Spotify for Creators

Indie podcasters

Free hosting that actually works, plus the only direct path into Spotify's video monetization rails — hard to argue with the math when you're starting out. The trade-off is platform lock-in: your analytics, your discovery, and increasingly your revenue all live inside one company's app. Not great if you want a portable career.

Spotify for Creators is the rebranded, expanded version of what used to be Anchor — free unlimited podcast hosting with built-in tools for recording, basic editing, distribution to Apple Podcasts and others, and a direct pipeline into Spotify's monetization programs. There's no monthly fee, no storage cap, no episode limit. For a brand-new creator with no budget, that's a genuinely good starting point. The reason it got newly interesting in 2025-2026 is the Spotify Partner Program: the bar dropped to 3 episodes, 2,000 listening hours, and 1,000 engaged listeners in the past 30 days, and qualifying creators get a 50% ad-revenue share plus separate Premium video payouts when paying subscribers watch video episodes. That's real money for shows that can pull a steady audience inside Spotify. The catch is everything you'd expect: analytics outside Spotify's own player are thin, you're a tiny voice in Spotify's roadmap if something breaks, and the 50/50 ad split is below what mid-tier shows can negotiate on their own. Migration off the platform is technically possible but the platform clearly wants you to stay. Good for: people starting out, video-first creators willing to bet on Spotify, side-project shows. Bad for anyone building a serious independent business who needs first-party data and channel diversification.