Radio hosting

Radio hosting that puts your station on air in about ten minutes

Primcast radio hosting gives your internet radio station a secure listen link, a web player and its own control panel as soon as your order goes through. Start on the free plan, connect your encoder, and up to 1,000 people can listen at once.

Want music playing while you sleep? That is Auto DJ, on Premium and Platinum. The free plan's whole bill is right here, setup fee included, so nothing new shows up at checkout.

Start your free station Compare the three plans

Hosted on our own servers in New York and Bucharest. Primcast has run radio stations since 2009.

New AI Production · Premium and Platinum

Empty playlist? Type what you need and press make.

Ads for your sponsors, station IDs, the weather, a news bulletin, a talk show, even original songs: written for you, recorded with the voice you pick and dropped straight into your Auto DJ library. No studio, no voice actors, no radio experience needed.

Uses your own OpenAI or ElevenLabs account for voices and music
Lands in your playlists by itself, ready to air
Platinum adds an AI DJ that talks between your songs

Start a Premium station See everything it makes

Plans

Radio streaming hosting plans, from free to 5,000 listeners

Every plan comes with unmetered bandwidth, a secure https:// stream, a station page and the same control panel. What you pay for is sound quality, Auto DJ, live tools and how many people can tune in at the same time.

01FreeJ999

Go live from your own computer

$0 a month

Plus a one-time setup fee of $5

Bitrate 32 Kbps
Listeners at once 1,000
Streams 1
Music storage None, live only
Audience stats 7 days
Podcasting Starts on Premium

Station page, guide listing and show line-up
Airplay log and royalty reports
Who is listening right now, and an email if you go off air

Delivery from the closest of five cities comes with Platinum

Right for: trying radio, live shows from an encoder, a station that is only on air when you are.

Start free

02PremiumJ402

Keep the music playing around the clock

$39 a month

Or $390 a year, which saves $78. No setup fee.

Bitrate 128 Kbps
Listeners at once 2,500
Listener hours a month 500,000
Music storage 20 GB
DJ logins 5
Audience stats 30 days, show by show

Auto DJ playing to hour clocks you build
Recorded and syndicated shows, smart playlists and a check of your week
A studio in your browser, talk-over, automatic DJ hand-over and every live show recorded
Your station's own iPhone and Android app
Your shows published as podcasts for Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with ads from your own advertisers

Delivery from the closest of five cities comes with Platinum

Free for 14 days Card or PayPal at checkout, first charge on day 15

Choose Premium

03PlatinumJ403

Heard worldwide, in broadcast sound, under full control

$79 a month

Or $790 a year, which saves $158. No setup fee.

Global radio CDN

Your listeners and your encoder connect to our closest server: New York, Miami, San Francisco, Amsterdam or Bucharest.

Your station comes on sooner and buffers less for people listening in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, North Africa and West Asia. How it works

Bitrate 320 Kbps
Listeners at once 5,000
Listener hours a month 1.5 million
Music storage 100 GB
DJ logins 20
Audience stats 90 days, with exports

3 streams: your best quality plus lighter copies for phones
Even loudness, cue points, song requests and voice tracks
Guest links, a backup encoder, a standby slot and gapless DJ handovers
Tune-out stats per song, email reports, priority help
Podcasting, with a feed, a podcast page and download stats

Free for 14 days Card or PayPal at checkout, first charge on day 15

Choose Platinum

Listeners in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, North Africa or West Asia?

Platinum connects each of them, and your encoder, to the closest of five cities, so your station comes on sooner and buffers less wherever they tune in. If a server goes quiet, the next closest city takes over. How our radio CDN works

Choose Platinum

Expecting more than 5,000 listeners at once?

That is where Platinum stops. Tell us your peak audience and we will quote a station built for it, so nobody gets turned away in the middle of a broadcast.

Tell us your numbers

The setup fee applies to the free plan only, and it is not refundable because it pays for building the station. On Premium or Platinum, write to us within three days of activation and you get your money back pro-rated at the monthly price, minus a 15% admin fee (crypto payments excepted; see the refund policy). Every plan gets the same secure stream link, and you can move up a plan whenever the station outgrows its own. See every feature side by side.

Try Premium or Platinum free for 14 days

Add a card or PayPal when you sign up and nothing is charged before day 15. Cancel before then and you pay nothing at all. One trial per new customer, and one more when you move up from Free or Premium.

Start a free trial

Every feature

Free, Premium and Platinum, line by line

This is the full list our radio platform switches on for each plan. A tick means it is in the plan you order. A dash means it is not, and moving up a plan switches it on.

What each radio hosting plan includes
Feature	Free	Premium	Platinum
Radio CDN · Platinum only
Listeners hear you from the closest of five cities	Not included	Not included	Included
Your encoder connects to the closest city	Not included	Not included	Included
If a server fails, the next closest city takes over	Not included	Not included	Included
On air
People listening at the same time	1,000	2,500	5,000
Monthly allowance of listener hours	No monthly allowance	500,000	1.5 million
Best sound quality you can send	32 Kbps	128 Kbps	320 Kbps
Streams (extras are lighter copies for phones)	1	1	3
Secure https:// link and a player that works in any browser	Included	Included	Included
Connect an Icecast or a SHOUTcast encoder	Included	Included	Included
Auto DJ
Auto DJ plays when nobody is live	Not included	Included	Included
Space on our servers for your songs	Not included	20 GB	100 GB
Hour clocks, plus weekday, weekend and seasonal schedules	Not included	Included	Included
Crossfades, silence trimmed, artists kept apart	Not included	Included	Included
US webcasting play rules applied for you	Not included	Included	Included
A fallback playlist so the station never goes quiet	Not included	Included	Included
Every song played at the same volume	Not included	Not included	Included
Mark where each song starts, talks over and ends	Not included	Not included	Included
Favorites played more often, explicit tags and a clean mode	Not included	Not included	Included
Song requests from listeners, with limits you choose	Not included	Not included	Included
Recorded voice links played between songs	Not included	Not included	Included
An AI DJ that talks between songs, in the voice and style you choose	Not included	Not included	Included
Production: ads, station IDs, weather, news, talk and songs made for you with AI, or sent in through the API	Not included	Included	Included
Recorded and syndicated shows from their cue sheets, with reruns and expiry dates	Not included	Included	Included
Playlists that fill themselves from tags or a folder, your own cover art and a week check	Not included	Included	Included
Live shows and DJs
DJ logins, each with its own hours on air	Not included	5	20
Go live from your browser, nothing to install	Not included	Included	Included
Live DJs take over and hand back on their own, plus a kill switch	Not included	Included	Included
An alert if the station goes silent	Not included	Included	Included
A backup encoder, gapless handovers between DJs and a standby slot	Not included	Not included	Included
Invite a guest on air with a link	Not included	Not included	Included
Talk over the music from a microphone, with the music dipped under you	Not included	Included	Included
Every live show saved to your library, ready to turn into a podcast episode	Not included	Included	Included
Your audience
See who is listening this minute, and export the list as CSV	Included	Included	Included
How far back your stats go	7 days	30 days	90 days
Countries, devices, apps, referring sites and listening time	Not included	Included	Included
Results for every show and playlist	Not included	Included	Included
Which songs make people switch off, and traffic quality checks	Not included	Not included	Included
CSV downloads and email reports on a schedule	Not included	Not included	Included
Getting found
Your own station page, listed in the radio guide once approved	Included	Included	Included
A public show line-up with what is on now and next	Included	Included	Included
Your station in its own iPhone and Android app, CarPlay and Android Auto too, plus Android TV, Wear OS watches and Samsung and LG TVs	Not included	Included	Included
Your shows as podcasts, with a feed, a podcast page and download counts; bring a podcast over from another host, or publish live shows automatically	Not included	Included	Included
Tips from listeners, paid straight into your own PayPal, Stripe or Ko-fi	Included	Included	Included
Ads from your own advertisers inside your podcast episodes	Not included	Included	Included
Playlist links (.pls, .m3u, .xspf), help getting into TuneIn and other directories, address checks, smart speakers	Included	Included	Included
A web player that fits any space: the next song, likes and a top tracks chart, show reminders, Cast and AirPlay, a sleep timer, sharing and pop-out	Included	Included	Included
Listeners pause, rewind and start a show over	Not included	Up to 4 hours	Up to 8 hours
Listen again to every scheduled show, chaptered by song	Not included	Up to 14 days	Up to 30 days
Listeners clip a moment and share it	Not included	Included	Included
Live chat and reactions in your player, moderated by you	Not included	Included	Included
Listeners send your studio voice messages	Not included	Included	Included
Transcripts of your listen-again shows	Not included	Not included	Included
Licences and royalties
The complete airplay log, ready to download	Included	Included	Included
A tamper-evident seal on every day of that log	Included	Included	Included
Royalty reports: SoundExchange-style usage, layouts for ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, PRS, GEMA, SACEM and UCMR-ADA, a play log, cue sheets, hours by country and a completeness check	Included	Included	Included
Your licences kept on file and checked by us	Included	Included	Included
Country limits that follow your licences	Included	Included	Included
Songs leave rotation by themselves when their rights run out	Not included	Included	Included
Proof-of-airing reports for the ads your Auto DJ plays	Not included	Included	Included
Each finished month of airplay kept as a CSV, old Centova history included	Included	Included	Included
Staying on air, and your API
Earlier versions of your programming, put back in one click	Not included	Included	Included
An email when the station goes off air, maintenance notices and a public status page	Included	Included	Included
A read-only station API with keys or OAuth sign-in, and webhooks	Included	Included	Included
Help
Help from our team	Email	Chat and phone	Priority, with your first clock built for you
Try it before the first charge	Not included	14-day trial	14-day trial

The licensing tools keep your records. They are not a licence to play music, and arranging those stays with you; our royalty fees guide explains where to start.

The player

A radio player people actually stay on

Paste it into your website once. It fits whatever space you give it, a slim bar or a full page with artwork, and players you already embedded picked up every new feature by themselves.

On every plan, Free too

The show on air and the next song, thumbs up and down with a Top Tracks chart, a reminder before a show starts, a tap to find the song on Apple Music, Spotify or YouTube Music, a data saver on phones, a sleep timer, Chromecast and AirPlay, and a tip button that pays you directly.

Pause and rewind live radio

On Premium and Platinum, listeners pause and pick up where they left off, skip back 30 seconds, or start the show on air from its first minute. Premium keeps up to the last 4 hours, Platinum up to 8.

Listen again

Every show on your schedule is saved the moment it ends, with each song as a chapter to jump to. Kept up to 14 days on Premium and 30 on Platinum, where shows also come with a transcript to read along.

Clips worth sharing

On Premium and Platinum, a listener grabs the last 15, 30 or 60 seconds, the joke, the goal, the shout-out, and shares a link that plays it.

Chat and reactions

Turn on a chat room inside the player on Premium and Platinum, with floating reactions. Links are blocked, the worst words are hidden, and you can hide a message or ban someone from your panel.

Voice messages to the studio

Listeners record up to a minute for you on Premium and Platinum. Hear them in your panel, add one to your library, or play it on air with voice tracking on Platinum. Platinum players also take song requests.

Production · Premium and Platinum

No content yet? Production makes it for you

Tell it what you need and it writes and records it, straight into your music library: ads for the businesses that advertise with you, station IDs, the weather, a news bulletin, a talk segment, even an original song. Connect your own OpenAI or ElevenLabs account for the voices and music; what they charge comes from your account with them.

Ads in a minute

Give the brand, the offer and what listeners should do, and get a 15, 30 or 60-second spot. It only says what you typed, never an invented price.

IDs, weather and news

Several station IDs at once, today's and tomorrow's weather for your city from live forecasts, and news read only from the feeds you choose, each story credited.

Talk shows and songs

A segment on any topic with one host or a two-person conversation, up to 8 minutes, and original songs from a genre, a mood and a tempo. Asking to copy a famous artist is refused.

Straight onto your playlists

Everything is filed in an AI Studio folder by type. Point a folder playlist at it and new items go on air with no other change.

From your own tools, too

Made audio somewhere else? Bring it in by link or upload. Developers create content and import audio with an API key that has the Radio production permission.

An AI DJ on Platinum

A presenter between songs, day and night: what just played, what is next, your station's name and the time, in the voice and personality you pick.

Radio CDN, on Platinum

Your listeners hear you from the server closest to them

Your station lives in New York or Bucharest. On Platinum, each listener connects to the closest of our five cities instead, and so does your encoder. Every one of those servers pulls a single copy of your stream, however many people are listening there.

listen.radio.primcast.com Closest server

New York, BucharestStations live here. Listeners and encoders connect here too. Amsterdam, Miami, San FranciscoListeners and encoders connect here.

One link for every listener
Share your station's CDN link. Whoever opens it is answered by our server closest to where they are, and everybody listening through that city shares a single copy of your stream.
Your encoder stops at the closest server
Use the Nearest server settings and that server relays your show to your station's own server. Your password, your DJs' hours and your show all work exactly as they do now.
A server that goes quiet is skipped
We check every server every 10 seconds. One that misses 2 checks in a row is taken out, and anyone who reconnects is sent to the next closest city.

An audience on several continents? Platinum puts a server near each of them

Nobody has to reach across an ocean to hear you: each listener, and your encoder, connects in or near their own region. When we measured it, sound started 0.25–0.7 seconds after the player connected.

North America: New York
Latin America and the Caribbean: Miami
Western Europe: Amsterdam
Eastern Europe: Bucharest
North Africa, and Africa beyond it: Amsterdam
The Middle East: Bucharest
West Asia: Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan: Bucharest
South and Central Asia: Bucharest
Asia-Pacific: San Francisco

Choose Platinum Upgrade the station you have

On Platinum, your dashboard's Radio section adds your CDN link and your Nearest server details. Free and Premium stations are reached directly, on the server they live on. Every plan keeps the links and settings you have now. How our radio CDN works

Inside the panel

The radio panel you run your station from

These are real screens from the Radio section of the Primcast dashboard, taken on a demo station called Midnight Lounge FM. Free, Premium and Platinum all sign in to the same panel; a paid plan opens more of it.

See who is listening right now

The first screen after you sign in. How many people are tuned in this minute, the last 24 hours on a chart, how much of the month's listener hours you have used, and the https:// link to hand out to anyone who wants to listen.

Station dashboard showing the live listener count, a 24-hour chart, monthly listener-hour use and the station's https stream link — Overview: the numbers you check before every show.

Plan the whole week, not just the next hour

Place your shows and music blocks on the days and times they belong: overnight music, a morning show, something different at the weekend. Your station page shows the same line-up, so listeners can see what is on now and what comes next.

On Premium and Platinum, Auto DJ plays the blocks you placed whenever nobody is live, airs your recorded and syndicated programs at their times, and a week check flags overlaps and silent slots before you save. Saved something you regret? Put an earlier version back in one click.

Radio panel schedule: a week of programming with overnight, morning, daytime, evening and weekend blocks — Schedule: one week of programming at a glance.

Find out when people tune in, and when they leave

A live list shows who is tuned in this minute, ready to export. Below it: listener hours, sessions, unique listeners, average listening time and your peak, with a chart of the whole week. Free keeps 7 days of it. Premium keeps 30 and adds countries, devices and results for each show. Platinum keeps 90 and sends the reports to your inbox.

Seven days of audience figures with a listeners-over-time chart and when listeners tune in and leave — Audience: a week of listening, hour by hour.

Keep the paperwork your music needs

Upload the licences you hold, declare your rights, set the countries you may be heard in, and download the airplay log, sealed day by day so nobody can change it afterwards. Royalty reports come out ready to file, and each finished month waits under Archived reports. This is on every plan, the free one included. With Auto DJ, the Commercials tab also proves to your advertisers when each of their spots aired.

Licensing tab with the licences on file, the rights declaration and the station's airplay log — Licensing: licences, rights and the airplay log in one place.

Getting on air

Start an online radio station in five steps

There is no sales call and no approval queue. Your station is built automatically after you order, and most of the ten minutes is you setting up your encoder.

0:00
Open your account
An email address and a password. On the free plan this is where the one-time setup fee is paid. It is the only charge a free station ever has.
1:00
Sign in to the radio panel
Your station lives in the Radio section of your Primcast dashboard. Start and stop the stream, see who is listening, set up your station page and copy the player for your website.
3:00
Copy the settings into your encoder
The Go live tab prints the server, port, mount point and password. Icecast encoders and SHOUTcast encoders both connect, on every plan.
6:00
Press connect
No encoder yet? Mixxx is free and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. A hardware encoder broadcasts straight from the studio with no computer at all. On Premium and Platinum you can also go live from your browser.
8:00
Share your link
Your listen link starts with https:// from the first minute, so it plays inside any secure web page. Embed the player, send the link as it is, or point people to your station page.

On every plan

What internet radio hosting includes here, free plan too

Each plan has a ceiling it stops at. None of them has an overage that turns up on your invoice.

Unmetered bandwidth

Nobody counts the data your listeners use. A quiet week and a week your show takes off cost the same.

A secure https:// stream

Every station's link is https://, never sold as an extra, with a plain http:// copy for old players. Browsers, apps and directories play it without a security warning.

Live listener figures

See who is listening right now, live, and download that list as a CSV. Then look back over recent days: 7 on Free, 30 on Premium and 90 on Platinum.

A page people can find

Your station gets its own page with a working player and your show line-up, and once we approve it, a place in Primcast Tune In. No website of your own needed. You also get .pls, .m3u and .xspf links, help submitting to TuneIn, Radio Browser and Radio Garden, checks that each directory still plays your current address, and a web player that fits any space.

Records for your licences

A full airplay log you can download, sealed each day, plus royalty reports in the layouts ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, PRS, GEMA, SACEM and UCMR-ADA use, with a completeness check. Every finished month is archived as a CSV, and your licences stay on file.

No fee to leave

Close the station and billing stops with it. No exit charge and no notice period.

Where it runs

Our servers in New York and Bucharest

Your station runs on our Icecast radio platform in New York or Bucharest, on hardware Primcast owns and runs; a new station can open in either city. On Platinum, our radio CDN then plays it to every listener from the closest of five cities, New York, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Miami and San Francisco, and lets your encoder connect to the closest one too. Each station gets its own Icecast server, so another station's busy night never becomes yours. And because the port is ours, bandwidth is never billed by the gigabyte. How the radio CDN works.

Who answers

Help in seconds, a person when you ask

Questions before you order? Open the chat on this page. Our AI assistant answers in seconds, and you can ask for one of our team at any point. Once you are on air, Free stations get help by email, Premium adds chat and phone, and Platinum gets priority help with your first hour clock built for you. On every plan, the panel's Reliability tab shows any incident or planned maintenance where your station runs, off-air alerts email you when nothing is on air, and a read-only API with webhooks lets your own systems hear the same news.

Questions

What people ask before they start a station

Is free radio hosting really free, or does it run out?

It is free and it does not expire. You pay one setup fee of $5 when the station is built, and after that a free station costs nothing for as long as you broadcast.

Can music play on my station while I am offline?

Not on the free plan. Auto DJ plays from music stored on our servers, and the free plan has no storage, so there is nowhere to keep a library. Premium includes Auto DJ with 20 GB for your music and Platinum with 100 GB.

How many people can listen to my radio station at once?

Up to 1,000 on the free plan, 2,500 on Premium and 5,000 on Platinum. These are real ceilings. If you expect more, tell us and we will quote the station properly instead of letting you hit the limit live. Premium and Platinum also include a monthly allowance of 500,000 and 1.5 million listener hours.

What is a listener hour, and what happens if I use them all?

One person listening for one hour. Premium's allowance is about 690 people tuned in around the clock for a whole month, and Platinum's about 2,080. We email you at 80% and again at 100%. At 100%, people already listening keep listening, and new listeners can tune in again on the 1st of the next month, or straight away if you move from Premium to Platinum. Nothing is ever added to your bill. The free plan has no listener-hour allowance, only its ceiling at once.

Does my station run on Icecast or SHOUTcast?

Either. Every station starts on Icecast 2.5, one server per station. Your encoder can speak SHOUTcast on either server: BUTT, RadioBOSS, SAM Broadcaster, Mixxx and the SHOUTcast DSP connect with the server, port and password from your panel, on every plan including Free, and listeners hear the same https:// stream. New stations run Icecast; flip to a real SHOUTcast DNAS 2.6 server from the Primcast panel whenever you like, on any plan including Free, and keep its admin pages, a SHOUTcast Directory listing and every panel tool.

What do I need to start an internet radio station?

Something to broadcast, a hosting plan and a way to send your sound: a computer with an encoder, a hardware encoder, or on the paid plans just your browser. The free plan covers the hosting, and free software such as Mixxx covers the encoder. If you want the station to keep playing when you are not live, you also need Auto DJ, which comes with Premium and Platinum.

Do I need my own website?

No. Every station gets its own page with a working player and your show line-up, and once we approve it, a listing in Primcast Tune In. The same player embeds into a site you already have, and the link is https:// either way.

Can my station have its own app?

Yes, on Premium and Platinum, at no extra cost. Your station gets its own iPhone and Android app, with CarPlay and Android Auto, published under your own store accounts. See how the station app works.

Can I turn my radio shows into podcasts?

Yes, on Premium and Platinum, included in the plan. Any program can be published as a podcast: each episode is cut into one MP3 without the station breaks, and your RSS feed goes to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the other apps once. Download stats, a podcast page and an embeddable player come with it, and you can sell ads in the episodes to your own advertisers. The free plan has no podcasting. How radio podcast hosting works.

Who pays the music royalties for my station?

You do, and the licences are yours to arrange. Hosting a stream is not a licence to play recordings, and what you owe depends on where you broadcast from and what you play. What we give you is the paperwork: the airplay log, royalty reports, a place for your licences and country limits that follow them. Our royalty fees page explains the main schedules.

Where will my radio station be hosted?

On Primcast hardware in New York or in Bucharest. With Platinum, our radio CDN connects your listeners and your encoder to the closest of five cities across Europe and the US: New York, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Miami and San Francisco. How it works.

My listeners are in several countries. Which plan fits?

Platinum, because its radio CDN gives each region a server close by. North America hears you from New York and Latin America and the Caribbean from Miami; Western Europe and North Africa tune in through Amsterdam; Eastern Europe, the Middle East, West Asia and South Asia through Bucharest; Asia-Pacific through San Francisco. Your encoder sends to its closest city as well, and should one server go quiet, the next closest city picks up its listeners. How it works.

Can I upgrade later without losing my station?

Yes. Your panel, your station page and your listeners' link all stay the same. What changes is the bitrate, the listener ceiling, the storage and the tools you can use. Nobody has to re-tune anything.

Somebody out there is waiting to hear your station

Open the station, connect your encoder and find out who tunes in. A free station runs on the same servers and the same panel as a paid one.

Start your free station Start with Premium