Getting Started > FAQ

Hello there! Thanks for checking out Podcast Later. If you have questions that are not answered below or feedback for us, please feel free to shoot us an email or reach out on social media or on Blue Sky and on X.

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What is Podcast Later?

Podcast Later is a suite of applications that elevate your online reading experience. We take articles, blog posts, news stories, and other online content and save it for you privately for later. Unlike most Read It Later services, however, we deliver that content to you as spoken word first. It becomes a private podcast feed that you add to your favorite podcast player, and the stories you save automatically are downloaded and saved on your phone and integrate with all the tools and features of your podcast player app.

How lifelike is your audio? Does it sound robotic?

This is a big concern with text-to-speech. Most text-to-speech applications do sound robotic. Listening to them becomes very tiresome. At Podcast Later, we employ cutting-edge language models to get the highest level of text-to-speech audio. While this is expensive for us, we believe it is fundamental to the service. If you do not enjoy listening to your saved articles, why would you want to create a podcast from them?

Our audio is very life-like. Listen for yourself and decide. Here is this exact page at the time of writing, delivered over Podcast Later.

Does Podcast Later cost money? Do you have a free tier?

Podcast Later is a paid service. We do not have a free tier. We are a small, self-funded business that has not taken large sums of venture capital money. As such, we need to charge for this cutting-edge speech-to-text generation.

Our pricing is very affordable. Check out our pricing page for full details. We offer three plans. They start for as little as $5 per month. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan or cancel anytime you like.

You know the saying: You are not our product, you are our customer. We do not resell or share your information. For more details, see the FAQ question "Do you resell or share my information" below.

How do I add my articles to my podcast player?

Every podcast has what is called a podcast feed. This is a link that delivers all the episodes of that podcast in a structured style called RSS adapted for podcast data. Most podcasts are public and so you can search for them in your podcast player which pulls data from the iTunes catalog among other places.

Your private podcast feed at Podcast Later is different from these public podcasts. It is entirely private to you. Therefore, it will not appear in podcast directories or when searching inside of podcast players.

But almost all podcast applications have the ability to add private personalized feeds. You just do this by taking your private podcast URL and entering it into the podcast player rather than searching for it.

You can find your private podcast feed and instructions for adding it to your podcast player here:

podcastlater.com/getting-started/rss

Once you enter your podcast feed, your podcast player app and the Podcast Later website will take it from there. As you add new articles, they will automatically start appearing in your podcast feed on your phone or tablet.

However, do be aware that podcast applications do not constantly check for new versions of those feeds. It may take up to an hour if you do not manually refresh the podcast listing for new articles to appear. This is entirely out of our control. It is built into the different podcast player applications. Our podcast feed updates immediately and is set to be checked every minute. So you should get your articles promptly.

I don't have a podcast player application. How do I get started?

If you don't have a podcast player, no worries! There are many very good and free choices as well as a few premium ones. They work on tablets, phones, and even on your desktop or laptop. We've put together a list of recommended podcast player applications that we think are great and that work well with Podcast Later.

podcastlater.com/getting-started/recommend-podcast-players

Can I change the playback speed to be faster or slower?

Yes, you can. This is just one of the benefits of these articles being delivered as a podcast. Podcast players have all sorts of built-in adjustments for the audio that they receive to customize it for the style of listening that you prefer.

For example, some of them have the ability to remove gaps with silence to tighten the audio without making it spoken faster. Others have bass boost to add or remove bass from the voices. And in these podcast players, you can set the playback speed to whatever you like.

Often the best way to do this is to use the podcast-level settings instead of per article. This way, you can tell your podcast player to always play Podcast Later articles faster or slower as you like.

What podcast player apps do you recommend?

We've put together a list of recommended podcast player applications that we think are great and that work well with Podcast Later.

podcastlater.com/getting-started/recommend-podcast-players

Are there size limits for articles I can save to Podcast Later?

There are size limits to articles you can save in Podcast Later. Depending on which plan you are subscribed to, they can be smaller or larger. The starting tier will handle articles from 1 to 25 pages long whereas the top tier allows saves of pages up to 100 pages long.

The underlying system can handle large articles. We set this limit mostly to protect you from blowing past your monthly limits all in one shot by accident. Imagine you're excited to read an article, you grab the URL, throw it in Podcast Later just to learn that it was 150 pages long. Now that's the one and only article you can save this month. That's not a great user experience.

How do I save an article to my podcast feed?

Podcast Later is a brand-new application and company. And we are exploring multiple ways to make it easy for you to add an article to your podcast feed. Unlike most tech companies, we want you to interact with us as little as possible. Save an article, go back to what you were doing, open up your podcast player at some point later, and start listening. That's our value proposition. To be your assistant behind the scenes to take the information you need and convert it and deliver it in a format and style that you want.

Currently, you need to use our website to save an article. Just visit podcastlater.com/saves and enter the URL of the article in the input box right at the top of the page. You'll see it processing immediately, but there's no need to stay unless you're just curious to watch it process. When it's ready, you can read it online. The preferred and intended way is through your podcast player app.

We are rapidly working to add additional ways for you to save and interact with your podcast feed:

• A browser extension for Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox, and other web browsers.
• A mobile app which will include a "share sheet" to save directly from other applications

Look for these two additional ways to become available within the next few months.

Can I listen on more than one device?

Of course, you can listen on more than one device. We don't want to be that annoying company that limits you to just your laptop, or just your phone, or something silly like that. These are private articles that you personally saved to listen to later. You should be able to listen to them where you want. Just set up a podcast player on each device that you want to use and enter your private podcast URL as discussed at podcastlater.com/getting-started/rss.

There is a caveat, however. If we believe that your private feed has been shared publicly or is being accessed excessively, we will take actions to stop this. It is against our terms of service. Those actions may include changing your private URL in which case you'll need to re-enter it into your players or in extreme cases we may cancel your account.

Can I share my podcast feed with others?

No. This is not permitted and is against our terms of service. If we believe that your private feed has been shared we will take actions to stop this. That may include changing your private URL in which case you'll need to re-enter it into your players or in extreme cases we may cancel your account.

Do you offer refunds?

We do not offer refunds, but you can cancel your subscription at any time. Once you cancel your subscription, you will not be charged again, and you will still have access to our service for the remaining current period of your last subscription purchase.

For example, if you bought your subscription on March 5th and canceled it on March 20th, you would not be charged again, and you would still have access to the service until April 5th.

Can I upgrade or downgrade my subscription once I start it?

Yes, you're welcome to upgrade or downgrade your subscription as you see fit. Just visit your account page to modify it.

Are there websites that do not work with Podcast Later?

There are websites that do not work with Podcast Later. Most websites work fine. However, certain websites are restricted by paywalls or have other types of automated access blockers. The most notable example here is probably the New York Times, which we do not access.

To be honest, if there are publishers out there who do not want Read It Later applications to access them, we'd prefer to honor that desire. However, the vast majority of websites work fine with Read It Later apps.

Additionally, while most websites work perfectly in Podcast Later, there are certain pages whose underlying HTML structure is bizarre or even broken, in which case our ability to turn that into plain text and then spoken word is hampered. Oftentimes, there's not much we can do about this, but we do try our best.

I'm a publisher and do not want Podcast Later to read my articles to my visitors, what can I do?

If you do not want read it later types of applications such as Podcast Later to access your content we want to respect that request. Just contact us over email, and we will remove all of your content from the system and block further reading of your content.

Additionally, see the Q/A above "Are there websites that do not work with Podcast Later?"

Does Podcast Later have an API?

No. We do not have an API. Feel free to reach out with a request. At some point, maybe this will change, but currently, there is no public API for our service.

I don't see Podcast Later when searching for podcasts

Podcast Later is a private podcast feed intended for one individual user, you. As such, it does not show up in podcast catalogs such as iTunes. See the detailed answer under "How do I add my articles to my podcast player?" above to get started.

When and how can I cancel my subscription?

You can cancel your subscription anytime. You will not be charged again after that period. However, you will still have access to the service for the remaining time on your current subscription. To cancel your subscription, just visit your account page and cancel in the billing section.

Can I use Podcast Later on my desktop?

Yes, you can use Podcast Later on any podcast application that allows you to add private podcasts via URL.

We recommend you choose a podcast player app that you like and see if it's available on the operating system that you're trying to use it with. That said, it can be a little bit difficult to find good ones for Windows or macOS.

Windows Player

Grover Pro: Don't have much experience with this one but Grover Pro seems like a decent Windows Store app that will work with Podcast Later. Here is a YouTube walkthrough of Grover.

macOS Player

Overcast: Overcast is an excellent podcast player and the one that I use most of the time on my iPhone and iPad. And on Mac desktops and laptops that have been created since 2020, you can also install the iPad version of Overcast directly onto your Mac as well.

Linux Player

There are also a couple of players for Linux. If you use Linux desktop, and you know there are many variations of what apps work with which distribution, so I'll leave it up to you to search the internet for the best one for you.

Can I use Podcast Later on the web?

You can use Podcast Later on the web. There are two ways to do this. First, all of our articles are playable on your account page at podcastlater.com/saves. Simply visit that page, find the article you want, click the listen button, and you can listen to it on our website.

Alternatively, many podcast players have a listen on the web feature. Pocket Casts and Overcast, among other applications, allow you to listen on the web. So if you create an account with either of those players, subscribe to the feed, and then visit their "Listen on the Web" feature, you'll get podcast player management type of experiences through the web for your private Podcast Later articles.

My Podcast Later articles are taking up too much space on my device.

Podcast Later articles are delivered to your device like any other podcast you subscribe to in a podcast player application. That podcast app pulls the audio files in the background and saves them on your device automatically. This is a massive benefit. It means if you jump on a train or a plane or otherwise disconnected you will still have all of this content with you. It can even persist after you cancel your account here if you wish.

The downside is that over time, if you don't listen to these articles, they can pile up on your device. Nearly every podcast player application has a means to deal with this. For example, Overcast has a setting to "keep no more than N episodes" at a time. This is usually a small number such as 3, 5, or 10 latest episodes. This way, if you have a bunch of articles, they won't all pile up on your device and take a bunch of space.

You can configure your player to take only the 10 latest and leave them on your device. If you want to listen to an article older than that, you can find it in your player's list and download it again free of charge and free of credits to your device and listen to it again.

All of this is controlled completely independently of Podcast Later. So please refer to your podcast players documentation on how to manage this. That said, you can also archive an article at podcastlater.com and that will remove it from your podcast feed.

Do you resell or share my information about my reading or listening habits?

We do not resell or share your information. You are not our product. You are our customer. We are very opposed to the deep retargeting the advertising industry has polluted the web with, and we want nothing to do with it. We don't even use tools like Google Analytics to monitor visitors for this reason.

However, we do need to share some information in order to operate our business. Here are the ways in which we may share your information, but they have nothing to do with reselling your information or habits.

Text to speech: In order to create a text-to-speech version of an article, we send it to a third party who uses large cloud computing clusters to generate the audio version of that article. This usually has nothing to do with you and is not attributable back to you. But the content of that public URL that you share with us will be delivered to that cloud computing system in order to generate a text-to-speech audio file.

E-commerce: When you subscribe to a plan at Podcast Later, we need to have our credit card processing company manage that information. So we share things like your name, your email, and your credit card number securely with them to facilitate your subscription at our service.

Email: If you have opted in to receive our newsletters and announcements, we use a third party to manage and send those emails. Therefore, we will need to provide your name and email address to them privately so that we can communicate with you.

How does Podcast Later make money?

Podcast Later makes money from your subscriptions. See the pricing page for details. We charge an amount high enough to cover our monthly fees so we don't have to do shady things such as reselling your information or your habits. You are our customer, not our product, and we very much appreciate your subscription and trust in us.

What to do with Podcast Later is mispronouncing common words in my field?

Our text-to-speech gets most words and phrases correct but 100% accuracy is nearly impossible. That said, we have additional processes in place to try to make pronunciation of words as accurate as possible. We're continuously updating these corrections.

If you work in a field that is acronym heavy and very common acronyms are being mispronounced consider emailing us and letting us know about this problem. Be sure to include the acronym as it appears in text, its meaning, how it's being mispronounced, and how it should be pronounced.

Should I save sensitive information to Podcast Later?

Probably not. While we don't share your information other than as outlined in "Do you resell or share my information about my reading or listening habits?" above, if you consider the information very private or sensitive, it's better to just keep it to yourself. Furthermore, we can only access content that is already publicly visible on the internet through a public URL.

Can I save files such as PDF, Word documents, or others to Podcast Later?

Not yet. Currently we can only work with HTML content that is available at a public URL. We have early prototypes for processing PDF files that will come to our product soon. But today, we do not have that support. Word document support is more uncertain.

Do I need my username or password to enter my podcast feed?

No, you do not need to use a username or password when entering your podcast feed into your podcast player. We've created a secret podcast code that is a stand-in for your username and password. It can only be used to access your RSS feed. It cannot make additional changes to your Podcast Later account.

Do you have a mobile app?

No, we do not have a mobile app. We're a brand-new company and are just getting the service launched. That said, a mobile app is certainly in our roadmap and we're working towards it as soon as possible.

Do you have a browser extension?

Yes! we have browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi, Zen, and others. Install them at podcastlater.com/install.

Is Podcast Later open source?

Yes and no. The core web application that manages your account, your podcast feed, and the text-to-speech is closed source. But we intend to have our browser extensions and our mobile app open source. There's still a work in process, as you can see from the two questions above.

Can I delete all of my information from Podcast Later?

Yes, you can completely delete all of your information from Podcast Letter. Just visit your account page and choose Delete My Account.

What is your privacy policy?

Please see our privacy policy page for details.

What technology is Podcast Later built with?

Podcasts are delivered over RSS feeds, and are therefore effectively technologically agnostic. But I'm sure some of you are curious about what technology actually powers the web app and APIs that make all of this possible.

The web app is built with Python and Flask. It's backed by a MongoDB database using the Beanie ODM. The front-end HTML is created with the Bulma framework and the interactivity is provided using the delightful HTMX framework. It runs in a Hetzner data center on the United States East Coast out of Arlington, Virginia.