With the growing significance of YouTube in the podcasting landscape, Pocket Casts has announced that its web, Mac, and Windows applications are now available for free, eliminating the need for a subscription.
Pocket Casts, which is part of Automattic, has traditionally offered web and desktop applications that were accessible only through a “Plus” ($3.99 per month / $39.99 annually) or “Patron” ($9.99 per month / $99.99 annually) subscription.
Effective immediately, the “Pocket Casts Web Player is freely accessible to everyone”: play.pocketcasts.com. This comes after the launch of Apple Podcasts’ web app last August.
These modifications extend to our Mac and Windows Desktop Apps, offering you more options to listen on your own terms.
The Mac and Windows applications were revamped in June.
Additionally, users can browse and play content without signing in. Creating an account allows: syncing playback progress across devices, managing your podcast queue with ease, and saving your subscriptions and preferences.
Regarding the motivation behind this change at Pocket Casts:
- “Podcasting was established on an open, decentralized standard, RSS, enabling anyone to create, share, and listen to content freely, without the need for a specific platform’s approval. Currently, however, major platforms are moving away from open standards, pushing creators into proprietary systems that restrict distribution and alter discovery through algorithms.”
- “By making our Web Player available to all, we’re affirming our belief that podcasts are for the people, not corporations.”
The Pocket Casts Plus subscription provides features like: organizational folders, Smart Shuffle, bookmark creation, chapter pre-selection, access to Apple Watch and Wear OS apps, 20GB of cloud storage, and enhanced app customization (themes + icons).
On the other hand, Pocket Casts for Android is undergoing a new header design after recently integrating a pull-to-refresh feature. This update modernizes the app, which has transitioned to an edge-to-edge interface; however, a Material 3 redesign is also required at this stage.
