Change

We've made some changes to our tip jar functionality.

Previously, "one-time" tips were donations. Now, they grant one month of access to private content, in the same way as someone subscribing for one month and cancelling before the first recurring charge. We hope that this change will make tipping more appealing for your listeners.

Additionally, we've increased the maximum tip to $150 (and equivalents in non-USD currencies). This means that you can collect more from your show.

This does come with some new constraints. The tip jar is now only available to customers with paid subscriptions. Also, Growth subscribers who set a minimum amount for access to private episodes will eliminate lower tiers (previously these tiers would simply be donations).

In the coming months, we hope to launch some entirely new functionality to help you monetize your show in brand new ways. Stay tuned!

Improvement

Our podcast websites have supported Google Analytics for many years, but until recently they only worked with Universal Analytics. As Google is migrating all UA properties to Google Analytics version 4 in the coming year, we've enabled the ability to use GA4 with your podcast websites.

If you're already using the Google Analytics integration with a Universal Analytics property, follow Google's advice for migrating your property. When "setting up data collection," simply update your property ID in the Pinecast site builder configuration.

If you're not using Google Analytics yet, nothing has changed: simply integrate in your Pinecast site builder configuration by adding the property ID of your GA4 property.

New

In addition to Chartable, Dynamo, Podtrac, and Podcorn, you can now set an analytics prefix for Podkite. On the Settings > Analytics tab of your dashboard, you'll see a new option for Podkite. Since Podkite's prefix includes a unique token, you'll need to provide the prefix that Podkite gives you so that we can include your token in your audio URLs for you.

Improvement

The WordPress Sync plugin now respects capabilities, limiting access to the Pinecast admin panel to users with the manage_options capability. By default, this is available to admins and super-admins. Editors, contributors, and others will not be allowed to access the Pinecast settings tab.

This is available in the 1.2.1 release, which should be available as an update soon.

Change

The podcast ("playlist") player is limited to 100 episodes for the Starter plan. However, the Growth add-on has historically allowed unlimited episodes to be shown in the player.

As of today, the Hi-Fi add-on will also remove this limit. Growth add-on customers' subscriptions are unaffected by this change.

If you are a customer with both Growth and Hi-Fi add-ons enabled, and you only choose to subscribe to the Growth add-on for the unlimited episodes in the podcast player, you can now discontinue your Growth add-on to save $10/mo.

Fix

Uploading audio and images is one of the most fundamental parts of creating and managing a podcast. To help improve this core part of Pinecast, we've invested time in making our uploader more robust in the case of different kinds of failures.

First, we've improved our error messaging. We'll now note errors which are likely caused by ad blockers or other browser extensions [0]. You'll also see errors formatted more sensibly throughout the dashboard.

Second, we've adjusted some of the wording in the UI to help eliminate confusion:

1. When we do not find episode artwork embedded in your audio, we'll prompt you to add artwork or "Do not add episode artwork". Previously, we'd prompt to "Use podcast artwork," which was confusing to some folks who did not want to add any artwork. This change makes our copy consistent with what's actually happening: if you choose to use podcast artwork, we're not setting artwork under the hood (your show will fall back on podcast artwork by default).
2. When we're expecting you to add artwork or metadata, we now show clearer messaging. Previously, it was sometimes unclear why audio might not be saving and the questions about artwork or metadata seemed optional or unrelated.

Lastly, we've fixed a number of small bugs. Notably, a long-standing bug where clearing audio or artwork while on the "add metadata" or "add artwork" steps would cause a crash has been resolved.

[0] We encourage you to disable you ad blocker on Pinecast. We do not use marketing tools or tracking software, and we'll never advertise or sell your data to advertisers. Ad blockers frequently interfere with our dashboards, as many podcasting concepts seem "advertising-y".

Change

Due to Apple's April 2021 update, we're no longer able to measure podcast subscribers.

Podcast subscribers are measured by counting the number of unique devices that access a podcast feed in a 24 hour window. In April, Apple began rolling out an update which centralized feed downloads to Apple's servers: instead of each Apple Podcasts app requesting a feed, only a single copy was fetched by Apple's server (and subsequently distributed to all devices). This change essentially eliminated our ability to measure subscribers inclusive of Apple Podcasts.

While we did identify ways to preserve this feature for some podcasts, we were regrettably unable to scale this to work with podcasts of all sizes. We have made the decision to remove the "Subscribers" and "Subscriber Locations" analytics charts (and aggregate counts) from podcast dashboards, as these no longer return accurate information.

We're disappointed by Apple's decision to do this, as it is another step towards centralization and corporatization of the podcast ecosystem.

New

We've put the finishing touches on the first version of our most-requested feature to date: an embeddable playlist player! Here's a live preview:

You'll find the new player under the Player tab on your podcast dashboard. You can configure the height and colors (primary, secondary, and accent).

Unlike our episode-level embeddable player, you'll also find that we allow all customers to use our playlist player. If you're not on our Starter plan, you can use the playlist player with our logo and up to five of your episodes. With our Starter plan, our logo goes away and the episode limit increases to 100 episodes. Our Growth Add-on eliminates the restrictions.

We've taken time to make sure that the player works well on a variety of screen sizes, and did our best to ensure that it should be compatible with most screen readers.

If you're a Starter plan customer, you'll also notice that the UI features a slimmed-down short link UI:

You'll also notice that the player UI features:

• Current and remaining time codes
• A download button (for Starter customers)
• Volume controls
• A speed control

This is the first iteration of many, and we hope that you'll give us feedback so that we can improve it in the future!

New

You can now submit and link your podcast with iHeartRadio on the Distribution tab on your podcast dashboard.

Your show will appear in iHeart's web and mobile apps, and your listeners will be able to quickly access your linked directory listing from your Pinecast short link:

New

Many podcasters eventually stop podcasting. Sometimes it's a temporary hiatus, sometimes it's an extended break between seasons, and sometimes it's indefinitely due to external factors.

For folks who are no longer producing episodes, a full Pinecast Starter subscription—or any hosting service subscription—can be expensive to maintain, especially if the podcast is unlikely to grow very much over time. Keeping the show online is desirable, but the continued hosting cost can be burdensome.

Pinecast Icebox is a solution for these folks: it allows you to place your account into a low-cost annual subscription in exchange for read-only access while maintaining most of the features of our Starter plan.

Pricing

The Icebox is priced at $2/mo, billed annually ($24 at the time of enablement and every year thereafter). The cost of enabling the Icebox is prorated. As with all of our subscriptions, the Icebox applies to your whole account rather than individual podcasts.

Add-on packages are not available for Icebox customers.

Eligibility

You are able to enable the Icebox if your account has not uploaded an episode in the past 60 days. If you're not yet eligible, you'll be able to see your eligibility on the My Subscription > Icebox tab on your account dashboard.

If you'd started your podcast on our demo plan, you can upgrade to Starter and immediately upgrade (with prorated payment) to the Icebox, provided you otherwise meet the eligibility criteria.

Get started

To check your eligibility and to enable the Icebox, visit the My Subscription page in your dashboard and click the Icebox tab.