Is Player FM really free?
Yes, it's free to install and the features you enjoy today will always be free, plus more to come. And although premium plans are also available, all existing features remain free.
Why free? Firstly, we view Player FM as an open platform. You can make your subscriptions public and share them on the web. The catalog organization is also available under a Creative Commons license. These kinds of social and data sharing features would not be practical with an app that placed a payment barrier in front of every user. Secondly, from a practical perspective, it's difficult for a new app to charge an upfront fee when there are established alternatives, no matter how much innovation the new app brings to the table. Having launched later than other podcasting apps, it simply wouldn't have reached enough interest to make the project sustainable.
For those reasons, we decided to focus on making a great experience all users can enjoy. We will announce additional features for paying users later on.