You could already be paying for a great podcast app and not even realize it

It’s been two years since Google Podcasts was shut down, and since then, I’ve been bouncing between apps trying to find the best place to listen to my favorite shows. YouTube Music supports them, but I dislike my music and podcasts getting awkwardly mixed into the same playlists.

Recently, I found out that I was already paying for an app that included podcasts, and it has turned out to be perfect for me.

If you’re an Amazon Prime customer, you get Amazon Music included with your shipping perks. Despite that, I’ve always ignored it in favor of YouTube Music because many of the artists I listen to aren’t on Amazon’s service, and I’m already paying for YouTube Premium anyway.

However, that changed a month ago when I accidentally opened an Amazon Prime marketing email — the kind I usually delete without opening. The email informed me that I wasn’t “taking full advantage of my Prime membership” because I wasn’t listening to ad-free podcasts on Amazon Music.

After downloading Amazon Music and signing in, I was pleased to find that the podcast side of Amazon Music is shockingly great.

Amazon will heavily advertise that podcasts are “ad-free” on its platform, but that’s not entirely true, as it varies from podcast to podcast. In my case, each episode of Smith and Sniff begins with “You’re listening ad-free on Amazon Music,” but Top Gear and Waveform do not, so your mileage will vary based on what you’re listening to.

There are some features from dedicated podcast apps that Amazon Music is missing. You can’t group podcasts into folders, and there’s no option to automatically download new episodes. That’s no great loss for me, though, and having Amazon Music included in something I already pay for means I’m happy to overlook it. This is especially true when Amazon Music has a great desktop client for Windows, something you have to pay extra for on other podcast services (if it’s available at all).

If you’re a hardcore podcast listener, chances are Amazon Music is too basic for you, and you’d be better off using something like Pocket Casts. But if you’re like me and listen to enough podcasts that you don’t want them getting mixed in with your music and playlists, but don’t listen enough to want to pay for a dedicated podcast app, then Amazon Music is the perfect middle ground. Provided you’re already an Amazon Prime customer, of course.

Amazon Music has included podcasts since 2020, and I had no idea until I accidentally opened that email. I imagine many of you reading this are in the same boat, paying for something without realizing it. If that’s you, I encourage you to try it out — it might just be the podcast app you’ve been looking for.