How to Upload a Podcast to Spotify
Two routes in, and the convenient one quietly limits where the show can go afterwards.
Two routes.
Submit an RSS feed. If you host your podcast anywhere, you have a feed; sign in to Spotify for Creators, choose to add an existing podcast, paste the feed URL, and verify ownership by the code Spotify emails to the address in the feed.
Or upload files directly through Spotify's own creator tools, which host the audio for you and generate the feed on their side.
The second is easier and it is the one to think about before choosing, because a show that exists only inside Spotify's hosting is harder to take anywhere else later.
Either way, submission is free and approval usually takes hours rather than days.
The difference between the two routes is the difference between distributing a podcast and publishing one on Spotify, and it decides what happens to the show in three years.
With your own feed, Spotify is one of many directories reading a file you control. Apple, Overcast, Pocket Casts and everything else read the same file. If you leave your host, you redirect the feed and nobody notices. If Spotify changed its terms tomorrow, your audience elsewhere is unaffected.
With Spotify hosting, Spotify holds the audio and generates the feed. It does distribute that feed onward to other platforms, which is the pitch. But the address belongs to them, the files belong to them, and migrating means exporting and resubmitting rather than redirecting.
Neither is wrong. For somebody testing whether they want to make a podcast at all, the hosted route removes every obstacle and costs nothing, and that is a real advantage over setting up hosting for a show that may not survive three episodes.
For anybody who intends the show to last, owning the feed is the decision that keeps every later option open — and the cost of making it at the start is one hosting account, while the cost of making it two years in is a migration with subscriber loss.
The rule that holds: whoever controls the feed address controls the audience, and that is as true on Spotify as it is everywhere else.
Submitting an existing feed
Sign in at the Spotify for Creators site with an ordinary Spotify account.
Choose to add a podcast you already have, and paste the RSS feed URL from your host.
Spotify sends a verification code to the email address published in the feed. That address has to be one you can read — it is the most common reason submission stalls, because many hosts default to an address nobody checks.
Enter the code, confirm the category and language, and submit. The show usually appears within hours.
Uploading directly
The same creator site offers to host a new podcast, with upload, basic editing, scheduling and distribution to other directories.
Upload the audio, add the episode title and description, and publish or schedule it.
Spotify generates an RSS feed for the show and submits it onward to other platforms, which is how a hosted show reaches Apple Podcasts.
It is free, with no episode limit and no storage cap, which is a genuinely good offer and is why so many new shows start here.
The audio to send
MP3 at 128 kbps or higher for speech, or 192 and above if there is music. Spotify re-encodes for streaming either way, so a better source produces a better result.
Mono is adequate for a single voice and halves the file size. Stereo matters when there is music or spatial separation between speakers.
Normalize loudness. Podcast players do their own leveling, and an episode that is far quieter than the one before it is the most common complaint listeners actually voice.
There is a file size ceiling per episode, generous enough that only very long or very high-bitrate files approach it.
What Spotify requires in the listing
Cover art, square, at least 1400 by 1400 and no more than 3000 pixels, in JPEG or PNG. Artwork that is slightly off-square is the most common rejection.
A category from Spotify's list, a language, and an explicit-content flag.
A show description that is a description rather than a slogan, because it is indexed and it is what a listener reads before pressing play.
Episode titles that make sense out of context. Episode 14 tells nobody anything, and most listeners arrive at a single episode rather than at the show.
What happens after the first episode is live
Very little, which is the part nobody is warned about.
Spotify's podcast discovery is thin compared with its music discovery. There is no equivalent of Release Radar pushing your episode at strangers, and charts are dominated by shows with marketing behind them.
So the first listeners come from wherever you can reach them yourself, and the platform rewards shows that already have an audience rather than creating one.
That makes the opening days of each episode the window that matters, exactly as it does on the audio platforms generally — a show that opens silent stays silent, and nothing resurfaces it later.
Questions people ask about putting a podcast on Spotify
Is it free to put a podcast on Spotify?
Yes, both routes. Submitting an existing feed is free, and Spotify's own hosting is free with no episode or storage limit.
Do I need an RSS feed?
Not if you use Spotify's hosting, which generates one for you. If you host elsewhere you submit the feed you already have.
How long does approval take?
Usually hours. The common delay is the verification code, which goes to the email address published in the feed rather than to your account.
Should I host with Spotify or elsewhere?
Spotify's hosting is easier and ties the show to them. Owning your feed means you can change hosts with a redirect and nobody notices.
What cover art does Spotify require?
Square, between 1400 and 3000 pixels, JPEG or PNG. Slightly off-square artwork is the most frequent rejection.
Will Spotify promote my podcast?
Not meaningfully. Podcast discovery there is thin and favors shows that already have an audience, so the first listeners have to come from you.
Keep reading
- plays on a podcast episode — A show that opens silent stays silent because nothing on the platform resurfaces it, and plays on a podcast episode acts in the window where that is decided.
- why the feed is the asset — The hosting decision comes down to who owns one file, and why the feed is the asset explains what that means in practice.
- what sponsors measure — Downloads are the currency on the business side, and what sponsors measure covers how they are counted.