Spotify for Podcasters

Score8.2 out of 10

27 Reviews and Ratings

What is Spotify for Podcasters?

Spotify for Podcasters, formerly Anchor, is a podcasting platform, enabling the user to create, distribute, and monetize a podcast. It is available via a free plan. It features built-in uploading, recording, and editing tools so the can easily create and publish episodes.

Categories & Use Cases

David Calvert View profile

Pastor for Creative Arts at Grace Community Church (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Anchor to produce a podcast that is in addition to the other sermon podcast hosted by our website provider. Anchor gave us options for publishing and content management that were way more robust and user-friendly than what our website does, pushing things to Apple Podcasts alone. Anchor made it easier to connect with multiple podcast outlets from one source.

Pros

Podcast hosting.
Podcast producing.
Episode management.
Content creation.
Ad support.

Cons

Ad integration.
Explanation of production tools.
Different terminology than other podcast production apps.

Most Important Features

Simplicity of interface.
Episode management.
Connection to Spotify.
Ease of pushing to other podcast platforms.

Return on Investment

Anchor made it easy to onboard volunteers who had no experience podcasting.
Anchor made it simple to edit and publish podcast episodes.
Anchor was a great cloud-based resource, so multiple team members could log in and contribute.

Alternatives Considered

GarageBand and Podbean

Other Software Used

GarageBand, Logic Pro X, Canva

Alejandro Huerta

COO (Chief Operations Officer) in Customer Service at INTERTEL (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Since we started doing more web-based support in our company, instead of having clients just create support tickets if they needed help, we wanted a solution to host voice-based support files. One of our engineers had heard about Anchor and had dabbled, but once it became obvious that we might need something like it for our next phases I started looking into it to see if it would cover our very basic needs. We started uploading some files to it, easy enough and then sending those to our clients. Since there are no costs to host or distribute the files, we didn´t have to go to accounting to get funds for it. We are in the process of adding new audios every week and seeing if it makes sense for us to have them there. Since most of our support is based on how-to videos, we are under review to see if our clients get the same level of support from audio as from videos, and we are sending out queries to all clients to see what they thought about it. If we get enough good responses then we might start moving more and more of our support to audio files.

Pros

Easiest way to create podcasts, or in reality any audio files.
Have some level of reporting on how many people are accessing the files.
The Android app is excellent, feature rich and quick.
Different levels of compression to have smaller files.
Good audio level support.

Cons

More reporting options
The monetizing options are basic
It is based on, or at least subsidized by Spotify, so for a company that might not be a good option

Most Important Features

Free access to audio files
Excellent audio creating tools
Really good mobile apps
Web based interface that actually works

Return on Investment

Minimize the time our clients require to find the resources and help they are looking for.
Maximize my support teams' time by having users self serve themselves with the information in our audio files.
Free usage of the service, via both web and mobile apps.
Excellent audio quality and streaming support.

Alternatives Considered

Applause

Other Software Used

Jira Software, Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams

James Hicks View profile

Chief Technologist and Founder in Corporate at HicksNewMedia (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a podcast platform Anchor serves its purpose of aggregating content to various platforms. The functionality and UI are very simple (which is a PRO and CON), but overall Anchor allows content creators the ability to share their audio (and video) content to the most popular podcast platforms with ease.

Pros

Simplicity
Integration with primary networks
Flexibility (with mobile capabilities)

Cons

Features integrated in platform and app
Analytics
Advertising opportunities

Most Important Features

Ease of use
Interoperability
Integration

Return on Investment

helped with brand awareness
low cost of ownership thus high return on investment
low learning curve

Alternatives Considered

Podbean

Other Software Used

Restream, Descript, WordPress

Jyotsna Tripathi View profile

Executive Director in Corporate at Astrix Study (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Anchor, by Spotify, addresses the problem of hosting podcasts and distribution of podcasts to various platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, etc. Anchor, by Spotify, is a great one-stop solution for recording podcast episodes to editing them by adding sound effects and further publishing them as well as monetizing them. Anchor, by Spotify, also offers some exclusive features that can be useful for some businesses such as the Music+Talk features where you could use snippets of songs available on Spotify in your podcasts and talk about them.

Pros

Podcasting Hosting and Distribution Solution: Anchor offers a great solution for hosting and distributing podcasts to various platforms and provides you with the RSS Feed which you can add to supported platforms.
Recording Facility: Anchor has features to help you record podcast episodes without any special equipment or much technical knowledge. It even allows guests to record together remotely.
Editing: Anchor has a workflow available that allows arranging various parts and recordings of the podcast and allows adding elements like advertisements, music, sound effects, etc.

Cons

Monetization features are currently present in only a limited number of countries, I look forward to the various monetization features like pre-roll and mid-roll ads to be made available soon in my country India.
Add more platforms to its distribution services such as Amazon Music and similar ones so that we would not be required to submit the RSS Feed to platforms manually.

Most Important Features

The most important features include: Distribution to various podcast platforms.
Proper organization and management of episodes based on season and episode number.
Listener analytics including number of plays, platform, etc.

Return on Investment

Anchor, by Spotify, is a free platform hence it has positive ROI for us definitely.
Leaving aside a couple of cons such as the monetization features not being available in my country, and limited integrations; Anchor is a great tool.
Anchor, by Spotify, also offers some exclusive features like Music + Talk which is really great.

Other Software Used

Google Ads, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Facebook Business Manager

Brandon Stuhr View profile

COO (Chief Operating Officer) in Social Media at Modern Neon Media (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We primarily use Anchor by Spotify as the main distributor for our initial podcast series, "You Know The Drill". Using Anchor allows us to easily distribute to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, as well as other podcast platforms.

Pros

Ease of Distribution to other Platforms
Very User-Friendly interface
Easy implementation of basic ad strategy.

Cons

In app editing processes.
Season organization.
Analytics could be clearer.

Most Important Features

Distribution
Easy of Access
Ad implementation

Return on Investment

Taught us how yo properly organize and schedule our show.
Anchor's integration with Spotify allows use of Spotify's wide library.
Doesn't play well with outside ad agencies, Makes it difficult to be open to all kinds of ad agencies, thus reducing possible revenue.

Other Software Used

Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Later