SoundCloud for podcast hosting: what it does and does not do

SoundCloud supports podcast distribution: you set a track's metadata to identify it as a podcast episode, enable the RSS feed in settings, and submit that feed to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the rest.

That is the whole mechanism of podcast hosting anywhere: a host stores your audio files and generates an RSS feed describing them, and every podcast app reads that feed. SoundCloud does both.

The RSS option is not on by default and sits in the content settings for your profile. You also need to fill in category and author information that podcast directories require, which SoundCloud's interface does not make prominent.

SoundCloud's free tier caps total upload time, and podcast episodes consume it quickly. A weekly forty-minute show uses the free allowance within a couple of months, so a paid plan is effectively required.

Dedicated podcast hosts generally charge by storage per month or offer unlimited uploads, which fits a growing back catalogue better than a total-minutes cap.

Check what happens to older episodes if you downgrade a plan. On a music platform, hitting a limit can mean tracks becoming unavailable, and for a podcast that means a broken feed.

SoundCloud's analytics are built for music: plays, likes, reposts, comments on the waveform. Those are good metrics for a track and poor ones for a podcast.

Podcasting measures downloads, usually to the IAB certified standard, which is what sponsors ask for and what every podcast host reports. A play count on SoundCloud is not the same thing and is not comparable.

You also lose visibility into where listeners came from in podcast terms, and into how far through an episode people get, which is the number that actually tells you whether the show is working.

If you ever intend to approach sponsors, this alone is a strong argument for a dedicated host.

If you already have an audience on SoundCloud, particularly a music one, publishing there puts episodes in front of people who are already following you. That is a real advantage and not one a podcast host offers.

If your show is music-adjacent, mixes, sessions, anything where the SoundCloud player and its timed comments suit the content, the platform fits the material.

And for a short run or an experiment, using something you already have an account for is a perfectly sensible way to find out whether you want to keep going.

The most important thing about any host is whether you can leave. Podcast directories point at one RSS URL, and moving hosts means either redirecting the old feed or asking every directory to update.

Dedicated podcast hosts almost all support a 301 redirect on the old feed, which moves your subscribers automatically. Check whether a music platform does before you build a listenership there.

Keep local copies of every episode file and your episode metadata. Whatever happens to a platform, a folder of MP3s and a spreadsheet of titles and descriptions means you can rebuild the show anywhere.

Hilite publishes directly to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and handles the feed, and we make it, so weigh that as you like. The advice to keep your own copies applies whoever you use.