Publishing a podcast looks simple until you do it. An episode has to be hosted somewhere, that host has to generate a feed the listening apps can read, every one of those apps has to be given the feed and verified as yours, and the metadata inside it — titles, categories, summaries, artwork, tags — decides whether anybody ever finds the show. Get one piece wrong and the symptoms are confusing: the show appears on Spotify but not Apple, episodes publish out of order, artwork looks fine on desktop and unreadable on a phone, or the whole feed is rejected for a tag error nobody flagged.
Our Acast podcast submission services handle the whole chain. We set your show up properly on Acast, build and validate the feed, write the metadata that makes it discoverable, get it listed and verified across every major listening app, and keep episodes publishing on schedule with notes and transcripts attached. We work with new shows launching for the first time, existing shows migrating from another host, and brands and agencies running several podcasts at once, across the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and India.
It helps to be clear about what is really happening, because the language around it misleads people. Acast is where your show lives — hosting, the feed, analytics and monetisation. The listening apps are where people find it. Understanding that split explains almost every problem podcasters run into.
Everything an app knows about your show comes from one RSS feed generated by your host. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Pocket Casts and the wider Podcast Index all read that same file. Fix the feed and every app updates. Break the feed and every app breaks together, which is why feed validation is the first technical thing we do and the last thing we check before launch.
You submit the feed URL to each app once, verify ownership, and after that new episodes appear automatically. This is genuinely free to do and there is no secret list of directories anyone can unlock for you. What people pay us for is doing it correctly the first time, resolving the rejections and delays when an app pushes back, and making sure the show that gets listed is one built to be found.
Spotify usually appears within hours. Apple Podcasts review can take anywhere from a few hours to several days, and occasionally longer for a first submission. Anyone promising a guaranteed same-day Apple listing is describing something they cannot control. What we can control is submitting a feed with nothing in it that triggers a rejection — which is where most delays actually come from.
A listed show with a vague title, a generic category and episodes named "Episode 47" is invisible. In-app search is keyword-driven, and the fields your host publishes are what gets indexed. The submission work gets you on the shelf; the metadata and content work is what makes anyone pick you up.
Your show title carries the most search weight in every podcast app, so it needs to contain the words listeners actually type — not just a clever brand name. We research those terms, then write a title, subtitle and summary that read naturally to a human while covering the topic language your audience searches. Keyword stuffing a title gets a show suppressed in some apps, so this is a balance, not a dump.
Primary and secondary categories decide which browse charts you appear in and how competitive your visibility is. Choosing the biggest category is usually the wrong move for a new show. We pick placement based on where your audience browses and where you can realistically be seen.
Artwork must be square, at least 3000 by 3000 pixels, and — the part most shows get wrong — legible at the size of a thumbnail on a phone. We specify the requirements, review your artwork against how it renders in each app, and flag the small text, thin fonts and busy backgrounds that vanish at 60 pixels.
Episode titles are indexed, so they should describe the content rather than count upwards. Show notes carry the topic keywords, timestamps, guest names and links that both listeners and search engines use. We write them for every episode in the ongoing plans, with a structure that stays consistent across the back catalogue.
Transcripts make your audio searchable text, improve accessibility, and give you content that can be published on your website to earn search traffic the audio never could. Several apps now display them natively. We generate, clean and publish them rather than dumping raw machine output that misspells every proper noun in your show.
Episode GUIDs, enclosure tags, namespace declarations, episode type, season numbering, explicit flags, file bitrate and ID3 tags all have to be right. We validate the feed before submission and after every structural change, because the failures here are silent — the show simply does not appear, with no error message pointing to why.
Where you are eligible and interested, we configure ad markers, dynamic insertion points and sponsorship settings so the show is ready to carry advertising. We are straightforward about eligibility: monetisation on any platform depends on your download numbers and market, and setting it up early does not manufacture the audience that unlocks it.
Every package includes the work below. What changes between tiers is how many episodes we publish each month and how many shows we run.
Acast account creation or access to your existing one, show configuration, ownership and verification, storage and publishing settings, and a documented handover so your team knows exactly what was set and why.
Podcast search behaves differently from web search — shorter queries, topic and host names, fewer long-tail phrases. We research how your audience searches inside podcast apps and map those terms to the show title, categories, episode titles and notes.
The feed is generated, checked against podcast specification requirements, and tested in a feed validator plus the apps themselves before submission. Any pre-existing errors in a migrated feed are fixed at this stage rather than carried across.
Submission and ownership verification across every major listening app, tracked to completion. We chase the ones that stall, resubmit where an app has rejected the feed, and give you a list of live links once each is confirmed.
If you are moving from another platform, we handle the import, keep episode GUIDs stable so listeners do not lose their place or re-download the back catalogue, set the redirect on the old feed, and monitor download continuity for the first weeks. Botched migrations lose subscribers permanently, so this is done carefully and verified rather than assumed.
Upload, scheduling, titles, notes, timestamps, chapter markers, transcripts and tags for each episode in the ongoing plans, so your only job is delivering the audio.
Monthly reporting on downloads, unique listeners, which apps your audience uses, episode-level retention where available, and what we would change next. We report the platform's numbers as they are, without reframing a flat month as growth.
The same sequence runs on every show, whether it is a first launch, a migration from another host or a slate of shows moving together.
For existing shows, we review the current feed, metadata, artwork and listings and identify what is broken or missing. For new shows, we review your concept, audience and competitor set before anything is created.
Acast show creation or migration, feed configuration, publishing settings and technical validation.
Title, subtitle, summary, categories, artwork review, episode naming conventions and the show notes template your back catalogue will follow.
Listing across every major app, ownership verification, and confirmation of live links, with resubmission where an app rejects or stalls.
Ongoing episode publishing on your schedule, with monthly reporting and recommendations for the next batch of episodes.
Pricing depends on whether this is a one-time launch or ongoing publishing, how many episodes you release each month, and how many shows you run. Acast's own hosting costs are separate and billed by Acast to you directly, on whichever plan suits your show.
For getting a show live properly. Acast setup or migration, full feed validation, title, category and artwork work, submission and verification across every major app, and your first three episodes published with notes.
Our most common plan. Everything in Launch plus four to eight episodes published each month with keyword-led titles, structured show notes, timestamps, transcripts and monthly download reporting.
For publishers, agencies and brands running a slate. Unlimited episodes across several shows, consistent metadata standards applied across the network, monetisation support, cross-promotion planning, a dedicated manager and quarterly reviews.
The immediate outcome is straightforward: a show that is live on every major app within a couple of days, with a feed that validates cleanly, artwork that reads at thumbnail size, and episodes that describe themselves. That alone fixes the problems most podcasters spend weeks troubleshooting alone.
The compounding outcome is discoverability. Shows with keyword-led titles, correct categories, complete notes and published transcripts get surfaced by in-app search more often, and the transcripts open a search traffic channel on your website that audio cannot reach on its own. Growth from there depends on the thing we cannot do for you — the show itself, its consistency and how you promote it. We will not pretend that metadata work substitutes for good episodes, and we do not sell chart placements or listener numbers, because anyone offering those is describing bought traffic that damages your show's data and your standing with the platforms.
Most podcast services stop at uploading. The failures that keep shows invisible are technical — malformed tags, unstable GUIDs, missing namespaces, oversized files — and they need someone who reads a feed properly rather than trusting a dashboard's green tick.
Podcast SEO is a genuine discipline and it is close to what we do every day: keyword research, title architecture, structured content and indexable text. The transcript and show notes work in particular connects your podcast to your website's organic performance instead of leaving it as an isolated channel.
Directory submission costs nothing and we say so on this page. You are paying for it to be done correctly, quickly and without you losing a fortnight to a rejected feed — and for the optimisation work that determines whether being listed is worth anything. If you would rather do it yourself, the audit will tell you exactly what to fix.
Account management runs on your working hours, and publishing schedules are set to your audience's time zone rather than ours — release timing matters more than most podcasters expect, particularly for shows with a commuting audience.
First-time podcasters who want the launch done properly rather than learning feed specifications the hard way. Existing shows migrating hosts and worried about losing subscribers. Brands running a podcast as a content channel where the marketing team has no audio specialist. Agencies producing shows for clients who need a white-label publishing partner. Businesses repurposing webinars, panels or interviews into podcast episodes. And publishers running several shows who need one consistent standard applied across all of them.
If you are technically confident, publishing occasionally and enjoy managing the feed yourself, you may not need a service at all — the free audit will confirm whether anything is actually broken, and we are happy for that to be the outcome.
Send us your RSS feed URL or a link to your show and we will return an assessment within 48 hours: whether your feed validates, which apps you are missing or unverified on, how your title and categories compare with the shows ranking above you, whether your artwork survives thumbnail size, and what the first month of work would fix.
No obligation, and the findings are yours to keep whether or not you hire us. Talk to a podcast distribution specialist today and get your show properly listed.
Yes. Listing a feed with Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the other apps costs nothing, and no service can unlock directories that are otherwise closed to you. What you are paying for is correct setup, a feed that will not be rejected, verified ownership across every app, and the metadata work that decides whether being listed produces any listeners.
Yes. Acast's hosting plan is billed by Acast directly to you, on whichever tier suits your show. Our fee covers the setup, optimisation, submission and publishing work — the two are separate, and we would rather you saw exactly what goes where.
Spotify is usually live within hours. Apple Podcasts review typically takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days, occasionally longer for a first submission. Nobody controls those queues. What we control is submitting a clean feed, since avoidable rejections cause most of the long delays.
Yes, and it is one of the most common jobs we do. Episode GUIDs are preserved so listeners keep their place, the old feed is redirected properly, and downloads are monitored for the first weeks to confirm the transfer held. Migrations go wrong when redirects are skipped, and that loss is usually permanent.
No, and nobody legitimately can. Charts reflect real listening behaviour over a short window, and services promising placement are describing purchased downloads that distort your analytics and risk your standing with the platforms. What we can do is make your show findable through search and browse, which is the sustainable version of the same goal.
They are optional but worth doing. Transcripts make your episodes accessible, several apps display them natively, and published on your website they create searchable text that can rank for topics your audio never will. For interview and topic-led shows the search benefit is usually significant.
That is usually metadata rather than a technical fault — a title with no topic words, the wrong category, thin descriptions, or episodes named only by number. Occasionally it is a feed error or an unverified listing. The free audit distinguishes between them before you spend anything.
Yes. The Network plan applies one consistent metadata and publishing standard across a slate, with cross-promotion planning and a single point of contact. We work white-label for agencies where required.
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