1. The Podcast Intelligence Market
Podcasting is massive — 4M+ active shows, ~35,000 new episodes per day — but the content inside episodes has historically been opaque. Unlike text on the web, podcast audio couldn't be searched, indexed, or monitored in real time. That changed with cheap AI transcription (Whisper, Deepgram, AssemblyAI), which unlocked an entirely new market: podcast intelligence.
The market segments into three tiers:
- Tier 1: Dedicated podcast data platforms
- Purpose-built for podcast monitoring, search, and intelligence. Full transcript indexing, real-time alerts, API access. Players: Podscan, Listen Notes, Podchaser, Rephonic.
- Tier 2: Enterprise media monitors (podcast as add-on)
- Massive multi-channel platforms that cover news, social, TV, radio — and bolt on podcast monitoring as a secondary feature. Coverage is shallow (thousands to tens of thousands of shows, not millions). Players: Meltwater, Critical Mention / Onclusive.
- Tier 3: Multi-channel social listening (podcast as one source)
- SMB-friendly social listening tools that include podcast monitoring alongside web, social, and review tracking. Podcast-specific depth is minimal. Players: Brand24, Mentionlytics, Octolens.
| Total podcasts worldwide | 4.4M+ active |
|---|---|
| New episodes per day | ~35,000 |
| Total episodes ever published | 51M+ |
| Key unlock | Cheap AI transcription (Whisper, Deepgram) made audio searchable |
| Primary buyers | Brands, PR agencies, media buyers, developers, podcast creators |
2. Podscan.fm (Reference Product)
Podcast intelligence platform that monitors 4.4M+ podcasts in real time. Ingests and transcribes ~35,000 new episodes daily, making content searchable within 5 minutes of release. Founded by Arvid Kahl, bootstrapped with a six-figure Calm Company Fund investment (100% equity retained). Profitable since early 2025. ~$55K MRR at month 24.
Strategic pivot in 2025–2026: repositioned from “monitoring tool” to “comprehensive podcast data platform,” with the API becoming the primary value driver (hundreds of thousands of external calls daily from dozens of businesses).
Key Features
- Real-Time Monitoring
- AI-powered keyword alerts for brand mentions across all 4.4M+ podcasts, results within minutes of publication.
- Full-Text Transcript Search
- Search across 51.7M+ episode transcripts.
- Audience Demographics
- Listener profiles: age, location, income, political leanings, brand loyalty.
- Podscan Reach Score (PRS)
- Proprietary influence metric using 100+ data points.
- Sponsor Intelligence
- Identifies brand partnerships and advertising opportunities across the ecosystem.
- Host/Guest Network Mapping
- Entity extraction to track people, companies, sponsors across episodes; relationship graphs.
- REST API + Firehose
- Full programmatic access. Firehose delivers real-time webhook data for new episodes as they’re processed.
- MCP Server
- Claude AI integration via Model Context Protocol for direct AI-to-data querying.
- Data Dumps
- Full JSON exports (weekly or daily depending on plan).
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Key features |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | $100/mo ($83 annual) | 50 alerts, 5 team members, 2K API req/day, Firehose Lite (top 1K podcasts), 500 research credits |
| Professional | $200/mo ($167 annual) | 500 alerts, 20 team members, 5K API req/day, Firehose Core (top 25K podcasts), weekly JSON dumps |
| Advanced | $2,500/mo ($2,083 annual) | Unlimited alerts, unlimited members, 10K+ API req/day, Full Firehose (all 4M+ podcasts), daily data exports |
| Enterprise | Custom | For agencies and large-scale operations |
20% off annual billing. 50% off first year for bootstrapped/recently-founded startups. 10-day free trial.
What Makes Podscan Work
- Speed: 5-minute processing time from episode release — significantly faster than any competitor.
- Scale: 4.4M podcasts with full transcript search vs. competitors covering thousands or metadata only.
- API-first: REST + real-time Firehose is unique. No other tool offers a comparable real-time data pipeline.
- Bootstrapper credibility: Arvid Kahl’s audience (newsletter, podcast, two books) provides built-in distribution.
3. Listen Notes
Self-described “Best Podcast Search Engine.” Developer-first podcast search and discovery platform with a powerful API. Operating since 2017, trusted by 11,677+ companies. The longest-running dedicated podcast data tool.
| Database | 3.7M+ podcasts, 192M+ episodes |
|---|---|
| Search type | Metadata only (titles, descriptions, show notes) — no full transcript search |
| Monitoring/Alerts | None |
| Audience data | None |
| Operating since | 2017 |
API Pricing
| Plan | Price | Requests | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 300/month | 30 results/query, 2 req/s |
| Pro | $200/mo | 5,000 included | 300 results/query, transcript access, batch endpoints, 10 team members |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | 10K results/query, 99.999% SLA, phone support |
Overage: $1.60/1K requests (5K–1M), $1.30/1K (1M–5M), $1.10/1K (5M+).
Strengths & Weaknesses
- + Massive index, generous free tier, well-documented API, long track record, strong developer mindshare.
- − Metadata search only — no transcript-level full-text search. No monitoring/alerting. No audience demographics. Not designed for PR or marketing workflows.
Positioning: Developer-first podcast search API and consumer discovery engine. Complementary to monitoring tools, not a substitute.
4. Podchaser / Podchaser Pro
“The #1 Podcast Database & API.” Comprehensive database with discovery, reviews, credits (host/guest tracking), and professional tools for marketers and PR. Claims the largest podcast database by count.
| Database | 5.4M+ podcasts, 1.7B+ data points |
|---|---|
| Audience data | Available on 1.8M+ podcasts |
| Unique feature | Host/guest credits system (who appeared where) |
| Brand safety | AI-powered brand safety scoring |
| Sponsor intelligence | Ad spend data, sponsorship cost estimates by ad position |
Pricing
Free tier for basic discovery and API (25,000 points/month). Pro pricing is not public — requires demo request. Described as more expensive than alternatives due to depth of data.
Strengths & Weaknesses
- + Largest claimed podcast count (5.4M). Deep relationship/credits data. Brand safety scoring. Sponsor intelligence. Strong API.
- − Opaque pricing. G2 reviews note inaccurate/outdated listenership data and unreliable contact info. Not real-time monitoring — more of a static database.
Positioning: Comprehensive podcast database for marketers, ad buyers, and PR teams. The “IMDb of podcasts.”
5. Rephonic
Podcast outreach and audience research platform built for PR teams, marketers, and podcast guesting. Monitoring is included but is a secondary feature — the primary value is discovery and outreach.
| Database | 3M+ podcasts |
|---|---|
| Monitoring | Alerts when keywords mentioned in transcripts, titles, or show notes |
| Contact data | Yes (host contact information) |
| Unique feature | Podcast network visualization (shows connections between podcasts) |
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Light | $99/mo | 100 searches, 1 user |
| Standard | $149/mo | 500 searches, 5 users |
| Business | $299/mo | Unlimited searches, 10 users, priority support |
7-day free trial (credit card required).
Strengths & Weaknesses
- + Purpose-built for PR/outreach workflows. Strong network visualization. Good contact data. Competitive pricing.
- − Smaller database (3M vs. 4.4M+). Monitoring is secondary, less real-time than Podscan. Search limits on lower tiers.
Positioning: PR and podcast outreach platform. Monitoring is a feature, not the product.
6. Enterprise Media Monitors
These are massive multi-channel platforms where podcast monitoring is an add-on feature. They cover news, social, TV, radio — and bolt on limited podcast coverage. Their podcast databases are tiny compared to dedicated tools (thousands of shows vs. millions).
Meltwater
- Podcast coverage
- 24,000+ podcasts (can request additions) — vs. Podscan’s 4.4M+.
- Pricing
- Custom enterprise. Median ~$25,000/year, range $6K–$100K+. Podcast monitoring add-on ~$2,950/year. Annual contracts, no free trial.
- Strengths
- All-in-one media monitoring. 1M+ media contacts database. Strong for organizations already using Meltwater for other channels.
- Weaknesses
- Podcast coverage is 0.5% of what Podscan indexes. Very expensive. Inflexible contracts.
Critical Mention (Onclusive)
- Podcast coverage
- “Thousands” of top podcasts.
- Pricing
- Custom. Estimated $2,500–$10,000+/year.
- Unique feature
- “Wordplay” tool for editing and capturing exact audio mention clips.
- Weaknesses
- Limited podcast coverage. Outdated UI (widely noted in reviews). No mobile app. Not podcast-specialized.
7. Multi-Channel Monitors
SMB-friendly social listening tools that include podcast monitoring as one source among many. Affordable but podcast-specific depth is minimal.
Brand24
- What it does
- Social listening and media monitoring. Claims to be “the first tool on the market to track mentions across audio-based platforms.”
- Podcast sources
- Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spreaker, Libsyn.
- Pricing
- $69/mo (Basic) to $399/mo (Pro). 14-day free trial.
- Trade-off
- Affordable, good AI sentiment analysis, broad social + podcast monitoring — but no podcast-specific depth (no audience demographics, no API for podcast data, no host/guest mapping).
Mentionlytics
- What it does
- Social media monitoring with podcast monitoring across Spotify, Podbean, Spreaker, and others.
- Pricing
- $69/mo (Basic) to $399/mo (Pro). 14-day free trial.
- Unique feature
- AI-powered summaries of podcast mentions with built-in timestamps showing exact moment of brand mention.
Octolens
- What it does
- Brand monitoring across Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, Hacker News, newsletters, podcasts. Podcast is one of many channels.
- Pricing
- Free tier (5K mentions). Paid plans scale with usage.
- Unique feature
- Buying intent analysis across all monitored channels.
8. Niche & Adjacent Tools
Podseeker
PR outreach platform specifically for finding, pitching, and booking podcast guest appearances. Verified host contact info (AI + human research). Pitch management with templates and mail merge. Not a monitoring tool at all — purely outreach. Starts at $49/mo.
Podwatch
Podcast analytics and rankings platform, primarily focused on the German-speaking market. 420,000+ podcasts. Daily updated chart rankings. No monitoring, no transcripts, no alerting. Limited global coverage.
Voxalyze
Was a podcast analytics platform (“The Google Analytics of Podcast Stats”). Defunct — filed for insolvency and ceased service. Demonstrates the difficulty of this market.
9. Competitive Comparison Table
| Tool | Podcasts | Transcript Search | Real-Time Alerts | API | Audience Data | Contact Data | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podscan | 4.4M+ | Yes (51.7M+ eps) | Yes (minutes) | REST + Firehose | Yes | Yes | $100/mo |
| Listen Notes | 3.7M+ | No (metadata only) | No | REST (strong) | No | No | Free / $200/mo |
| Podchaser | 5.4M+ | Limited | Limited | REST | Yes | Yes | Free / Custom |
| Rephonic | 3M+ | Yes | Yes (daily/weekly) | Yes | Yes | Yes | $99/mo |
| Meltwater | 24K+ | Yes | Yes | Limited | Limited | Yes (1M+) | ~$6K/yr |
| Critical Mention | Thousands | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes (1M+) | ~$2.5K/yr |
| Brand24 | Platform-based | Limited | Yes | Limited | No | No | $69/mo |
| Mentionlytics | Platform-based | Limited | Yes | Limited | No | No | $69/mo |
| Podseeker | Undisclosed | No | No | No | Limited | Yes | $49/mo |
10. Market Gaps & Opportunities
What Podscan Does Well That Others Don’t
- Speed: 5-minute processing from episode release. No competitor matches this.
- Firehose API: Real-time webhook delivery of new episode data. Unique in the market.
- Scale + depth: 4.4M podcasts with full transcript search. Listen Notes has the scale but only metadata. Podchaser has the scale but limited transcripts. Rephonic has transcripts but smaller database.
- Data platform positioning: JSON dumps, firehose, research agents, MCP server — not just a dashboard but data infrastructure.
Gaps in Podscan’s Armor
- Podchaser has more raw podcasts (5.4M vs. 4.4M) and deeper advertiser-focused features (brand safety, ad spend estimates).
- Listen Notes has stronger developer mindshare and a more generous free tier — it’s the default for developers who just need podcast metadata.
- Rephonic is better for pure PR/outreach (network visualization, outreach management built in).
- Enterprise tools win on “one vendor” for organizations already paying Meltwater for news/social/TV monitoring.
- Brand24 and Mentionlytics compete on price for SMBs who want podcast as one of many channels.
Underserved Niches
- Podcast SEO / discoverability
- No tool helps podcasters optimize their content for search engines, podcast directories, and YouTube simultaneously. The SEO-for-podcasters angle is wide open.
- Competitive podcast intelligence
- Tracking what competitors’ executives are saying on podcasts, what topics are gaining traction in a vertical, which podcasts are covering specific industries — structured as a competitive intelligence product rather than a monitoring dashboard.
- Podcast ad verification
- Brands buying podcast ads have no easy way to verify their ads actually ran, were read correctly, and appeared in the right context. An ad verification/compliance tool could charge media buyers per-campaign.
- Self-serve podcast analytics for creators
- Most podcast analytics are locked behind hosting platforms (Spotify for Podcasters, Apple Podcasts Connect). A cross-platform analytics dashboard that aggregates data from all hosting/distribution platforms is a gap. Voxalyze tried this and died, but the need remains.
- Vertical-specific podcast monitoring
- A monitoring tool built specifically for one industry (healthcare, finance, legal) that understands domain-specific terminology, has pre-built alerts for regulatory mentions, and integrates with industry-specific CRMs.
11. How to Compete as a Bootstrapper
The Hard Truth
Competing head-on with Podscan on its core value prop (speed + scale + API) requires significant infrastructure investment: ingesting 35,000 episodes/day, transcribing all of them, indexing 51M+ documents, and keeping it all running with sub-5-minute latency. This is a capital-intensive data engineering problem, not a weekend project.
Arvid Kahl has also documented his approach extensively, which means any new entrant would be competing against someone with a 2-year head start, a large audience, and transparent playbook knowledge that makes copycats obvious.
Viable Bootstrap Strategies
Strategy 1: Go Narrow (Vertical Podcast Intelligence)
Instead of monitoring all 4.4M podcasts, monitor only podcasts in one vertical (e.g., healthcare, fintech, B2B SaaS) and build deep domain expertise. Pre-built alert templates, industry-specific entity extraction, integration with vertical CRMs (Salesforce Health Cloud, etc.). Price at $200–$500/mo. The total addressable market is smaller but conversion rates will be much higher because you’re solving a specific problem for a specific buyer.
Strategy 2: Podcast Ad Verification & Compliance
Build specifically for media buyers and brands. Verify that podcast ads ran correctly, in the right shows, with the right messaging. Generate compliance reports. Charge per-campaign or per-brand. This is a workflow tool, not a data platform — the transcription is a means to an end. Meltwater and Podscan provide raw data; you provide answers.
Strategy 3: Podcast-Powered Competitive Intelligence
Build a CI product that happens to use podcasts as a source. “Know what your competitors’ executives are saying before the press release drops.” Target sales teams, VCs, and strategy consultants. Integrate podcast mentions with earnings calls, press releases, and social media for a unified executive voice tracker. Price at $500–$2,000/mo per company tracked.
Strategy 4: Podcast Outreach + Monitoring Bundle
Rephonic does outreach. Podscan does monitoring. Nobody does both well at an SMB price point. Build a tool that lets PR teams discover relevant podcasts, pitch hosts, track whether they got mentioned, and measure the impact — all in one workflow. Price at $149–$299/mo. Compete with Rephonic on monitoring and Podscan on outreach.
What NOT to Do
- Don’t build another generic podcast search engine. Listen Notes has been doing this for 9 years. You won’t out-index them.
- Don’t try to out-scale Podscan on raw data. Transcribing 35K episodes/day is an infrastructure problem that favors the incumbent.
- Don’t sell to enterprises first. Enterprise sales cycles are long and expensive. Start with SMBs, charge from day 1, iterate fast.
- Don’t compete on price. Brand24 at $69/mo already covers podcast monitoring as one feature. Racing to the bottom kills bootstrapped businesses.
The Bootstrap Verdict
The podcast intelligence market is real and growing, but the horizontal play (monitor everything for everyone) is Podscan’s to lose. A bootstrapper’s edge is in going deep where Podscan goes wide: pick a specific buyer, solve a specific workflow, and build something that a horizontal platform can’t easily replicate with a feature addition.
Best bet: Podcast ad verification for media buyers, or vertical podcast intelligence for a single industry. Both have clear buyers, specific pain points, and room for premium pricing that funds a solo founder.