What are private podcast subscribers?

Private podcasts operate very differently to public podcasts.

With a public podcast, a show has only one RSS feed, with the goal being to share that feed far and wide and gain as many listeners as possible. By contrast, private podcasts work by generating a unique RSS feed for each subscriber, so that access is limited to specific listeners.

In this way, a private podcast with 50 subscribers will have 50 RSS feeds—one for each subscriber. This allows you to know exactly who is listening to which episodes.

A subscriber is distinguished in Transistor by their email address, which is used to add them to a private podcast in your account.

Each subscriber who is added will then receive:

• Their own onboarding sequence via email
• An email notification every time a new episode is published
• A unique RSS feed that they can add to their podcast player
• A dedicated website player that tracks their progress through episodes
• Personal episode pages that they can listen to on their desktop or mobile phone

How do we count private subscribers?

The total number of private subscribers you can add depends on your plan.

These numbers are then shared by all private podcasts in the account. So, if you were on the Professional plan, you could have one private podcast with 500 subscribers or five private podcasts with 100 subscribers each.

Additionally, if the same subscriber (email) is subscribed to multiple private podcasts in your account, it only counts as one subscriber to your account total. We only count unique subscribers.

Here's a demo of how it works:

Want to start your own private podcast?

Check out our guide, How to create a private podcast, and take a look at our private podcast features.

You can also learn How to start a paid private podcast. This allows podcasters to earn revenue by selling access to a private podcast feed.

Updated on: 16/10/2025