Substack Announced On Thursday it will introduce some new features for podcasters on its platform. Notably, the company is rolling out a Spotify integration that will allow Substack podcasters to sync and distribute all of their free and paid episodes to the Spotify streaming service. Additionally, Substack introduces new audio transcriptions and custom subtitles, along with improvements to mobile clip and video sharing.
The launch of the new features comes as Substack announced that Substack podcasters are collectively earning more than $100 million in annual revenue and that this number has more than doubled in the last year. The number of active podcasters on the platform also doubled in the same period.
The new integration with Spotify will make Substack podcasts discoverable through the streaming service, making it easier for podcasters to reach more listeners. Additionally, the integration will allow existing Substack podcaster subscribers to listen to paid episodes on Spotify. Substack says the integration with Spotify has the potential to help podcasters earn more, as free listeners will be encouraged to upgrade to a subscription.
Substack podcasters can set up a Spotify integration by going into their podcast settings, opening the Spotify drop-down menu, and clicking the “Sync with Spotify” option to create a new feed with all current and future episodes. Paid episodes are tagged with a lock and listeners must link their Substack account to Spotify to listen to paid episodes directly on the streaming service.
Image credits: Substack
Creators can go to their Spotify for Podcasters account to see data on streams, unique listeners, watch time, demographics, and more. Substack plans to make this data accessible through the creator’s Substack Podcast Insights page in the future.
As for the new audio transcripts and custom subtitles, podcasters can now upload their own transcript instead of using the one automatically generated by Substack, if they choose. Video podcasters can also choose to upload a separate audio track and free preview to distribute to podcast RSS feeds instead of using the default one pulled from the uploaded video.
Additionally, podcasters and their listeners can now share a link to a podcast video at a specific timestamp or download a clip to post to social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X.
Substack says it’s making it easier to watch video podcasts on mobile devices, as video posts on iOS and Android now feature an inline player. This new capability allows users to read and watch at the same time, keeping their place in a video they watched halfway to watch it again later.
The new features are available to all users starting today.
