Setting up Podcast Subscriptions

With Podcast Subscriptions, you can charge your audience for your show's content - both on Spotify and on other listening platforms. You'll need to have at least 2 published episodes and at least 100 listeners in the last 60 days in order to begin setting up Podcast Subscriptions.

Note: Setting up and managing Podcast Subscriptions is only available on Spotify for Podcasters web.

Podcast Subscriptions are currently available to creators and listeners in 34 markets:

If you're a listener looking to subscribe to a podcast, check out this article.

Setting up Podcast Subscriptions

1. Go to your Monetize tab
2. Scroll down to Subscriptions and click Get Started.
3. Set up your Stripe account. You'll skip this step if you've already set up your Stripe account.
4. Choose your monthly price.
5. Check the box next to the episodes you’d like to include in your subscription, then click Update episodes. You can select any episode from your Episodes page, including scheduled and drafted episodes.

Managing subscription episodes

Once you’ve set up Podcast Subscriptions, you can set your existing and future episodes as subscription only from your Episodes page or the Episode options page.

To mark a new episode as subscription only:

1. Create your episode as normal.
2. When you get to the Episode options page, toggle on Subscription only.

You can also remove an episode from subscription only and make it available to all your listeners.

From your Episodes page:

1. Uncheck the Subscriptions box next to the episode.
2. Click Update.

From the Episode options page:

1. Go to the episode in question and click the pencil icon next to its title.
2. Scroll down and toggle off Subscription only.
3. Click Update episode.

Earnings

Head to the Monetize tab to see how many subscribers you have and how much you've earned. You keep 100% of your earnings, excluding payment processing fees.

Click Download Subscriber List to get emails for the subscribers who've opted into hearing from you.

Important info to consider before changing your price

If you’ve selected a lower price:

Any existing subscribers will be charged at the new lower price on their next billing date (they’ll receive an email notifying them of this change). Your subscribe page will update immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, lower price. Confirm your price change and you’re all set. 

If you’ve selected a higher price: 

You will need to choose whether or not you want to apply the higher price to your existing subscribers.

1. If you allow existing subscribers to continue paying the original price:
   Any existing subscribers will continue to be charged at the original price moving forward, and they won’t be sent an email because your change will not affect their pricing. Your subscribe page will update immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, higher price. Confirm your price change and you’re all set.
   
   
2. If you want to ask existing subscribers to pay the new, higher price:
   Any existing subscribers will be sent an email notifying them of the price change and will have a 30-day window to take action before the new higher price goes into effect (described below). Your subscribe page will update immediately, and all new subscribers will pay your new, higher price. Confirm your price change and you’re all set.
   1. Subscribers in the U.S. will have 30 days to cancel their subscription if they don’t agree to the new price. Otherwise, they’ll be charged the new higher price automatically on their next billing date after the 30-day window.
   2. Subscribers outside of the U.S. will have 30 days to opt-in to the new price. If they don’t opt in during the 30-day window, they’ll continue to have access to subscriber-only content until the end of their billing cycle, but after that, their subscription will be automatically canceled.

If you’ve changed your price and now have different groups of legacy subscribers paying different prices, you’ll be able to view and manage those groups and their pricing separately in the Subscriptions section of the Monetize tab. You can maintain up to 3 legacy groups at a time. 

Changing your subscription price

It’s possible to change the monthly price of your subscription, but if you have existing subscribers, we encourage you to think through how your change will impact them (for example, some subscribers may cancel if you decide to increase your price). Below, we’ll outline all of the steps to change your price.

From the Monetize tab:

1. Scroll to the Subscriptions section and next to your current price, click on the Change price link.
2. On the “Change your price” screen, select your new desired price and click Next.
   1. If you don’t have any existing subscribers, confirm your price change, and click Got it. You can change your price as often as you like if you don’t have any subscribers.
   2. If you have existing subscribers, you need to make some choices about how you’d like your price change to affect them (continue reading). You can only change your price once every 90 days if you have subscribers.