Anchor Listener Support is now available natively in your favorite podcast apps

Starting today, any podcast app can help independent podcasters get paid — and share in the revenue. Now available on Breaker and RadioPublic, and coming soon to Castro, Podcast Addict, and more!

Last week we introduced Listener Support, enabling any podcaster to collect recurring monthly payments directly from their listeners. The feedback was immediate and overwhelming: this was a game-changer not just for creators on Anchor, but the podcast ecosystem as a whole.

So we wasted no time making it even easier to take Listener Support far and wide, and today we’re opening a protocol that enables any podcast app or web player to surface Anchor Listener Support for a podcast and share in the revenue brought in from listeners.

With this native integration, listeners don’t need to go digging through show notes to look for the link. Instead, it’s surfaced right at the top of the podcast listing. The only thing app developers need to do is detect our new tag (<anchor:support>) in Anchor RSS feeds, which will let the app determine when a podcast has Listener Support activated. It’s seamless, easy, looks great in any app, and most importantly, gets more podcasters paid.

A major principle behind Listener Support is that helping podcasters get paid is a team effort that the entire podcasting industry is responsible for. To that end, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and offering to split Anchor’s 4.5% transaction fee with any developers who integrate Listener Support. In other words, if you are a developer who supports the <anchor:support> tag as a native payment mechanism in your app, Anchor will pay you a cut of each successful transaction that your app drives. If you’re a podcast app developer that wants to take advantage of this opportunity and help podcasters make a living off their content, email us to get set up.

Some amazing apps are already integrating Listener Support natively. It’s available right now in Breaker (on the web), RadioPublic (on web and Android), coming soon to Castro and Podcast Addict, and with other great podcast apps on deck.

As Erik Berlin, CEO of Breaker, puts it: “We’re excited for the future of podcast monetization, and know that it’s going to be a collaborative effort to advance the medium and finally get independent creators paid. Together with Anchor and others, we’re building an ecosystem where podcasters big and small can make money from the work they’re putting out in the world.”

What about listeners in other podcast apps? They’ll still be able to support your podcast through your Listener Support link in the show notes; it’ll just be less native to the experience and we won’t be able to share our cut of the revenue with the referring app. If you find you’re getting better conversion from apps with a native button, we encourage you to reach out to your favorite listening apps and ask them to add support for this feature!

We believe there’s real change coming to podcasting. We see a podcasting future where independent creators have the ability to not only create for free, but also make a living off of their podcast. To make that future a reality, the podcasting industry has to work together to help creators get paid from everywhere.

Not making a podcast yet? Check out our handy How to Start a Podcast guide for tips and tricks on how to make something awesome with Anchor. And as always, we’d love to hear your feedback, via email or on Twitter.