Build a podcast platform — owned distribution, premium content, direct monetization.
Spotify and Apple Podcasts distribute your content to their audience. A custom podcast platform keeps the premium audience relationship direct — paid subscriptions, exclusive episodes, and community belong to you, not a platform.
Podcast creator or media company that wants to offer premium podcast content with subscriptions and community, owned separately from public distribution platforms
Public podcast distribution (Spotify, Apple Podcasts) is for audience growth. Premium podcast monetization requires a direct relationship with paying subscribers.
The premium podcast model:
- Public feed: Free episodes distributed everywhere (growth engine)
- Premium feed: Subscriber-only episodes, ad-free versions, extended content
- Community: Discussion, Q&A, behind-the-scenes access for paying subscribers
- Direct: Subscriber emails owned by the creator, not a platform
Technical requirements for a podcast platform:
Audio hosting: Audio files served via CDN. S3 + Cloudflare for cost-effective audio delivery.
RSS feed: Standard RSS 2.0 with iTunes namespace for public feed. Private subscriber feeds with authentication for premium access.
Private podcast delivery: iOS podcast apps (Overcast, Pocket Casts) support private feeds with a unique subscriber URL. No custom app needed.
Podcast platform deployed — episode hosting, RSS feed generation, premium subscriber access, and community features
Episode management
upload, show notes, publishing
RSS feed generation
public and private subscriber feeds
Subscriber management
Stripe billing + private feed URL generation
Audio player
web-based player on the platform site
Email list
subscriber email collection and management
Community
discussion threads per episode or premium community space
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Podcast platform deployed — episode hosting, RSS feed generation, premium subscriber access, and community features
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Podcast platforms have defined hosting, delivery, and subscription patterns. Fixed-price from the spec.
Questions, answered.
No. Private RSS feeds work in standard podcast apps (Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro). Subscribers add their private feed URL to their app. No app development required.
S3 storage is ~$0.023/GB/month. Cloudflare R2 is $0.015/GB/month with free egress. A podcast with 100 episodes at 50MB each = 5GB = $0.075-$0.12/month in storage. Bandwidth is the variable cost.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.