Submitting your show to Apple Podcasts + Spotify

You've got Pod installed, your first episode is up, and the RSS feed at yoursite.com/podcast/rss/ is producing what it should. Now for the last step: getting your show into the directories listeners actually use — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else they crawl outward from.

Before you submit

The directories run their own automated checks on new feeds. Meet these first or the submission gets rejected and you have to try again after a fix + a wait:

Cover art on the show and on each episode — this is what listeners see in every podcast app, so it's worth getting right before you submit.
- The show cover is Ghost's publication cover. Set it in Ghost admin → Settings → Design & branding → Brand — the Publication cover field is at the top. Upload a square image, 1400×1400 to 3000×3000 pixels, JPG or PNG, RGB colour space, under 512 KB. Pod ships a bundled default so a fresh install technically passes Apple's validator, but replace it before submitting — the default is a stock landscape, not your show.
- Each episode cover is Ghost's feature image on the episode post. In the Ghost editor, click the settings cog (top right), and near the top of the panel is a Feature image upload button. Same size and format rules apply. Skip this and Pod paints its CSS-rendered fallback tile on your site plus the shipped default cover in the RSS feed — every episode still has cover art, just not the specific one you'd probably design.
iTunes fields filled in. In Ghost admin → Settings → Design → Site-wide: iTunes author, iTunes owner name, iTunes owner email (this must be a real inbox — Apple emails a verification code to it), iTunes category, iTunes explicit flag, iTunes type (episodic vs serial).
At least one published episode. Some directories reject feeds with zero items.
The feed is publicly reachable. If your site is behind a members-only wall, Apple can't fetch it. Public site required.
HTTPS. Apple requires it. If you're on Magic Pages you already have it; if you're self-hosting, make sure your certificate is valid.

Pass the feed through Cast Feed Validator or Cast Feed Validator first — either will tell you if anything's wrong before Apple does.

Apple Podcasts

Apple's directory is the primary one — most other apps ingest Apple's catalog, so submitting here first often surfaces you in a dozen other apps by association.

Go to podcastsconnect.apple.com and sign in with an Apple ID. Any Apple ID works; you don't need a paid developer account.
Click Add a Show in the top-right.
Paste your Pod feed URL: https://yoursite.com/podcast/rss/. Apple fetches the feed and validates it in-browser. If validation fails, Apple points at the specific field or requirement that failed. Fix that, click Refresh, try again.
Confirm ownership. Apple emails a verification code to the iTunes owner email you set in Ghost. Enter the code.
Submit for review. Approval usually takes hours to a day. Apple runs an automated + light human review — they check the cover art, category, and any obvious policy issues. When approved, you get an apple.co URL and an Apple Podcasts show ID.
After Apple approves your show, copy your podcasts.apple.com/… show URL and paste it into Ghost admin → Settings → Design → Site-wide → subscribe_apple_url. That URL now powers the Apple Podcasts button on your /subscribe/ page, the homepage subscribe band, and the end-of-episode CTA — one working button for listeners on every OS and browser, not just iOS. Before you paste it in, the pill still works via the podcast:// URL scheme for iOS/macOS listeners, so day-one visitors aren't left with a dead link.

Spotify

Spotify is the second-largest podcast platform for most creators. Their submission flow is at podcasters.spotify.com.

Sign in with a Spotify account.
Click Add or claim your podcast.
Paste your Pod feed URL. Spotify validates it, verifies ownership by emailing a code to the iTunes owner email (same field Apple uses).
Fill in a few Spotify-specific fields (country, primary language, category — Spotify's categories aren't identical to Apple's, but the closest match works fine).
Submit. Spotify's review is usually faster than Apple's — typically an hour.
When approved, copy your Spotify show URL (looks like https://open.spotify.com/show/6a5nY...) and paste it into Ghost admin → Settings → Design → Site-wide → Spotify show URL. This turns on the Spotify button on /subscribe/, the top-5 band on the homepage, and the end-of-episode CTA. See Where listeners subscribe for the full list of app fields.

Everywhere else

Apple and Spotify together cover about 80% of listeners in most markets. The remaining apps split into two camps:

Open-catalog apps — no submission needed

Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Podcast Addict, AntennaPod, Podverse, Player FM, gPodder — these read Apple's public feed catalog. Once Apple has approved you, most of them index you within a day or two automatically. Nothing else to do. They're already on Pod's /subscribe/ page and always have been.

Closed-catalog apps — one form each

Amazon Music, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, Castbox, Pandora — each of these has its own onboarding form on its own website. There's no universal submitter; you do one at a time.

Amazon Music for Podcasters: podcasters.amazon.com
YouTube Music: podcasters submit via YouTube Studio under "Content → Podcasts"
Castbox: helper.castbox.fm

Each one takes a few minutes. When approved, paste the resulting show URL into the matching Pod custom setting in Ghost admin → Settings → Design → Site-wide: subscribe_amazon_url, subscribe_youtube_url, subscribe_castbox_url. Pod uses the pasted URL as the destination for that app's button on /subscribe/. Empty fields hide the corresponding button.

What to expect after submission

Day one: Apple approves, Spotify approves. Your show is discoverable in those two apps by name.
Days 2-7: the open-catalog apps that piggy-back on Apple index you. Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict et al. start showing your show without you doing anything.
Weeks 1-4: Google's podcast crawler picks up your feed; you start appearing in general Google search for your show name.
Any time: a listener can subscribe directly from your /subscribe/ page, at any point — that page works from the moment Pod is installed and the routes.yaml is uploaded, no directory approval required.

Updating an already-submitted show

Once your feed is in Apple + Spotify, they poll it periodically for changes. New episodes appear within an hour or so of your RSS feed being updated. You don't re-submit for each episode; you just publish new posts on your Ghost site and let the feed do the work.

If you ever need to change your feed URL (moving hosts, switching domains, etc.), the mechanism is <itunes:new-feed-url>. Pod supports this via a custom setting in a future release — until then, contact help@magicpages.co if you need to migrate a live feed.