Apple has officially announced Apple Podcast Subscriptions, a way for podcasters to offer paid podcasts directly through the Podcasts app. We’ll cover all the fine details (how it works, pricing, and some of the finer details) and they I’ll give my thoughts, and we’ll do some price comparisons. 



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What Apple Podcast Subscriptions Means for Podcasters


[00:00:00] Hey, everybody, Joe, Casabona here and welcome to a special bonus episode of how I built it. Earlier this week, Apple announced that they were launching Apple podcast subscriptions as a way for podcasters too allow for bonus, ad free, or extra episodes for people who pay a monthly fee. Now, if this sounds familiar, there are lots of other services that offer this – Memberful, Patreon.


[00:00:40] I offer my own through the build something club, uh, and I wanted to give my thoughts on this. So this is the audio from a YouTube video that I will link in the show notes over at howibuilt.it slash. Apple dash podcasts. Uh, but before we get into that, I do want to tell you about the build something club. Uh, this launched a few months ago now, and it’s, it’s going pretty strong.


[00:01:08] You can learn more over at buildsomething.club, but it is a membership for this podcast. So if you enjoy this show and you want to support it directly, you can join an exclusive community. To help you build something more. And what you’ll get in exchange for just $5 a month is longer ad free episodes, pre and post show conversations and bonus behind the scenes episodes.


[00:01:37] You’ll also get access to a members only community. Uh, we’ll do a member interviews and advanced look at the schedule deals and discounts I’m trying to work out and lots, lots more. So that’s over at buildsomething.club. And if you are listening to this. Before April 30th. So as I record this, you have about a week.


[00:01:58] If you’re listening to this before April 30th, you can get 25% off for being a founding member, which means you’re looking at. Uh, instead of $5 a month, $3 and 75 cents a month, or instead of $50 a year, you’re looking at 37 50 a year. And that will be the price for as long as you keep the membership. So again, if you are a builder or a creator, The build something club will help you go farther.


[00:02:27] It will give you access to exclusive content, add free content, longer episodes, and you will join a community of builders. Again, that’s over buildsomething.club. Thanks so much. Now let’s get on with the show today.


We are talking about Apple podcasts. So in case you missed it, uh, Apple recently announced that they are a leading.


[00:02:52] The next chapter of podcasting with Apple podcast subscriptions. And basically what this means is anybody who has a podcast on Apple podcasts can start offering things like member only feeds ad free episodes and other bonuses that they talk about here in this press release. Now, uh, macstories also has really good coverage on this, where they point out that.


[00:03:20] Podcast creators can participate for $19.99 per year. Uh, plus, uh, 30% of all subscribers for the first year that drops down to 15% for the second year. And we’ll, we’ll get into that in a moment, but I think it’s really interesting. It’s an interesting move. Uh, Apple. Announced that starting in iOS, uh, 14.5, the subscribe button in the Apple podcast app would change to a follow button.


[00:04:00] And a lot of people speculated that something like Apple podcast subscriptions was the reason. Now semantically speaking follow is a lot clearer that you don’t have to pay for [00:04:12] something, but after 16 years, why would they make this change? And now it’s a lot clearer. So, uh, in this press release, they do show a, uh, or they talk about companies like NPR, the athletic Tenderfoot.


[00:04:25] They mentioned, uh, a, uh, luminary original. Uh, so luminary is getting in on this action with, uh, Dave Chappelle. Uh, one