We Kept Watching Our Listeners Disappear. So We Built PodSubs.
We were podcasters before we built PodSubs. Here is why we created one simple place for listeners to subscribe and for creators to build an email audience they can reach.
By Don karlos Fru · Published 2026-09-08
Before PodSubs was a product, it was a problem we were living with ourselves.
One of the strangest moments in podcasting happens after you publish something people really like.
You see the numbers move. A clip starts getting shared. Someone sends the episode to a friend. A few people leave comments. Maybe somebody tells you, “I listened to that whole thing on my way to work.”
For a few hours, it feels like the room is full.
Then the episode ends.
And almost everybody is gone.
We knew that feeling because we were podcasters before we were building PodSubs. We knew what it took to make an episode worth listening to: the research, the recording, the edit, the clips, the upload, the promotion, and the part where you tell yourself you will not check the numbers again for an hour, then check them five minutes later.
We loved doing it. That part matters.
Podcasting is hard work, but it is a strange kind of hard work because you are usually talking about something you actually care about. You get to turn on a microphone and spend an hour talking about ideas, stories, people, problems or questions you might have talked about for free anyway.
That is what makes podcasting special.
It is also what makes the next part so frustrating.
Why PodSubs existsPodSubs was created by podcasters who were frustrated that downloads, plays and viral clips rarely turned into listeners they could reach directly. It gives listeners one memorable place to find a podcast and subscribe, while creators can build a permission-based email audience.
We had listeners. We did not really have a way to reach them.
We could see downloads.
We could see plays.
We could see a clip take off.
We could hear from people who said they had been listening for months.
But if we wanted to send something directly to the people who cared most about the show, we could not.
There was no button in our podcast dashboard that said, “Here are the people who listened. Talk to them.”
There should not be. Listening does not mean somebody has agreed to hear from a host by email.
But from the creator side, the result is still strange: you can spend years building an audience and still know almost nobody in it.
On our own shows, the number of listeners who made the jump from “I listened” to “you can contact me directly” was often under 5%.
That gap started to bother us.
Not because we wanted a giant database of people.
Because we wanted a relationship.
We wanted to know who our real people were. The ones who came back. The ones who wanted the worksheet we mentioned. The reading list. The recipe. The link. The event. The template. The next step.
And yes, we also wanted the podcast to become something that could support itself.
A good podcast costs time. Sometimes it costs money. Passion can start a show. Passion alone does not always pay to keep one going.
At some point, most serious podcasters ask a simple question:
How do we turn attention into something that lasts?
Sponsors are one answer. Courses, workshops, products, memberships, events and services are others.
But every one of those gets easier when you can actually reach the people who already trust you. We also wrote a guide to podcast email marketing tools for the practical difference between capturing a listener and sending to a list.
We could talk to thousands of people through a microphone.
We just could not talk to them again when the microphone was off.
We tried the things podcasters are told to try.
We ran ads.
We put links in show notes.
We sent people to websites.
We made landing pages.
We told listeners, “The link is in the description.”
We tried different calls to action.
Sometimes they worked.
Most of the time, far fewer people made it through than we expected.
For a while, we assumed the problem was us. Maybe the offer was not good enough. Maybe the landing page needed work. Maybe we needed a better headline. Maybe we had not repeated the link enough.
Then we started paying attention to how people actually listen to podcasts.
That changed everything.
Listeners often care. Life simply gets in the way before they act.
The listener was not sitting there waiting to click our link.
They were driving.
Cooking.
Running.
At the gym.
Cleaning the house.
Walking the dog.
Working.
Taking care of a child.
Podcasting fits into the parts of life where your hands and eyes are often busy.
It is also why so many podcast calls to action die.
Imagine the moment.
You are listening in the car and the host says, “I made a checklist for this. The link is in the show notes.”
You think, That sounds useful.
You are not going to start digging through show notes at a red light.
You tell yourself you will get it later.
Then you park. Your phone rings. You walk inside. You answer a message. You start dinner.
The checklist is gone from your mind.
Not because you did not care.
Life happened.
We kept seeing versions of that moment, and eventually something became obvious:
The problem was not always the offer.
The problem was memory.
We were asking listeners to remember a different website, a different link, or a different action every time we wanted to give them something.
We did not need one more clever call to action.
We needed one place.
One name.
One thing a host could say on any episode and a listener could remember later.
That was the moment PodSubs started making sense.
What if the listener only had to remember PodSubs?
The idea was simple.
A podcaster says:
“Subscribe to our podcast on PodSubs. Anything we mention or promise on the show can reach you there.”
The listener does not need to remember today’s long URL.
They do not need another listening app.
They do not need a complicated account.
They do not need to hunt through old show notes three hours later.
They remember one place: PodSubs.
They search for the podcast.
They subscribe.
They leave their email because they are choosing to hear directly from that show.
And now the creator has a direct way to follow up.
The next time the host mentions a guide, a live event, a tool, a bonus note, a worksheet or anything else worth sending, the listener does not have to start the hunt all over again.
That was the missing piece for us.
Not another place to listen.
Not another email marketing platform.
Just the step between the episode and the inbox.
PodSubs gives listeners one memorable place to find a show and subscribe.
We built PodSubs for ourselves first.
We were not trying to start another podcast company.
We were trying to fix our own problem.
So we built a simple version for our own use.
We gave listeners one clear place to subscribe.
We stopped sending them to a new destination every time we mentioned something.
We made the ask easier to say and easier to remember.
And we started seeing more of the people who were already listening become people we could actually reach.
We had spent so much time thinking we needed more traffic. More clips. More views. More promotion.
But some of the value was already sitting inside the audience we had.
We were just losing too much of it between “that sounds useful” and “here is my email.”
Once that gap became smaller, the whole podcast felt different.
A download was still a download.
But now, sometimes, there was a person on the other side of it.
A name. An email. Someone who had said, in a small but meaningful way, “Yes. Keep me in the loop.”
That feels very different from staring at a chart.
Then we had another thought: why should this only exist for us?
We knew we were not the only podcasters dealing with this.
Every day, creators say some version of:
“Link in the show notes.”
“I’ll put the resource in the description.”
“Go to my website.”
“Join my newsletter.”
All of those can work.
But all of them ask the listener to do extra work at a moment when the listener is often busy doing something else.
We had built something that made that first step simpler for us.
So we opened it up.
That became PodSubs.
Today, listeners can come to PodSubs and search for podcasts. PodSubs is connected to Podcast Index, so discovery is not limited to a small hand-picked list.
Creators can search for their own podcast too. They can claim it, verify that the show belongs to them, and start using their PodSubs page as the simple place they send listeners.
The creator can keep the podcast host they already use.
Keep Spotify.
Keep Apple Podcasts.
Keep YouTube.
Keep Kit, Beehiiv, Mailchimp, HubSpot or whatever email tool already works for them.
PodSubs is not trying to replace any of those.
We built it because there was one job none of those tools solved for us:
Help an interested podcast listener become a subscriber the creator can actually reach.
That is the job.
Keep the podcast. Keep the tools. Build a direct relationship with the people listening.
We think podcasting gets better when the relationship does not end at the play button.
A podcast is personal.
People spend hours with a host’s voice in their ears.
They listen while driving home from work. While cleaning. While exercising. While trying to figure something out. Sometimes during very hard parts of their lives.
That kind of attention is rare.
The best listeners often want more.
They want the book you mentioned.
The template.
The recipe.
The list.
The event.
The answer you did not have time to finish.
They want a way to stay close to the show.
And creators need that too.
They need a way to know their tribe.
A way to learn what those people care about.
A way to invite them somewhere.
A way to sell something useful when the time is right.
A way to keep creating without depending completely on a platform deciding who gets shown what tomorrow.
That is why we built PodSubs.
Not because podcasting needed another app.
It did not.
We built it because we were tired of watching people listen, care, and disappear.
We wanted one simple sentence we could say on every episode.
Now we have it:
“Subscribe to us on PodSubs.”
If you are a listener, find the podcasts you care about and subscribe.
If you are a podcaster, search for your show, claim it, and give your listeners one place to raise their hand.
Keep making the podcast.
Keep using the tools you love.
Just stop letting every episode end with the people who cared most becoming strangers again.
Podcaster? Search for your show and claim it free.
Listener? Find a podcast you love and subscribe.
Find your podcast on PodSubs →