Podcast hosting websites are designed to make your life as a podcaster as easy as possible, especially when you’re trying to promote a new show and want it to reach as much of your target audience as you can.
While some of these types of sites will be more tailored toward beginners and are designed to help lift a new pod off the ground, there are some like bCast that instead aim to help those who already have a decent knowledge about podcasting and just need a little extra support, especially in terms of promotion.
With so many podcast hosts appearing over the last decade, it’s time to see just how well bCast stacks up to its competitors, and if it really is worth your time and money.
What Is bCast?
First and foremost, bCast is designed to be a podcast hosting platform for marketers, specifically those who want their podcasts to gain as much exposure as possible and want to keep up with all the analytics, or those who want to turn it into a business or market venture.
This is not to say that beginners can’t use bCast, they definitely can as it will still provide some top-quality assistance in terms of advertising and marketing, and even include some guidelines and tutorials on how to set up and promote your podcast effectively.
With it now being one of the most popular podcast hosting sites on the web, there are some excellent reasons to start considering bCast when you require some expert assistance in taking your podcast to the next level.
Here is a full breakdown of all the features bCast has to offer, and how well it stacks up with its peers.
Interface And Design
Definitely one of, if not the biggest benefit to using bCast that reviewers always comment on is the clean and simple interface the platform uses.
So many hosting sites will pack their screens with so many menus and options that it can be tricky to find the exact option you need.
This is not the case with bCast however, since while it might come packed to the brim with additional features and options to customize and upload your podcast, all these options are neatly listed down a menu on the left of the main page, making it quick and easy to get to the option you want.
At the very top of the page are also the ‘Podcasts’ and ‘Engagement’ tabs which neatly fit nearly all of bCast’s wide range of features into two organized sub-menus.
For example, with the podcasts option, you can edit episodes along with being able to upload an episode to podcast directories of your choosing.
The engagement tab then offers you a wide range of incredibly helpful and supportive analytics which can help you narrow down exactly what listeners are enjoying about the podcast, and what might need improving.
Uploading Episodes
Unfortunately, for many podcast hosting sites and major podcast directories, the actual process of uploading an episode can be far more complicated than it needs to be, and even when you do, sometimes it can take up to, or even longer than a week for it to even appear.
This is not the case with bCast which instead offers a much simpler and more streamlined way to upload podcasts to streaming services.
The directories you can upload a podcast to include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music, giving you a huge amount of choice depending on what platform you think your podcast would be most suited for.
Uploading to any of these services literally takes a few minutes, simply requiring you to have the audio for the podcast and the episode details ready so that it’s all ready to be sent off.
From there, bCast does the rest of the work for you and will have your episode uploaded in 2-3 business days, providing a quick and easy way to upload and manage multiple podcasts.
Extra Advanced Features
bCast offers a tremendous amount of additional features for each one of their subscription plans with many of them being geared towards the marketing side of podcasting.
This includes some smaller features such as being able to record audio advert ads so that you won’t need to give exposure to a separate advertiser.
There is also the feature to record a 20 second monologue of your podcast which allows you to present the show in a professional manner where you can tell the listeners why they should be tuning in each and every episode.
Some of the bigger and more advanced features crafted by the Bcast team include SEO optimization which is incredibly important for allowing your podcast to reach as many eyes and ears as possible so that it can grow at a steady pace.
Each plan also offers the incredibly helpful auto transcription feature, allowing the podcast to reach as many people as possible, with there even being a feature to put the transcript on each episode for audiences to both listen to and also read in case they may have a hearing disability.
With each of the paid plans, you also gain access to some good cross platform analytics relating to your episodes. While these may not be as advanced as some other hosting sites, it still gives you enough information to understand your podcast listeners, and for how long they tend to listen to each episode.
With custom domains and headliner integration also allowing your podcast to reach even more people, if you’re focused on marketing your podcast and want to see a steady and gradual growth of listeners over time, bCast really is one of the best platforms out there in this department.
Storage
While some podcast hosting platforms will force their customers to pay more for extra storage, there are some that offer unlimited audio storage for a specific subscription plan.
Luckily, bCast is in the latter, and it actually offers unlimited storage for any of its subscription plans.
This allows you to focus on producing a new episode for your podcast website without worrying about whether it’s stepped over the storage limit.
It also allows customers to record episodes for as long as they want so that there are no annoying restrictions, giving you a tremendous amount of freedom.
In terms of downloads, the starter plan of this podcast host offers up to 10,000 downloads a month, the growth plan grants 50,000 while the legendary plan grants unlimited downloads.
While this may seem generous, if you don’t want to spend any money at all, you can even sign up for the free plan where you will still get 2 hours of episode storage a month along with 1,000 downloads, something many hosting sites would never offer unless you pay up.
bCast is therefore incredibly helpful in granting its customers a huge amount of freedom to decide how long or short they want their podcasts to be without trying to get them to pay more.
Price
With the starter plan being $15 a month and the growth plan being a bit more expensive at $35, for the number of advanced features you get with each plan and the sheer amount of support in terms of uploading and advertisements, bCast is definitely worth the price.
While the $75 legendary plan is quite steep, considering you’re only getting more transcription time a month and premium customer support as opposed to the standard, the starter and growth plans are definitely worth their price point.
Final Verdict
There is no doubt that when it comes to the marketing of a podcast and reaching as wide of an audience as possible, bCast excels in this area.
With a clear and simple interface, along with a plethora of advanced tools at your disposal allowing you to create an organized and efficient podcast supported by complete SEO optimization, bCast definitely delivers in what it sets out to do.
The only real drawback is not only that while it costs a decent amount for each plan, but you also won’t be getting as much actual support when it comes to the basics of podcasting.
Additionally, while customer support is very helpful, unless you pay for the premium support which is included in the legendary plan, bCast will only really assist you with the marketing side of things.
That being said, while bCast offers a tremendous amount of intricate and in-depth features, if you’re a podcasting beginner and looking for things like monitoring and adjusting audio levels or deeper analytics on engagement levels, there are other hosting platforms that can do this better than bCast.
However, if you instead have a good grasp on podcasting and just want to see one of your ongoing podcasts or a new one take off and reach as many people as quickly as possible, bCast offers some incredible features to help you do this.
