How to start a podcast on Apple Podcasts

Apple Podcasts is a directory and a player. It does not store your free episodes. You need a podcast host that stores your audio and creates an RSS feed, and then you submit that feed to Apple once.

Listing a free podcast on Apple Podcasts does not cost anything. You need an Apple Account to sign in to Apple Podcasts Connect.

• An RSS feed from a podcast host, with at least one episode
• Square cover art between 1400 by 1400 and 3000 by 3000 pixels, in JPEG or PNG
• A show title, description, category and language
• An explicit content setting
• An author name and a contact email in the feed

Apple reviews new shows for quality and policy, so the cover art should be clear and readable at small sizes, and titles should not be stuffed with keywords.

Sign in to Apple Podcasts Connect, choose to add a new show, select adding it by RSS feed, paste the feed URL and submit for review. Review often takes a day or two and can take longer.

Full steps, with what to do if your show is rejected, are in how to submit a podcast to Apple Podcasts. If you do not know your feed URL, see how to find the RSS feed for a podcast.

Google Podcasts shut down in 2024. Google moved podcast listening to YouTube Music, which can add shows by RSS feed. If you want to reach people who used Google Podcasts, make sure your show is on YouTube. See how to start a podcast on YouTube.

Some communities run podcasts inside Discord servers, either as live voice events or by sharing episodes. That is a great way to engage an existing community, but it is not a substitute for being in podcast apps. Record on Discord if your community lives there, see how to record audio on Discord, then publish the edited episode through your feed.

Because every app reads the same RSS feed, the best approach is one host that submits to all of them. Hilite publishes to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms from the same place you record and edit.