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When Kieran and I launched Captivate, we did so with one mission: to help serious podcasters to grow a meaningful audience and to help creators like you make money from your content in sustainable, diverse ways.

That mission has been the filter through which we have run every single decision for Captivate, including which features to build, the decision not to have a freemium model and it is also the reason that we put a premium on giving you best-in-class, personal support.

We launched Captivate into beta in August 2019, launched out of beta in January 2020, and then watched the world suffer a pandemic followed by an ongoing cost-of-living crisis that we all find ourselves living through right now.

As a tech company in an industry that gives people the chance to share their voices, we believe that it’s important that we do what we can to help you to grow your audience without being fearful of hitting any prohibitive limits.

Podcast hosting companies like Captivate operate a number of revenue models, from our model of being upfront with bandwidth (aka “downloads”) to models of charging for storage and “advanced” features whilst having “fair usage” around downloads tucked away within T&Cs, and various models in-between.

Captivate has three “tiers”, each including all of our innovative and often exclusive podcast workflow features, and where each tier is mostly defined by the download “limits” that are included with each plan. These download limits are intended to do two things: to keep us focused on helping you to grow and to make sure that you only pay for the things that we pay for: our main cost is the bandwidth transfer cost of sending audio files from one place (a server) to another place (your listeners).

By focusing on this model, we have been able to remove the other types of restrictive limits that other hosts impose – things like “add team members for $x“, “connect a custom domain for $x“, “get advanced analytics for $x” or “increase your storage for $x per month” – and it means that Captivate continues to attract serious podcasters who want a place to genuinely grow their audience, audio influence, and overall brand.

We’ve built a business that is known for supporting podcasters like you through growth, but it’s also our responsibility to give you as much room to grow as possible whilst being cognizant of the cost-of-living issues facing creators all over the world.

The last thing that we want to see is for you to worry about podcasting because you might hit a “limit” on your podcast before you have begun to make the money that you need from your show(s) to cover your podcast’s costs. Money is a worry for all creators right now so we’re doing something to try to help.

Today, we’re vastly increasing all of the download limits included with each of our pricing tiers.

The tier changes are as follows:

• Personal tier – downloads increase from 12,000 per month to 30,000 per month.
• Professional tier – downloads increase from 60,000 to 150,000 per month.
• Business tier – downloads increase from 150,000 to 300,000 per month.

Check out the breakdown of each tier and the features in each.

Captivate podcasters will be automatically given these new limits as of today, no action is needed and your pricing will not change.

These new download limits are permanent, they will never be rolled back. The vast majority of podcasters who make up our wonderful industry are passionate creators who don’t see tens of thousands of downloads and who don’t pay their mortgage with their podcasts and who, in fact, use their podcasts as an outlet for their creativity or to support their business in a marketing capacity.

Captivate is the best value podcast host on the market for the serious independent podcaster and our mission remains the same: to help you to grow your audience and to diversify the way that you generate income from your content.

Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey.

Click here to signup and start your 14-day free trial!