Blubrry vs ICONS Podcast hosting: which should an agent use?

Blubrry vs ICONS Podcast hosting turns on WordPress, video and price. Blubrry hosting costs $7 to $90 a month by hours published (October 2026), supports video on every plan and bundles a managed WordPress site, which makes it a natural fit for agents whose website already runs on WordPress. ICONS Podcast hosting is free, audio-only, and connects to ICONS production.

Blubrry against ICONS Podcast hosting, row by row

Blubrry and ICONS Podcast hosting both publish your feed and count downloads, but Blubrry sells plans by publishing hours and leans on WordPress. Blubrry’s facts below are from its own pages as of October 9, 2026; ICONS facts are from the hosting page at ICONS.

	Blubrry	ICONS Podcast hosting
Price	Standard 1.5 $7; Standard 3 $15; Advanced 6 $25; Advanced 12 $50; Advanced 25 $90 a month; Pro Unlimited from $100	Free
Billing	Monthly; annual labelled “Save 10%”; Standard 1.5 and Pro are “Monthly Only”	No billing
How you get it	Sign up (“Start for Free”)	Ask for access through the form on the product page
Limits	1.5 to 25 hours published a month; one show per subscription; unlimited downloads and bandwidth	Files up to 8 GB; no hour or show limit stated
Video	Supported on every plan	Audio only; video files converted to audio
Stats	Standard statistics on Standard plans; IAB-certified statistics on Advanced	Published counting method; not IAB-certified
Transcripts	Paid add-on, partnered with Rev	Automatic, English, editable, added to the feed
AI tools	“AI podcast tools included” on plan cards	AI drafts of titles, summary, takeaways, keywords, chapters
Website	Free managed WordPress website	Show site with episode pages, about, contact form, blog, subscribe page
Moving in	Migration service for files and feeds	Imports by feed, keeps identifiers, dates and numbering

What does Blubrry cost?

Blubrry costs $7 to $90 a month on its standard and advanced plans, and Pro Unlimited starts at $100, as of October 2026. The Blubrry plans and pricing page (October 9, 2026) prices hosting by hours published, not storage:

• Standard 1.5: $7 a month, monthly only. It covers up to 1.5 hours published a month.
• Standard 3: $15 a month for up to 3 hours. The card pitches it at weekly podcasters.
• Advanced 6: $25 a month for up to 6 hours. This plan is marked “Most popular”.
• Advanced 12: $50 a month. It allows up to 12 hours.
• Advanced 25: $90 a month. It allows up to 25 hours.
• Pro Unlimited: from $100 a month, monthly only, with unlimited publishing and bandwidth usage fees. Each extra show is $10 a month.

The page’s annual toggle reads “Save 10%”, and each hosting subscription covers one show. The hosting page advertises “unlimited downloads and bandwidth” on its hosting page. Plan cards carry a “Start for Free” button; the pricing page doesn’t state how long any free period lasts.

What do you pay for ICONS Podcast hosting?

Nothing: ICONS Podcast hosting has no price, and the way in is the product-page form, where you ask for access. There are no hour tiers and no add-ons to buy.

Once set up, the dashboard covers shows and episodes, a Podcasting 2.0 feed, a feed health check and a tracked checklist for 8 directories. You also get download stats, transcripts in English, show notes drafted by AI, a site for the show and surveys. Each upload can weigh up to 8 GB.

How does each host count and distribute?

Blubrry ties IAB-certified stats to its Advanced plans, while ICONS Podcast hosting publishes the rules it counts by. Blubrry says its “statistics are IAB v2.1 Certified Compliant.” Its pricing table lists “IAB-Certified Statistics” as included only in the Advanced column; Standard plans get “Standard Statistics”.

With ICONS hosting, known bots and data-centre addresses are filtered and tiny test requests are ignored. A download needs one minute of audio, and repeats from the same listener inside 24 hours don’t count. Those rules are published, and the service isn’t IAB-certified. For the background on why numbers differ between hosts, read how podcast downloads are counted.

For distribution, Blubrry plan cards say “Publish to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and more.” ICONS hosting hands you written steps and a tracker for 8 directories, and you submit on each directory’s site.

Video, transcripts and websites compared

Blubrry supports video and ICONS Podcast hosting publishes audio only. Blubrry says “Every Blubrry hosting plan supports video podcasting.” Its Vid2Pod tool turns YouTube playlists into podcasts on Advanced 6 and higher. ICONS hosting turns any uploaded video into a podcast MP3.

Content tools split like this:

• Transcripts. Blubrry offers them “as an add-on with any of its hosting plans” through Rev; the price wasn’t listed on the pages checked. ICONS hosting transcribes automatically in English and adds transcripts to the feed.
• AI tools. Blubrry’s plan cards say AI podcast tools are included, but its AI page says hosting customers get “five uses of each AI tool”. It also sells AI tools stand-alone from $20 a month. Confirm what your plan covers. ICONS hosting drafts titles and summaries, takeaways, keyword lists and chapters, filling only empty fields.
• Websites. Blubrry includes a free managed WordPress website. ICONS hosting builds a show site with episode pages, an about page, a contact form, a blog and a subscribe page, plus an embeddable player.

If your agent website is where the show should live, see how to embed a podcast on your real estate or IDX website.

Where Blubrry does more

Blubrry does more for agents who live in WordPress or want video and ad options. These are real advantages:

• WordPress. A free managed WordPress site comes with hosting, and Blubrry also offers its PowerPress plugin for WordPress.
• Video on every plan. Vid2Pod also turns YouTube playlists into podcast episodes.
• IAB-certified statistics on Advanced plans.
• No download caps. Standard hosting advertises unlimited downloads and bandwidth.
• Monetization. Premium Podcasting costs an extra $10 a month plus 15% of subscription revenue, and dynamic ad insertion comes through a $49 a month package or Pro hosting.
• Free stats without hosting. Free statistics are offered even if you host elsewhere.

Where ICONS hosting pulls ahead

ICONS hosting pulls ahead on cost and on built-in content help. Its advantages:

• Free. There are no hour tiers or per-show fees.
• Transcripts included. Automatic English transcripts are editable and added to the feed, with no add-on.
• Show-note drafts that never overwrite what you wrote.
• Surveys for listeners. Ask up to 10 questions from the show site.
• Detailed stats. Downloads broken out by country and region, by app, and by device and operating system, with a Monday summary email and spreadsheet export.
• Easy exit. A ZIP export of everything and a 7-day restore window after deletion.
• Connected to ICONS Live. ICONS-produced recordings become draft episodes automatically.

Can you keep a WordPress site and use ICONS hosting?

You can keep a WordPress site with either host, because a podcast feed and a website are separate things. Blubrry bundles the two, with a managed WordPress site and the PowerPress plugin. ICONS Podcast hosting gives each episode an embeddable player that you can paste into any website, WordPress included, and it also builds its own show site.

What changes is where you manage episodes. On Blubrry, a WordPress-first workflow is built in. On ICONS hosting, you publish in the ICONS dashboard and embed the player where you want it on your own site. Either way, keep the feed under an account you control, so you can move it later with a redirect.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Blubrry if your site runs on WordPress or you need video, and pick ICONS Podcast hosting for free audio hosting with transcripts and show-note drafts. Three typical agents:

• Solo agent starting a short audio show: ICONS hosting is free. Blubrry Standard 1.5 at $7 a month covers about one 90-minute month of publishing.
• Team with its own producer, or a show produced by ICONS: ICONS hosting. Recordings arrive as draft episodes.
• Agent whose WordPress site already uses Blubrry and PowerPress: stay, especially if you publish video.

Blubrry is one of eight hosts lined up in our comparison of eight podcast hosts. For a fuller checklist on choosing a host and owning your feed, read podcast hosting for real estate agents. To hand the publishing to someone else, there’s done-for-you podcast production.