Riverside for Podcasters: Recording, Hosting and the Real Limits

The short answer for podcasters

Riverside is a strong pick if your show records remote guests and you want one tool from the call to the published episode. Each participant is recorded locally on their own device and uploaded during the session, so a shaky connection does not damage the master tracks ^[1]. The number to plan around is 15 hours. Pro, at $35 a month billed monthly or $24 a month billed annually, lets you download 15 hours of separate tracks a month ^[2]. Recording itself is unlimited. A weekly one-hour show uses about four of those hours. Hosting is included from Pro, but the feed is audio-only.

Recording day: remote guests and the in-room setup

Guests click a link and join with no account and no install, from Chrome, Edge, Safari 18.2 or newer, the Mac app, or the iOS and Android apps. Firefox, Linux and Chromebooks cannot record, so put that line in the invite. Each person lands on a separate audio and video track, with up to 100 participants per session and nine shown on screen, which covers any panel format. Recordings end automatically after six hours while someone is in the studio, and Riverside recommends staying under four. Producers who run the session without being recorded start at Grow; invited producers without an account take Business.

Audio quality depends on the plan. Free records at 720p and 44.1 kHz. Pro and up unlock 48 kHz audio and video up to 4K, but the studio defaults to 44.1 kHz, so switch it in settings before the first session. Raw audio downloads as uncompressed 16-bit WAV, or as an MP3 at 64 kb/s about a tenth of the size. One catch matters to audio purists. Edited exports always come out at 44.1 kHz and 24 FPS, whatever you recorded at, so a mastering engineer who wants 48 kHz should work from the raw tracks. Cloud backup copies are capped at 720p and kept for three months.

Shows recorded around one table get their own mode. The Mac app records up to eight cameras and microphones on one Mac, each as its own synced track, on Pro and up. It needs Apple Silicon and macOS 15 or later. XLR mics connect through an audio interface and HDMI cameras through a capture card, and no switcher such as OBS is needed. Hybrid sessions, with some guests remote, require everyone in the room to wear headphones, because speakers are disabled to stop echo. The host gets a teleprompter on Pro, while sharing it with guests takes Business.

Cleaning up the audio and cutting the episode

The editor is included on every plan and works from the transcript: delete words in the text and the audio follows. Remove pauses, remove filler words and Smart Mute are also on all plans, which covers most of a conversational cleanup pass; Find Fluff needs a paid plan. Magic Audio is the tool podcasters will lean on. It reduces background noise and reverb, can be dialed per track between the original and full enhancement, and works on guest tracks and uploaded files but not on screen-share audio. Anyone can try it, but exporting an edit with Magic Audio needs a paid plan ^[3]. It also disables the separate normalize and noise-removal export toggles.

The publishing paperwork is largely automated. After each recording longer than five minutes with a transcript, AI Show Notes produce a summary, keywords, takeaways, sound bites and chapter titles with timestamps, on Pro and up. Copying the chapter list with timestamps is also Pro and up. Magic Clips cut 30 to 90 second highlights for social: three sets per recording on Pro, Grow and Webinar, five on Business, and deleting clips does not reset the count. Magic Clips, Magic Audio and the Co-Creator chat agent use no AI credits. Translation and voice clones do. Paid plans start with a balance of credits, and extra packs cost $2 per 100.

Hosting and distribution: what the feed can and cannot do

Hosting starts at Pro. Riverside generates an audio-only RSS feed ^[4], one podcast per studio, and connects it to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio and Deezer. Episodes can run up to 180 minutes and must stay under 10 GB, and scheduled publishing works on Pro and up. Video reaches YouTube automatically through its API, though YouTube takes video only, not audio-only uploads. Video episodes on Apple Podcasts need Grow or higher plus a request to Apple that can take up to two weeks to review. Only episodes created after you enable video carry it.

Spotify has a closer tie. The Riverside studio runs inside Spotify for Creators, and publishing straight to Spotify works on every plan, Free included, without an RSS feed, though Free exports carry a Powered by Riverside audio intro. Older Spotify for Creators episodes are not pulled into Riverside. If your show is hosted elsewhere, Riverside can send audio and transcripts to Transistor or Castos on all plans. Video episodes on Castos need a Castos Pro plan. That makes Riverside usable as a recording and editing front end even when you keep your current host, which avoids a migration in a busy season.

Moving an existing show is a redirect job. Riverside imports from more than 80 hosts, with episodes up to three hours and 10 GB each, and with a correct redirect your listings and subscribers stay put. Private or password-protected feeds cannot be imported, and one corrupted episode can block the whole import. Your old download history stays behind. Analytics count from the redirect, so export them from the previous host first. Riverside's own stats combine RSS plays, Spotify streams over one minute and YouTube views, reach back two years, download as CSV from a browser, and are missing from the Android app.

What a show costs, and which plan it needs

The hours cap is where shows trip. Hours count session length, not participants, so a one-hour interview with three guests uses one hour. By our arithmetic, a weekly one-hour show uses about 4.3 hours a month, and three one-hour sessions a week use 13, both inside the 15 on the cheapest paid plan. A one-hour show every weekday runs about 22 hours and passes the 20 on Grow, so it needs the Webinar plan's 25 or a Business quote. Hours reset monthly with no rollover, and live streams count. Over the cap you can still record, edit and export edits. Only individual-track downloads stop until the next cycle.

Pro is one user. A co-host who edits needs the Editor seat add-on, at $19 a month or $168 a year, and Pro plus one editor seat comes to $54 a month billed monthly or $456 a year. The 14-day trial needs a card and charges on day 15 unless cancelled. A full refund on request is limited to 24 hours on monthly Pro or Grow plans and 14 days on yearly ones, since the published refund policy covers only Pro and Grow; our Riverside pricing guide has the full billing rules.

Annual billing is a bet on staying power. On Pro, $288 a year beats twelve monthly payments of $35, which total $420. Eight months billed monthly cost $280 and nine cost $315, so the annual plan wins once you expect to record nine months or more. A six-month season should pay monthly. For Grow the crossover is ten months, since nine monthly payments of $45 total $405 against $408 a year.

Where it fits less well, and what podcasters compare it with

The gaps are specific. There is no video RSS, so video shows reach Apple through the Grow route and YouTube through its API rather than a video feed. There is no offline recording in the mobile app, and Riverside makes no HIPAA claim. Its Privacy Policy and Terms let it train its own AI models on recordings, transcripts and prompts, and only Business customers can opt out, by written agreement. That matters if guests discuss confidential material. Cloning a guest's voice also takes Business and a recorded consent video from that guest.

Riverside lists Guy Raz, Freakonomics and TED among its users, a vendor-reported claim. SquadCast, now part of Descript, charges per person: its Creator plan is $24 per person a month billed annually or $35 billed monthly. SquadCast's unused recording time rolls over up to twice the monthly hours, and extra time costs $5 an hour. Riverside's hours never roll over. Cleanfeed Pro is $12 a month and records an isolated audio track for up to 32 guests. Zencastr's Free plan allows up to six participants and lists live streaming up to 1080p, and its pricing page lists 48 kHz WAV recording; we found no paid price. For the editor-first route, our Riverside vs Descript comparison covers per-person against per-account pricing.

The bottom line

Pick Riverside if your show depends on remote guests, you want 48 kHz separate tracks without asking guests to install anything, and you like cleanup, show notes and clips in the same place as the recording. Pro covers a weekly or even thrice-weekly interview show; Grow is the step for video on Apple Podcasts or live streaming. Look elsewhere if you need a video RSS feed, record daily on a tight budget, or cannot accept AI training on your recordings without a Business contract.