Transistor Review – Pros & Cons [2023]

Top Features of Transistor

Transistor offers a wide array of unique features for creators. Here is a detailed breakdown of the top features.

Podcast Creation and Hosting

Regardless of the plan you choose, Transistor lets you publish as many podcasts as you want. This is an excellent benefit for beginner podcasters if they want to grow a vast audience.

• Multiple Podcasts – Hosting multiple podcasts requires no additional charge on this platform, which is the biggest USP of Transistor. You also get a unique RSS feed while creating a new podcast on the platform. A basic webpage can be designed to host those podcasts. As a result, you can quickly increase the number of listeners. And when you have multiple podcasts on the platform, you can experiment with new ideas and check which performs the best.
• Multiple Formats – Besides creating multiple podcasts, you can bring variation to the format of the podcasts. For example, it can be a short podcast of five minutes or a lengthy interview of a few hours. This variation caters to all types of listeners and helps you keep them engaged all the time.
• Auto-Post to YouTube – Once you connect your YouTube channel to the Transistor account, the platform can automatically post your podcasts to YouTube as you publish them. You just need to upload the audio file and background image for the platform to automatically make a video file and post it to YouTube. This way, you can reach a greater audience. Though this feature might look a bit clumsy at first, you’ll quickly get used to it. Another downside of this feature is you need to avail of at least the Professional plan to use this feature.
• Dynamic Ad Campaigns – The dynamic ad insertion tool is of great help when it comes to inserting ads or announcements in a few or all of your podcasts. Pre-roll is for adding an audio clip at the beginning of your episodes. Mid-roll adds them in the middle of the episodes, and you can use multiple mid-rolls. And post-roll is to add audio after the podcast. You can also use dynamic show notes to use promotional texts or links in descriptions. Being familiar with the process might take some time, but it will be straightforward from later on.
• Embeddable Podcast Player – Embedding podcasts on your websites or blogs will give you an edge in grabbing the attention of visitors. And Transistor offers multiple interfaces to embed the podcast player. But using the embed code may not be convenient for users, especially beginners. Copying the embed code of the podcast player and pasting it to the source code of the website is a bit technical. So, it would be better if users could directly choose where they want to embed the player.

Podcast Distribution

Publishing podcasts on all major players is a big hassle if you do it manually. But with Transistor, you can submit podcasts to multiple platforms with just one click. It supports one-click submission to Spotify, Apple, Google, Podcast Addict, Breaker, Player FM, etc.

Private Podcasting

Besides creating public podcasts, you can also publish private podcasts that will reach the unique RSS feed of every subscriber. This way, the subscriber can add the personal feed to the podcast app of their choice. They can also receive new episodes directly on their device and download those episodes on the devices to listen offline.

Podcast Website Builder

For every episode you publish on the platform, you can create a basic website with multiple pages to add different attributes of the podcast. For example, the homepage will contain the general description of the show. The landing page will have the episode with full show notes. You can also have About or Subscribe pages so that listeners can use the app they want to listen to these podcasts.

Podcast Analytics Tools

Having a clear idea of the performance of your podcasts and the engagement of the audience is essential to improve your strategies. Analytics tools on this platform provide you with the most detailed insights. Have a look.

• High-Level Analytics – In this section, you can see the number of average downloads of per episode to check how your podcasts are doing. The number is calculated after 7, 30, 60, and 90 days of publishing your podcasts. You can also have an estimated number of audiences who have subscribed to the podcast. As the RSS can’t track individuals, you might not get an exact figure. But the graph is helpful in understanding the number of subscribers. You can also understand listener trends to bring new podcasts according to the demand of listeners.
• Listener Breakdown – You can see the episode breakdown chart on the platform and even export these charts in CSV format to analyze them in Excel.
• Compare Episodes – No matter how many podcasts you publish on the platform, you can see detailed analytics of the episodes to compare their performance. The visual analytics in this section is easy to understand for all users.
• Listener Devices and Operating System – Advanced analytics of Transistor can even provide you with information about the devices, operating systems, and platforms your listeners use to listen to podcasts. A visual chart helps in this section too.

Third-Party Integrations

Transistor offers multiple integrations to make podcasting a lot easier, which is something we really like.

• Recording and Editing Integrations – As you can’t directly record your audio on Transistor, you can use Riverside.fm or Descript integration to record and edit your audio. After the editing is complete, you can directly import them to Transistor.
• Podcast Promotion Integrations – To reach a large audience, you can automatically post your podcasts to YouTube or Twitter. You just need to connect these channels to your Transistor account.
• Email Marketing Integrations – Email marketing is a big part of the game for creators, and Transistor offers integrations with top email marketing softare like MailChimp, Drip, HubSpot, ConvertKit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, etc.
• Productivity and Automation Integrations – From triggering a message on the group chat to removing a private subscriber, everything becomes effortless with automation integrations like Zapier.

Pros & Cons of Transistor

Transistor is full of exciting features, but there are some drawbacks.

Transistor Plans & Pricing

Transistor offers three straightforward pricing plans. Here is a quick overview of how these plans cost and what they have to offer.

• Starter – starting at $19/mo
  • Up to 50 private podcast subscribers
  • Up to 20,000 monthly downloads
• Professional – starting at $49/mo
  • Up to 500 private podcast subscribers
  • Up to 100,000 monthly downloads
• Business – starting at $99/mo
  • Up to 3,000 private podcast subscribers
  • Up to 250,000 monthly downloads

Alternatives to Transistor

While Buzzsprout is a solid podcast hosting tool, here are some others to consider:

• Buzzsprout
• Captivate
• Castos
• PodBean

Our Take on Transistor

One of the biggest benefits of Transistor is that you can publish unlimited podcasts, without paying any additional fees. Your podcasts can then be automatically posted to YouTube and Twitter to reach a larger audience. Dynamic ad insertion tool helps creators slide ads or announcements anywhere in the episodes. Transistor also offers advanced analytics so that you can clearly understand the performance of your podcasts and the demand of listeners to come up with more exciting podcasts. But you can’t directly record or edit podcasts on the platform. Embed codes for podcast players can be a bit tricky to handle. Overall Transistor is a solid podcast hosting platform. The pricing starts from $19 per month, where you can have up to 50 private subscribers, and it is a great choice to begin your podcasting journey.

Click here to get started with Transistor.