Articles on: Websites & Embeds

How do I use the oEmbed API with Transistor embeds?

oEmbed lets a website or app turn a Transistor episode link into an embedded player automatically. This guide is mostly for developers building that into their own site or app.

oEmbed vs. embed code

Embed code is the ready-made <iframe> snippet you copy from Transistor and paste into your website. It's the simplest way to add a player to a page.
oEmbed is a way for a website or app to fetch that same embed code for you. You give it an episode's share link, and it returns the player code along with details like the episode title and artwork. This is how many website builders and apps turn a pasted link into a player.

If you just want a player on your website, you don't need oEmbed. Follow How do I embed my podcast? instead.

Each episode has its own share URL. You can find it in two places:

On the episode's page: click View Share Page at the top of the page. The address of the page that opens is the share URL.
In the episode list: go to the Episodes tab, click the ... menu on the episode and select Share.

For example:

https://share.transistor.fm/s/e83b42d0

Step 2: Build the oEmbed request

URL-encode the share URL and add it as the url parameter on Transistor's oEmbed endpoint:

https://share.transistor.fm/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshare.transistor.fm%2Fs%2Fe83b42d0

You can also find this oEmbed URL on the episode's share page. Look for the <link> tag with the type application/json+oembed in the page's HTML. Here's the one from this share page:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/json+oembed" title="Paul Jarvis: gaining freedom by building an indie business oEmbed profile" href="https://share.transistor.fm/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshare.transistor.fm%2Fs%2Fe83b42d0" />

Step 3: Read the response

The endpoint returns JSON with everything you need to embed the episode. Here's an example response (the description and thumbnail URL are shortened):

{
  "type": "rich",
  "version": "1.0",
  "provider_name": "Transistor",
  "provider_url": "https://transistor.fm",
  "author_name": "Build Your SaaS",
  "title": "Paul Jarvis: gaining freedom by building an indie business",
  "html": "<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/e83b42d0\"></iframe>",
  "width": "100%",
  "height": 180,
  "duration": 4240,
  "description": "Justin catches up with his old internet friend Paul Jarvis...",
  "thumbnail_url": "https://img.transistorcdn.com/...",
  "thumbnail_width": 300,
  "thumbnail_height": 300
}

author_name is your podcast's title
duration is the episode length in seconds
thumbnail_url is your podcast's artwork

Step 4: Embed the episode

On a web page: add the code from the html field to your page wherever you want the player to appear.

In an HTML email: most email apps don't support iframes, so you'll need to rebuild the player using HTML tables. You can start from our HTML email table template.

Watch the walkthrough

This video shows the oEmbed API in action with a Transistor episode:

Tips

Handle errors: if the episode can't be found, the endpoint returns a 404 error, so make sure your code can handle that.
Allow for a flexible width: the player is 100% wide, so make sure the space you place it in on your page is sized the way you want.

If you have additional questions please reach out to us:

Email - support@transistor.fm
Live Chat: https://transistor.fm/contact/

Updated on: 02/11/2026

Was this article helpful?

Thank you!