Pocket Casts is making its podcast app free and launching a subscription service – The Verge

Pocket Casts is making its podcast app free and launching a subscription service - The Verge thumbnail

Pocket Casts, a current podcast app, is changing up its cash-making device and launching a subscription carrier. The corporate previously charged users between $4 and $10 to download the app, depending on the OS and platform. The app will now be free, but users can ranking the choice to pay $0.99 monthly, or $10 per year, for a top class carrier.

The subscription carrier, known as Pocket Casts Plus, comprises access to desktop apps, unfamiliar app icons and topics, and 10GB of cloud storage for those that have to add their audio and video bellow. Other folks that previously bought the desktop app will possible be given three years of Pocket Casts Plus with out cost.

Pocket Casts CEO Owen Grover imagines that podcast creators will employ the cloud storage to listen or gape some extent to earlier than publishing it. He also says it lets those that love Pocket Casts’ performance employ it for all of their media. As for the unique subscription model, Grover says the team realized the one-time download rate became as soon as “antiquated,” so they dropped it.

“No longer because we’re attempting to bolt users to Pocket Casts Plus and gather that income, but so we are in a position to higher align with the birth-access philosophy of our public media ownership,” he wrote in an emailed comment to The Verge. “With out a doubt, we predict most attention-grabbing a little share of energy users will proceed for Pocket Casts Plus.” (NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Lifestyles obtained Pocket Casts in 2018.)

If Pocket Casts doesn’t place a query to most americans to pay for its top class carrier, it’s unclear the absolute most practical scheme it’ll recoup the misplaced income from app downloads. Grover says the company can ranking “extra facts on monetization in due course.”

Pocket Casts has always competed with Apple Podcasts on iOS but became as soon as also belief about one in all essentially the most attention-grabbing podcast apps for Android. Now, then again, with Spotify searching for to determine on extra of the podcast listener market and Google Podcasts launching, Pocket Casts has extra competition, and it’s a more challenging promote to collect folks to lift a podcast listening app.

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