Spotify Rolls Out Paid Subscription Program For Podcasters

 Spotify announced that it is rolling out a paid subscription platform for podcasters that gives them maximized revenue, wide reach, and discoverability. The program began rolling out in the U.S. on April 27 and will expand internationally in the coming months.

 This feature will be available to creators through Anchor, allowing podcasters to mark episodes as subscriber-only and publish them to Spotify and other podcast-listening platforms. For the next two years, this program will come at no cost to the creator, meaning that participating creators receive 100% of their subscriber revenues (excluding payment transaction fees). Starting in 2023, we plan to introduce a competitive 5% fee for access to this tool.

By enabling wide distribution of subscriber-only content, Spotify hopes to help podcasters maximize their subscription audiences and grow them from their existing listener bases. Within Spotify, this content will be searchable and discoverable like any other podcast episode.

The first group of participating creators includes 12 independent podcasters who are each uniquely well positioned to succeed in gaining meaningful revenue from their audiences. These creators will publish subscriber-only bonus content in their existing podcast feeds. Starting now, we’re also going to begin accepting submissions from our waitlist, effectively expanding the program to more creators and the rest of the world over the coming months. 

Spotify is also unveiling a collaboration with NPR in which they will publish a selection of their shows sponsor-free for paid subscribers. Five shows will be available starting May 4—How I Built This with Guy Raz, Short Wave, It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, Code Switch, and Planet Money—with more to come in the following weeks. 

Look for NPR shows marked as “Plus” (for example, Planet Money Plus) to subscribe to sponsor-free content from NPR.