager helps you in creating, managing, and track the ads within a single dashboard. While Buzzsprout’s affiliate marketplace helps you promote the brands and earn income.

Mobile apps

Buzzsprout doesn’t offer any apps, while Spreaker offers a mobile app for both creators and listeners.

For podcasters, it has a studio app. With this, you can record, edit, and publish the podcasts on the go.

For editing the podcasts, the Spreaker studio app has voice mixing tools with music and sound effects, built within the tool.

Also, the app supports live broadcast recording which means you can broadcast the episodes from any location. There is also a chat feature available to increase the engagement of listeners.

Spreaker app for listeners:

The app is available for both iOS and Android. With this, listeners can –

• Save and discover the podcasts.
• Create personalized playlists.
• Control the playback speed.
• Play on Chromecast and Apple’s AirPlay.

Additionally, the app features a sleep timer that will turn off your episode after a set amount of time.

Winner: Spreaker. Obviously.

Analytics

Buzzsprout gives detailed statistics on the episode downloads, apps people use to listen to podcasts, listener location, and also the podcast growth overview.

If you have hosted the podcasts to other directories, you need to visit each website to view stats for each one of your listings.

On the other hand, Spreaker also gives detailed statistics on podcast –

1. Downloads
2. Listeners
3. Likes
4. Followers
5. Sources
6. Geolocation
7. Devices
8. Evolution

But the downside with Spreaker is that it restricts most of the stats to its higher pricing plans, unlike Buzzsprout. To view all its stats, you need to go with the Anchorman plan which costs $50/mo.

Note: Unlike Podbean, Buzzsprout and Spreaker don’t offer listener retention statistics to see how they are engaging with your podcasts.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout provides all the advanced analytics on all its plans, while Spreaker restricts them to only its higher plans.

Podcast distribution and integrations

With Buzzsprout you can distribute your podcasts to 18+ apps using the RSS feed. Some of these include – Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, and much more.

If you publish the show on Apple podcasts, it will be automatically distributed to –

• Overcast
• Castro
• Castbox
• Podfriend

With Spreaker podcast distribution you can share up to 10+ apps. Some of the top platforms include Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Deezer, Google Podcasts, etc.

Next is social media sharing.

With Buzzsprout you can automatically share your new episodes on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, while with Spreaker you can share only to Facebook.

Unlike Podbean, both these lack integration with Alexa.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout supports more apps and social media sites than Spreaker.

Support and pricing

Pricing

Both Buzzsprout and Spreaker have free plans, for you to get started and try out the tool.

Buzzsprout lowest pricing plan starts at $12/mo and it supports only 3 hours of content. All its premium plans support advanced stats and unlimited storage. If you need more upload time, you can consider going with higher plans.

On top of these plans, if you need a magic mastering filter you need to pay an additional fee.

Compared to Buzzsprout, Spreaker costs high, but it is worth the features.

If you need in-app support, you need to go with its Broadcaster plan at $20/mo. If you need collaboration features, an ad-campaign manager, and customizable player colors, go with the Publisher plan at $120/mo.

Winner: Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is one of the most affordable podcast hosting platform. Spreaker is quite expensive, but it is worth the price for the features it offers.

Support

Buzzsprout and Spreaker provide good support to customers. Both have email support and in-depth knowledgebase articles.

Spreaker also provides live chat support.

Wrap up

Both Spreaker and Buzzsprout are the best choices for podcasters. But the final choice depends on your use cases.

Go with Buzzsprout if you –

• Are a beginner and you need a simple platform
• Need a built-in audio editing tool
• Need unlimited storage
• You don’t need a mobile app
• You need good monetization features

Go with Spreaker if you –

• Need mobile apps to record and publish the podcasts
• Mainly need ads for podcast monetization
• Are an advanced podcaster, and if you are good at technicalities.