Quick answer
Yes — for the part of Podbean covered on this page, Castport is a one-time-purchase alternative. It costs $99 once, while Podbean lists from $9/mo. Upload episodes, get a valid RSS feed, public pages, embeddable player & download stats. Pay once. It is not a 1:1 replacement for everything Podbean does — the honest limits are spelled out below.
The verdict
Switch to Castport if the slice of Podbean you actually pay for is the slice Castport covers — and a $99 one-time price beats from $9/mo for as long as you use it.
Stay with Podbean if this sounds like you — Podbean bundles monetization — patron programs, dynamic ads, Apple Podcasts subscriptions — plus live audio and a mobile app. Castport is hosting and stats; monetization is yours to bolt on.
Head to head
| Castport | Podbean | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $99 once | from $9/mo |
| Where it runs | Your own machine | Vendor cloud (hosted service) |
| Renewal | None — the license never expires | Recurring — access ends when you stop paying |
| 5-year cost | $99 | ~$540 |
About Podbean: Podbean is a podcast hosting and monetization platform. Unlimited audio plans list from $9/mo billed annually (about $108/yr).
Where Podbean still wins
Podbean bundles monetization — patron programs, dynamic ads, Apple Podcasts subscriptions — plus live audio and a mobile app. Castport is hosting and stats; monetization is yours to bolt on.
Where Castport wins
Castport replaces Podbean's hosting core: upload episodes, get a valid RSS feed, public pages, an embeddable player, Podcasting 2.0 chapters, scheduling and download stats — $99 once on infrastructure you own, with no monthly bandwidth math.
- Price, permanently. $99 once versus from $9/mo for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- Unlimited shows & episodes. Each show gets its own artwork, iTunes category, language, explicit flag and custom feed slug. No per-show pricing tiers.
- Apple/Spotify-valid RSS. 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.
The math
Podbean lists from $9/mo. Castport is $99, paid once:
- After 1 year: Castport has cost you $99 total — Podbean has cost ~$108.
- After 3 years: Castport is still $99 — the subscription is at ~$324.
- After 5 years: Castport is still $99 — the subscription is at ~$540.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/castport-mvp, always. $99 buys the packaged installer, guided deploy and lifetime updates.
Will Apple and Spotify actually accept the feed?
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.
Who pays for the bandwidth?
You do — that's the honest trade-off of self-hosting. A $5 VPS comfortably serves a typical indie show; a genuinely huge audience is where Transistor's managed CDN infrastructure earns its monthly fee.
What about listener privacy?
Download stats hash IPs with a rotating daily salt, so you get unique-downloads-per-day trends without ever storing anything personal — and the data sits in your SQLite file, not a third party's dashboard.
Try Castport — $99, one time
Or get Castport plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.