Host your own podcast: Apple/Spotify-valid RSS, player, stats — on your $5 VPS.
Podcasters pay monthly for hosting, transcription and audiograms forever, even for a back catalog that no longer grows. Pay-once audio tools cap the cost of a show at a single payment.
The tool this job usually means renting is Transistor, at $19/mo — roughly $228 a year, every year. Castport does the job for a one-time $99 — running on infrastructure you control.
Each show gets its own artwork, iTunes category, language, explicit flag and custom feed slug. No per-show pricing tiers.
For podcasters, unlimited shows & episodes pays off for every episode, including the back catalog — and it's covered by the same one-time $99, not metered per month.
RSS 2.0 with the full itunes namespace, exact enclosure byte lengths, permanent GUIDs and valid pubDates — the details that actually get feeds rejected, done right.
For podcasters, apple/Spotify-valid RSS pays off for every episode, including the back catalog — and it's covered by the same one-time $99, not metered per month.
MP3 or M4A streamed straight to disk — no buffering 200 MB files in memory — with markdown show notes, episode/season numbers and per-episode artwork.
For podcasters, streaming uploads pays off for every episode, including the back catalog — and it's covered by the same one-time $99, not metered per month.
One-time $99 for the packaged installer (Windows desktop app + guided VPS deploy) with lifetime updates.
docker compose up on a $5 VPS, put Caddy or nginx in front for TLS, and set BASE_URL to your real https:// domain.
Upload your first episode, then submit /feed/your-show.xml to Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Podcasters. Done.
Castport is $99, once. Transistor at $19/mo — roughly $228 a year, every year. Pays for itself in 5.2 months against Transistor Starter — or a month against Growth. Over 3 years you keep $585–3,465.
Pays for itself in 5.2 months against Transistor Starter — or a month against Growth. Over 3 years you keep $585–3,465. Castport costs $99 once; Transistor charges $19/mo — about $228 a year. For podcasters, that fixed cost is the whole point: the tool is a one-time line item, not a monthly one.
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/castport-mvp, always. $99 buys the packaged installer, guided deploy and lifetime updates.
That's the part we sweated: exact enclosure byte counts (not estimates), permanent GUIDs, real probed audio durations, and proper HTTP Range support on audio — the exact details that get naive feeds rejected. Set BASE_URL to your real domain first; localhost feeds are rejected.