Podcast Platforms: Learn Who Offers the Best Value for Your Money

Did you know the very term ‘podcast’ didn’t exist merely two decades ago? It was first coined by a BBC journalist who combined the words ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’ in 2004. A podcast is basically a recurring audio series whose episodes can be downloaded or streamed online. These days, there’s one for everything – from vegan recipes to true crime!

While the industry of podcasting is still much smaller than those of music or video, there already are a few podcast streaming platforms that allow you to listen to your favorite creators and even support them by paying a monthly fee. Subscribing to a quality platform is a great way to spend your Honeygain payouts, too, so in this article, we reviewed 5 podcast platforms – Stitcher, Wondery, PodcastOne, Spotify, and Luminary: let’s see who offers the best value for money!

🔥 Top titles: My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, The Daily, This American Life

✅ Free subscription: Available

🤩 Paid subscription: $4.99/month (Stitcher Premium)

🐝 One Honeygain payout = min 4 months with Stitcher Premium

With Honeygain, every payout you receive can cover at least 4 months of Stitcher Premium – what a deal for not lifting a finger, right? Best of all, you can keep earning as you listen to the podcasts you love!

As of 2021, Stitcher has a desktop version, as well as apps for Android, iOS, Alexa devices, Apple Carplay, Android Auto, etc. It’s also highly customizable: you can search, sort, filter, and queue your episodes, fine-tune playback speed and the duration of backward/forward skips, and even set a sleep timer. Most importantly, not only is Stitcher considered to now be the largest podcast platform in the world, but it also owns and operates three original and extremely popular content networks: Stitcher Originals, Earwolf, and Witness Docs!

The Premium version of Stitcher is not too pricey, and if you listen to a lot of podcasts, you’ll feel the difference in no time. Premium provides a lot more than simply ad-free listening. Subscribers can enjoy early access to some of the shows, listen to exclusive Premium podcasts, bonus episodes, and archives – moreover, they participate in regular ticket and swag giveaways.

With Honeygain, every payout you receive can cover at least 4 months of Stitcher Premium – what a deal for not lifting a finger, right? Best of all, you can keep earning as you listen to the podcasts you love!

🔥 Top titles: American History Tellers, Dr. Death, Business Wars

✅ Free subscription: Available

🤩 Paid subscription: $4.99/month (Wondery+)

🐝 One Honeygain payout = min 4 months with Wondery+

Stitcher might be the largest one out of all podcast platforms, but Wondery is currently the biggest independent podcast publisher – and that’s saying something!

As of now, the team has no plans to transfer the platform into a general podcast hosting space – and why should it? People around the world are praising Wondery’s immersive and high-quality content, and 33 of their shows have reached the top on Apple Podcasts. According to its founder Hernan Lopez, while other companies have more in common with radio, Wondery strives for more of a movie-like experience. In fact, multiple of its shows, including Dirty John, The Shrink Next Door, and Dr. Death, have later been remade as TV series!

The paid version of the platform called Wondery+ offers ad-free listening (obviously), early access to some shows, bonus episodes, and entire exclusive podcasts like Little Stories Everywhere, The Apology Line, and Spy Affair. Wondery+ can also be accessed via private RSS feeds by adding them to other popular podcast apps.

🔥 Top titles: The Steve Austin Show, Off the Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe, Reasonable Doubt

✅ Free subscription: Available

🤩 Paid subscription: $8.99/month (PodcastOne Premium)

🐝 One Honeygain payout = min 2 months with PodcastOne Premium

PodcastOne was founded by Norman J. Pattiz – the same person who created the Westwood One radio network – in 2013. The platform states it hosts 200 podcasts, and you can listen to it on either its web-based player or apps for iOS or Android. There are no options for car tech or Alexa devices like there are in most modern podcast platforms.

To be honest, if you look at their website, it seems they haven’t updated things in quite a while: it actually still mentions iPod Touch compatibility (while they aren’t discontinued yet, they barely make any sense – or sales – with so many affordable smartphones on the market in 2021) and says the Android app works on OS versions ‘4.x and above’, when the oldest version still supported now is 8.1.

When it comes to paid subscriptions, PodcastOne offers a somewhat unique choice: you can either subscribe to the entire platform ($8.99), or to one podcast of your choice ($4.99). In both cases, you get ad-free listening, access to full episode archives, and some bonus content, including live shows. If you’re interested in at least 2 podcasts, it makes more financial sense to opt for the platform-level subscription – however, we can’t help but notice it’s pricier than most other podcast platforms. Why spend your Honeygain payout on 2 months of listening when you can get 4 and listen on more devices, too?

🔥 Top titles: the Joe Rogan Experience, Darknet Diaries, Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain

✅ Free subscription: Available

🤩 Paid subscription: $9.99/month (Spotify Premium)

🐝 One Honeygain payout = min 2 months with Spotify Premium

Surprised to see a music streaming platform on the list? You shouldn’t be: aside from hit albums, Spotify also offers a pretty wide selection of podcasts in various genres and languages. The massive user base (almost 300 million listeners worldwide!) and great compatibility features (including but not limited to desktop and mobile devices, car tech, gaming consoles, smart TVs and speakers) make it extremely attractive to podcast creators, while the users get the added bonus of only needing one app to satisfy their music and podcast needs.

If you’re only using Spotify for podcasts, the paid subscription might not be worth it. The fee sets you free from platform ads, but they don’t bother you half as much when you’re listening to long shows instead of 4-minute tracks. Moreover, you still get the ones that are recorded in the episodes (you can skip them, of course – but free members can, too). Premium also comes with unlimited skips – which is barely relevant for lengthy podcast episodes – and offline listening.

If you’re also using it for music, on the other hand, it might be well worth the splurge – and earning free money effortlessly with Honeygain is a great way to treat yourself without emptying your pockets!

🔥Top titles: The Midnight Miracle, The Trevor Noah Podcast, Snap Judgement Presents: Spooked

✅ Free subscription: Available

🤩 Paid subscription: $4.99/month

🐝 One Honeygain payout = min 4 months with paid subscription

Luminary was first launched in 2019 - and it proudly stated it’s going to be ‘the HBO of podcasts’. Well, let’s just say it has a rough start! Their advertising choices caused a rather big uproar, people didn’t like the idea of a $7.99 monthly fee (which has since been lowered to $4.99), and according to Bloomberg, the platform only attracted 80,000 paying subscribers in its first year. No hard numbers have been disclosed recently, so we can’t be sure about the current amount - however, the platform is still only available in 12 countries.

Luminary is a bit different from other podcast platforms when it comes to paid subscriptions, too: you’re not relieved of the burden of ads. Not the best news, right? The only difference comes with Luminary-exclusive podcasts: free users can only hear one episode, and the paying ones get full access.

As of June 2021, there are 35 Luminary Originals to choose from, and you can see a ton of world-famous faces among their hosts – including but not limited to Trevor Noah, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, Russel Brand, Karamo Brown, and Dave Chapelle. There is, however, a free 7-day trial available, so you can see exactly what you’d be paying for – try it and decide whether it’s worth it for yourself!

Earning effortlessly with Honeygain is a great way to treat yourself without emptying your pockets!

As you can see, all podcast platforms have their own advantages, and the ultimate decision can only be made by a listener based on their individual likes and interests. The good news is, earning effortlessly with Honeygain, you don’t need to worry about affording premium memberships and unlocking all the exclusive content! 🎧

Haven’t joined Honeygain just yet? Now’s the perfect time! Click the button below 👇to sign up and enjoy a free $5 starting gift! 🤩