Captivate Podcast Review of Hosting Features

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Captivate Reviews

Are you looking for somewhere to upload your podcast episodes? You should consider using Captivate! Captivate is somewhat newer in the realm of podcast hosting platforms as it was established a couple of years ago. However, its creators from Rebel Base Media are far from pioneers. They are very familiar with the podcasting world and have designed a very solid podcasting hosting option.

Here, we’ll review this podcast host brought to you by Rebel Base Media. We’ll go over everything you need to know so you can decide if it will meet your needs.

Captivate Features Podcasting

Captivate Pricing

Our Pick
Captivate

Every tool you need to start, manage and monetize

your podcast

Unlimited Podcast Hosting

Captivate has a very straightforward pricing system. There are three plans you can choose from:

  • Podcaster: $19/month for 12,000 downloads per month
  • Audio Influencer: $49/month for 60,000 downloads per month
  • Podcast Brand: $99/month for 150,000 downloads per month
Captivate.fm Pricing

Every Captivate customer will receive the same features at no extra cost. No matter which plan you choose, you will gain access to:

  • A visually appealing and easy-to-use podcast player on all devices
  • Built-in CTAs on your podcast player
  • Unlimited podcasts and RSS feed URL
  • Free imports for shows and podcast creators
  • Advanced and in-depth analytics for your podcast
  • Create private podcasts for members only
  • Easy one click for podcast directories
  • Marketing tools
  • Thoughtful podcast marketing
  • Unlimited team members

We love how simple it is to select a plan. The only thing you need to decide on is how many downloads you want to have available. With Captivate, there’s no reading through different features list and trying to decide which ones you need.

➡️ Is It Free to Host Podcasts on Captivate?

How Do I Quantify My Download Numbers?

To select the Captivate plan that’s best for your growth-oriented podcast, you will need to quantify your download numbers.

Some podcasts won’t be popular enough to justify a Captivate subscription but with our Captivate discount code, they could be. If your podcast only gets around 100 downloads a month, you may want to consider a cheaper service.

However, Captivate’s prices are not unreasonable for all of the services that it offers, as we will explore more in-depth below.

Captivate Podcast Hosting Platform User Experience

If you have experience with trying out different podcast websites, you know that it can be a little intimidating to navigate them at first.

Captivate hosting platform offers a well-designed and easy-to-use dashboard that helps put podcasters at ease. As you visit each new screen on this platform, a short tutorial pops up. These little how-tos will walk you through what each page is for and exactly how they work.

Also on each page is a chatbox. This chatbox will offer advice, prompts, tips, and hints as you explore Captivate for the first time.

Captivate Podcast

No matter if you’re starting your podcast from scratch or moving your current one to Captivate, the process is easy to understand.

What Stats Can I Track?

Want to know how to take your growth-oriented podcast to the next level? To help you stay on top of your goals, Captivate lets you track the following stats:

  • Download overview: View a rundown of how many downloads your show got across a period of time whether it be a day, week, or month.
  • Download averages: Don’t need as detailed of a breakdown? You can view on average how many downloads your show gets across a specified period.
  • Where and how your fans listen: Learn how your fans listen to your show, whether it be over Spotify, Overcast, Apple Music, or a different platform. You can also see what countries your fans are located in. If you stick around with this podcast hosting platform, you may even be able to see what states and cities your fans are listening from. This is one of Captivate’s new features that’s in the works, so stay tuned.
  • Episode analysis: Want to know how one podcast episode performed compared to another successful podcast? Captivate lets you view the total number of downloads each episode received.

As a podcaster, you want your episodes to get as many downloads as possible. However, sketchy downloads from bots will give you false data about how your podcast is performing.

What Is the Publishing Process Like?

When you choose Captivate as your podcast host, you can take advantage of the convenient “Default Publishing Time” setting. This setting lets you release all of your new episodes at preset times so you won’t have to schedule an upload time for every single one of your episodes.

Captivate Alternative Hosting

Alternative hosting to Captive would be podcast hosting reviews like Pobean, Buzzsprout, Spreaker, Zencaster or even Soundcloud. It really depends on you podcast download requirements and your budget.

Does Captivate Distort My Files?

Captivate hosting platform does not distort your files at all. Not all podcast hosting platforms can say that. Captivate will not alter your files’ names, bitrates, or metadata.

How Does Captivate Compare to Other Podcast Websites’ Layouts?

All podcast websites will give you your own site to host your show from. These sites tend to be very bare, minimalistic, and limiting.

This is one area where Captivate stands out from other podcast websites. The site that this platform will give you is completely customizable, so you can make your online space representative of your show and brand.

As an added bonus, these sites are fully responsive on any device. Listeners will be able to consume your new podcast from their cellphones, desktops, and tablets.

As far as the domain goes, the default name will be showname.captivate.fm. You can easily set up your site to work off of your own domain.

What If I Want to Use My WordPress Website Alongside Captivate?

Some up-and-coming podcasters have ambitions to host their own podcast websites. If this is you, Captivate may be right for you! You can take your existing WordPress website and link it to your podcast hosting account.

Once you have done that, you can control your entire show from one convenient spot. When you edit, publish, or delete podcasting episodes in WordPress, these changes will be visible in your Captivate account. You can also make the changes within Captivate, and then they will be reflected on your WordPress site.

This nice bonus is one of the things we love about Captivate; it streamlines your workflow and eliminates the need to jump back and forth between different platforms.

Captivate’s Podcast Players

When it comes to managing a growth-oriented podcast, you should strive to offer the best user experience possible. Luckily, Captivate offers gorgeous-looking podcast players that will impress all of your listeners. They come with sharing buttons and play speed settings that are accessible on any device.

Every podcast player has a built-in Captivate podcast logo. When you become a Captivate affiliate, you can turn the company’s logo into a referral link and potentially earn a commission. This is a great way to bring in some extra revenue and help you meet the goals you’ve put in place for your growth-oriented podcast.

How Do I Use Captivate to Distribute & Share My Media?

You can submit your show to directories like Stitcher, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts directly from this podcast hosting platform’s dashboard.

As far as sharing your media goes, Captivate places buttons on your website to places where your podcasts can be found. This way, your listeners can use the apps of their choice to consume your content.

Want to spread your podcasts on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook? Captivate can provide you with unique URLs for each podcasting episode that you can copy and paste into your social media posts.

How’s Captivate’s Privacy Policy?

Captivate is fully committed to protecting users’ privacy.

This podcasting platform has a feature called “Full Transparency Mode.” When enabled, this feature will inform the listener of any third-party tools that are being used in your show.

What Are Some Other Advantages of Captivate?

Check out some other advantages of using Captivate as your podcast host:

  • The ability to create unlimited podcasts as long as you don’t surpass the download limit
  • You can add an unlimited amount of team members to your podcast
  • One click submission to Apple podcasts, Google podcasts and Spotify directories
  • Unlimited podcasts from Captivate 2.0 – New simplified dashboard
  • The One-Click Sponsor Kit makes it easy to reach out to potential sponsors (growth oriented podcast host)
  • You can put unique or cookie-cutter CTAs in every podcasting episode

Captivate Review Summary

Looking to start a new podcast? Want to move to a more user-friendly podcast hosting platform? Interested in hosting several shows all on one convenient platform? Captivate podcast hosting platform is just the podcast host for you!

This Rebel Base Media podcast hosting platform is great for novice and seasoned podcasters alike. Though it may be a little pricy for someone who is just starting out, the features that this platform offers are well worth the cost.

Our Pick
Captivate

Every tool you need to start, manage and monetize

your podcast

Unlimited Podcast Hosting

Brett Robinson

Head of content and marketing over at Wired Clip HQ. I'm an Audio enthusiast and have been interested in anything from microphones to speakers. I am the lead guitarist for a small band and my main passion is editing our tracks.

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