Fountain vs Podbean

Fountain is a podcast platform for listening and for publishing, analyzing, growing and earning from shows. Its listener app is free on iOS and Android, with offline downloads, transcripts, summaries, chapters, CarPlay and Android Auto; the service also supports web access, video podcasts and private feeds. Podcasters can connect an existing feed without changing hosts, then use archive search, branded clips, social-post drafting and analytics. Livestreams require Fountain hosting. Episodes are transcribed and indexed for searches by guests, topics, quotes or sponsors, or for questions to an agent. Fountain offers MCP connections for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients, plus a plain API. It distributes shows to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube Music and says new shows are listed automatically on Podcast Index. Analytics cover downloads by episode, app, country and device, along with post performance. Plans include Fountain Premium at $2.99 a month, Lite (podcasters) at $25 a month and Pro (podcasters) at $50 a month; other listed plan prices are not provided.

Podbean is a podcast hosting and publishing service with tools for distribution, audience statistics, monetization, and private or video podcasts. It supports RSS feeds and distribution to major directories. Its iPhone and Android apps cover recording, publishing, statistics, and listening, and episodes can be automatically shared to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, and WordPress. The Basic Free Plan provides 5 hours or 500MB of storage, 100GB of monthly bandwidth, up to three published episodes per day, a 100MB single-file limit, and up to 20 episodes in its RSS feed. Free hosting supports MP3 and M4A files, includes basic statistics, and does not require a credit card to sign up. Paid plans add options such as audio or video publishing, private podcasts, team access, and AI tools for audio optimization, content assistance, transcripts, and podcast creation. The listed Unlimited Audio plan costs $17 a month when billed yearly. Podbean also offers advanced, IAB-certified analytics and monetization features including an Ads Marketplace, dynamic ad insertion, and Apple Podcasts Subscriptions.