Do you want to launch a podcast on your WordPress site? Not sure which podcasting tool to use? If you do some online research, you’ll discover numerous plugins on the market; but choosing the right one can feel overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
That’s why we’ve carefully handpicked the 12 best WordPress podcast plugins so you can easily get started podcasting on your WordPress website.
1. PowerPress by Blubrry
If you want to build a powerful podcast site in WordPress, Blubrry provides you with the complete set of tools you’ll need. Its services include podcast hosting, podcast statistics, and the number one podcast plugin on the market, PowerPress.
PowerPress is a very powerful-yet-simple plugin that enables you to add podcasting to WordPress easily. You can add both audio and video podcasts to your site using this plugin. PowerPress supports both Apple podcasts and Google podcasts fully.
The plugin comes with simple and advanced modes so that beginners can get started with the simple mode until they’re friendly with its interface, and then switch to advanced. The simple mode has only the essential settings, so you can effortlessly create your first episode and submit it to the Apple podcast network. And, when you’re ready, you can use the advanced mode to utilize all the robust options the plugin has to offer.
The plugin features an integrated HTML5 media player with embed support from sites such as YouTube. It has plenty of amazing features including subscribe tools, podcasting SEO, statistics, migration tools, etc. If you want advanced podcasting features, you can use PowerPress along with their podcast hosting.
2. Smart Podcast Player
Just as its name suggests, Smart Podcast Player is a smart WordPress plugin for smart podcasters. It helps you launch great podcasts on your WordPress site which your listeners will surely love.
It features a beautifully-designed HTML player with download, share, and subscribe buttons so listeners will find it easy to enjoy each episode of your podcast. The subscribe button will help you collect more emails from your listeners with ease. You can also highlight the whole podcast archive as well as every single episode, song, or sound clip with the Smart Track Player.
The Smart Podcast Player is fully-responsive so that your podcast will look great on all devices and screens. It has a speed control feature so you can add multiple speeds for your podcasts. Plus, you can choose a color theme (light or dark) and custom colors that suit your site’s color scheme.
3. Seriously Simple Podcasting
Seriously Simple Podcasting is a free and easy-to-use WordPress podcasting plugin for beginners. It uses the native WordPress interface to allow you to add and manage WordPress podcasts with minimal settings required.
Using Seriously Simple Podcasting, you can run multiple podcasts from the same WordPress site. It features a newly-redesigned media player where you can add your podcast cover image and customize it beautifully. It supports both audio and video podcasting.
In addition, it has full support for almost all podcast services and feed centers including iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. The plugin lets you add your podcast archive, single episodes, or playlists anywhere on your site using shortcodes and widgets.
4. Libsyn Podcasting
Libsyn Podcasting is a popular podcasting service available on the market that includes the Libsyn Podcasting plugin and Libsyn podcast hosting. Using the Libsyn Podcasting plugin, you can connect your WordPress site with your Libsyn account and start publishing podcasts with ease.
The plugin enables you to create podcast episodes, create podcast drafts, and schedule posts on your WordPress site. You can upload your podcast files directly to Libsyn from your WordPress dashboard. Your podcast files will be stored in your Libsyn podcast hosting so they won’t take up space on your WordPress hosting.
However, the plugin is in beta version; but it’s still an interesting option you can use for WordPress podcasting.
5. BuzzSprout
BuzzSprout a powerful podcasting solution available on the market. BuzzSprout is a full-fledged podcasting service that lets you host and promote your podcasts. It’s basically a premium solution; however, you can use its free plan for 90 days and host up to 2 hours of podcasts every month.
BuzzSprout has a simple and easy-to-understand interface where you can create a podcast and add episodes. As you upload an audio file, it’ll automatically optimize the file with the industry’s best practices. Then, you can easily add your podcast to popular podcast directories including iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.
If you’re podcasting with BuzzSprout and want to add your podcasts to your WordPress site, you can use their free plugin. The free plugin helps you to pull your podcast episodes from the BuzzSprout. You can add your podcast episodes to anywhere in your site using the podcast shortcodes.
6. Simple Podcast Press
Simple Podcast Press is, as the name implies, a really simple podcasting plugin for WordPress. It helps you add your podcasts from any of the podcasting platforms including Libsyn, SoundCloud, Buzzsprout, etc.
Regardless of where you host your podcasts, you can simply add iTunes URLs in WordPress to showcase your podcasts on your site. After you enter the iTunes URL, it’ll automatically create a unique page for each of your podcast episodes and adds a player along with images and a description. It’s fully automatic and simple.
Other features of the plugin are fully-customizable buttons, clickable timestamps, Clammr integration for sharing snippets on Facebook and Twitter, automatic URL shortener, etc. The plugin is basically for podcasters who want to promote their podcasts via their WordPress websites.
7. Podlove Podcast Publisher
Podlove Podcast Publisher is yet another podcasting solution for WordPress. The plugin lets you publish and manage a podcast from your WordPress site. It supports multi-format publishing by embracing all modern audio and video codecs. And, it comes with an enhanced HTML5 player to play your podcasts.
To add your podcast files to WordPress, you’ll need to upload them first to an Upload location like FTP/sFTP or Amazon S3. It provides easy and quick settings to add the uploaded file into WordPress and publish them on your site.
To help you better manage your podcast episodes, it features chapter support. Plus, it has flexible templates, analytics, and much more to help you build a powerful podcast in WordPress.
8. iTunes Podcast Review Manager
iTunes Podcast Review Manager helps to add your international podcast reviews from iTunes onto your WordPress site. It’s helpful for podcasters who have popular podcasts on iTunes and want to promote them more to reach a wider audience. Adding your podcast reviews serves as a testimonial to your work.
Once the plugin is set up on your WordPress site, it checks for new podcast reviews every 4 hours and automatically shows them in a table on your site. Sometimes, when the review feeds for certain countries are unreachable, you’ll need to wait for the next automatic check or check manually.
9. Amazon Polly for WordPress
Amazon Polly for WordPress is free WordPress plugin that helps you to turn your text content into speech using Amazon Polly. If you don’t know what Amazon Polly is, it’s a service that turns text into lifelike speech.
Using this plugin, you can generate an audio feed for your text-based content and insert it into your WordPress posts. Adding audio along with the text content helps you to increase the accessibility of your posts.
The plugin also enables you to publish your posts in the form of podcasts directly from your site and make them available for listeners in podcast directories.
10. Sermon Manager
Sermon Manager is a free WordPress plugin to help you manage church sermons completely. The plugin lets you add audio MP3 files in your WordPress site along with speakers, series, topics, etc. Then, you can add the MP3 sermons to iTunes directories to make them available for podcast listeners.
Sermon Manager plugin is available for free download in the official WordPress plugin repository. It’s compatible with all the other major WordPress plugins and any WordPress theme.
11. Compact WP Audio Player
Compact WP Audio Player is a free WordPress plugin to add an audio player in WordPress. To add audio files in WordPress using this plugin, you’ll need to first upload them in an upload location. Then, you can embed the audio files to your WordPress posts and pages using a shortcode. The plugin will display your audio files along with a compact media player.
The plugin supports MP3 and OGG audio files. It allows you to configure autoplay option, loop, etc. The audio player is fully-responsive, so it fits well with all types of devices and supports all the major browsers.
12. Spreaker Shortcode
Spreaker is a popular podcasting platform where you can listen to the world’s trendiest podcasts and also create your own podcasts. If you have a podcast in Spreaker, you can now easily embed it in your WordPress site with the Spreaker Shortcode plugin.
The plugin helps you to add any Spreaker episode, show, or user into WordPress. The plugin lets you add Spreaker podcasts with lots of configuration using shortcode parameters.
We hope this article helped you to find the best podcast plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our collection of the best WooCommerce plugins.
Great information but would make it easier to compare if the pricing information was included.
Hi there, can you help me? I’m looking for a plug-in where I can very quickly record *my own* voice reading my blog posts, and readers can then press a “listen” button at the top of each post to hear me read the post.
I don’t want to make it complicated where I have to record audio files elsewhere and then upload them, etc. Just something quick and easy. I hope this makes sense. Is this what your listed plug-ins above do? I am not interested in “official” podcasting persay.
Great question. I wish they would answer.
Great list thank you I haven’t heard of a lot of these!
No problem, Jeff!