Best Podcast Plugins for WordPress | Save Time & Simplify Your Workflow
If you’re a fan of simple, easy workflows, then there are a few podcast plugins out there worth checking out.
I often say that most podcasters didn’t get into the medium because they wanted to become audio engineers. The same goes for website stuff. How many people launch their own show because they want to become a web designer?
Running your website, publishing your episodes, these things should take as little time as possible. Your time is valuable. When you set some aside to work on your show, that time is put to best use when focused on creating content.
Before we dive in and talk about the best podcast plugins currently on the market though, let’s make sure we’re not getting ahead of ourselves.
If you don’t have a website at this stage, and are starting from scratch, then there’s a couple of resources worth checking out.
Have a look over Where Does a Podcast Live? for the lowdown on how to upload and publish a podcast. And we have a free course that teaches you how to build your very own podcasting website.
What is a Podcast Plugin?
A podcast plugin is the same as any other WordPress plugin. Plugins are like little apps you can install on your WordPress site to add extra features or tools.
You get plugins for everything, from social media buttons and contact forms, to e-commerce and monetisation tools.
There’s a few good ones out there designed specifically for podcasters, too. Let’s take a look at them.
Best Podcast Plugins for WordPress
Things are ever-changing in the digital and tech world, so we’ll keep this updated on a regular basis. At the time of writing, here are the podcast plugins worth taking a look at.
PowerPress
PowerPress is the long serving king of the podcast plugins. It’s brought to you by media hosting platform Blubrry.
Blubrry’s ethos is that podcasters should be able to do everything from inside their WordPress site, whilst still managing to host their media on a dedicated platform.
Not only can you publish new episodes from inside WordPress, you can create entire new podcasts in there too. You can also view your podcast download stats from within your WordPress dashboard.
With over 60,000 active installations and years of development under its belt, feature-packed PowerPress is undoubtedly the most intuitive and flexible podcast plugin on the market.
Price: Free
You Might Use PowerPress If
- You host your show on Blubrry
- You want to do pretty much every podcast-related task inside your WordPress dashboard
Captivate Sync
Captivate are a new media host on the market, and have quickly become one of our favourites. Their main focus is to give podcasters the tools to help them grow. You can read our full review of Captivate here.
The company have just launched their Captivate Sync plugin at time of writing, and it looks like another exciting development by them. Like PowerPress, it enables you to publish from within your WordPress dashboard, and it looks a little better too.
One thing I’d like to see in the future, is the ability to position the player anywhere in the episode post, which you can do in PowerPress. It’s only version 1 of CS though. Captivate assure us that features like this are on the way, along with dashboard analytics, as well as widgets and modules like easy subscriptions in podcast players. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with next!
Price: Free
You Might Use Captivate Sync If
- You host your show on Captivate
- You want to do all your uploading and publishing inside your WordPress site
Smart Podcast Player
The Smart Podcast Player was developed by Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income Podcast. This plugin does more than simply let listeners play your episodes. It ties in some growth and engagement features too.
The Smart Podcast Player has email list subscription and social sharing built in. It can also display as a sticky player, which attaches to the top or bottom of your website.
Smart Podcast Player makes it easy for listeners to browse your back catalogue too. They can search for particular keywords and topics in your full episode list.
In all, SPP creates a great listening experience for folks browsing your site.
Price: $12 USD per month, or $97 per year
You Might Use Smart Podcast Player If
- You’re looking for a premium player that isn’t tied to your media hosting account.
Seriously Simple Podcasting
Brought to you by the good folks behind media hosting service Castos. Seriously Simple Podcasting is a serious and established alternative to Blubrry’s PowerPress.
Just like PowerPress, you can create and run your show exclusively from within your WordPress. It links up with your Castos hosting, but you can use it if you host on another platform, too.
They have a companion plugin called Seriously Simple Stats, which you can install to access all your analytics from inside WordPress.
Price: Free
You Might Use Seriously Simple Podcasting If
- You host your show on Castos
- You want to do pretty much every podcast-related task inside your WordPress dashboard
Podlove Podcast Publisher
The Podlove Podcast Publisher plugin is an option to podcast from inside WordPress if you don’t have (or don’t want) dedicated podcast hosting.
Instead, you can store your episode files somewhere like an FTP server, and use Podlove Podcast Publisher to create episode posts complete with episode players, and subscribe links.
Podlove also offers analytics, so you can track your download and listener stats too.
Price: Free
You Might Use Podlove Podcast Publisher If
- You don’t want to sign up for a traditional, dedicated media hosting service.
Buzzsprout Podcasting
A basic, but nevertheless handy offering by another of our media hosting favourites, Buzzsprout.
With the Buzzsprout Podcasting plugin, you still need to upload and publish your episode from within the Buzzsprout dashboard.
The plugin is simply an alternative to copying a player embed code into the episode post you create on your own website.
It won’t change the world. But it could help make things that wee bit simpler.
Price: Free
You Might Use Buzzsprout Podcasting If
- You host your show on Buzzsprout
- Seeing HTML code gives you the fear
Simple Podcast Press
Simple Podcast Press is a plugin that takes in your Apple/iTunes feed, and creates blog posts for every episode you publish.
The plugin also gives you some handy tools to help increase subscriptions and engagement. There’s a lead- magnet-style email signup form to increase conversions. It has the ability to add collapsible transcripts that don’t clutter your shownotes page. Also, you can view your podcast reviews from inside the WordPress dashboard.
You can also include your own custom ‘call to action’ buttons right inside the player, add in clickable timestamps, and have the ability to create tweetable quotes from your show.
Price: $67 (Single License), $97 (Professional License), $147 (Multi License)
You Might Use Simple Podcast Press If
- You’re looking for a premium player that isn’t tied to your media hosting account.
Libsyn Publisher Hub
Libsyn and Blubrry are the two OGs of podcast media hosting. Libsyn’s Publisher Hub plugin is similar to Blubrry’s PowerPress, in that it’s designed to let you publish episodes inside your WordPress dashboard.
It’s a really good plugin overall. If I was being super pernickety though, I’d again note that it’s tricky to customise the position of the player inside an episode post. This is a minor thing though, and knowing Libsyn, they’ll be on the ball to keep tweaking and improving the plugin going forward!
Price: Free
You Might Use Libsyn Publisher Hub If
- You host your show on Libsyn
- You want to do all your uploading and publishing inside your WordPress site
Summary: Best Podcast Plugins for WordPress
If you’re running a self-hosted WordPress site for your podcast, then hopefully you’ve found something that appeals to you in this list of podcasting plugins. Not got a website yet? Here’s how to build one.
There’s no universal “best” option; each one does slightly different things, and it’ll largely depend on which hosting platform you’re using, too.
And, if you’d like more guidance on podcast plugins, websites, hosting, or any other aspect of podcasting, check out Podcraft Academy. That’s where you’ll find all our courses, downloadable resources, community forum, and regular live q&a sessions!
