The software you edit in matters less than the hours it eats each week, and that’s true whether you run a company show, a comedy podcast or a true-crime series.
Most guides rank tools by price or brand. As a full-service podcast production agency, we start with the job you need done.
We went to each vendor’s own pricing page and noted where a page left a fact out. Use the table to match a tool to your workflow.
Podcast software does three jobs
Most guides list tools by name. We sort them by job instead, because one program rarely does all three well:
- Capture: Record clean audio, or record remote guests, without losing a take.
- Edit: Cut mistakes, balance voices, remove noise and add music.
- Finish: Level the loudness, add chapters and notes, and export a file that sounds the same on every app.
Some tools cover all three, and others do one job extremely well. Buy without naming the job and you can end up paying for three overlapping subscriptions. So before you read the prices, write down which job slows you down most. That’s where your money should go.
What the vendors charge
Prices and limits change often, so confirm before you buy. If a vendor page left something out, we say so.
| Software | Best job | Price stated on the vendor page | Watch out for |
| Audacity | Capture and edit | Free; open source; Windows, MacOS and Linux | Manual workflow |
| REAPER | Capture, edit and finish | $60 discounted license, $225 commercial license; 60 day free evaluation | The discount has a revenue limit (see below) |
| Adobe Audition | Edit and finish | US$22.99 a month on the annual, billed monthly plan | Subscription; trial length not stated on the page |
| Logic Pro (Mac and iPad) | Capture and edit | $199.99 as a standalone Mac app; or $12.99 a month or $129 a year in Apple Creator Studio | The page does not mention podcasting |
| Descript | Edit by transcript | Free plan with 1 media hour a month; paid plans start at $16 per person a month billed annually ($24 monthly) for Hobbyist | Free export is 720p with a watermark |
| Auphonic | Finish | Free for 2 hours of processed audio a month | Exact paid prices are not shown on the page |
Descript’s plan table is the one we had to read closely. It shows two prices per plan without clear labels: $16 and $24 for Hobbyist, and $24 and $35 for Creator. The page’s checkout links tie the lower figure to annual billing, so expect the higher one if you pay month to month, and confirm at checkout.
The license rule many companies miss
This one matters if your show belongs to a business, or if the show is your business. REAPER’s purchase page offers a $60 discounted license, but only to certain users. It covers individuals using it for personal use, people or businesses using it commercially with yearly gross revenue of no more than $20,000, and educational or non-profit organizations.
The commercial license is $225. If your company earns more than that threshold, plan for the higher price. Read the terms yourself, since we’re not lawyers and the page may change.
Put plainly, the cheapest tool on a comparison table can cost nearly four times as much for a company as for a hobbyist. That applies to an independent creator whose show earns more than $20,000 a year, too. Check which tier you qualify for before you trust the headline price.
Free tools that are good enough to start
Audacity says it has always been and will always remain free for everyone. It’s open source and runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. The download buttons on its site point to Audacity 4.0.1, though no release date is given.
A free tool is enough when you edit one or two voices, cut by hand and have time. Its limits are workflow limits, because you’ll do the cleanup and loudness steps yourself.
GarageBand is another free option if you’re on a Mac. Its Mac App Store listing shows it as free, though Apple’s own product page only points you to the store.
Free tools have a hidden cost: your time. If a 40 minute episode takes four hours to edit, the software isn’t really free. Count your hours before you decide a paid tool is too expensive.
Paid editors: what you’re buying
Adobe Audition
Audition costs US$22.99 a month on Adobe’s annual, billed monthly plan. Adobe highlights multitrack editing, a spectral display and an Essential Sound panel meant to get professional-quality audio even if you’re not a professional. There’s a free trial button, but the page doesn’t say how long the trial lasts.
Logic Pro
Logic Pro costs $199.99 as a standalone Mac app. A subscription is also offered at $12.99 a month or $129 a year, and there’s a 30 day free trial. It runs on Mac and iPad.
Apple describes music features, such as Stem Splitter and Mastering Assistant, and says nothing about podcasting. It can still edit speech, but it’s built for music.
REAPER
REAPER offers a 60 day free evaluation with full functionality, which gives you time to learn it before you pay.
Transcript-based and automatic tools
Descript
Descript’s pricing page lists a free plan with one media hour a month. Paid plans add hours and higher quality exports, such as 1080p without a watermark on Hobbyist.
You edit by changing text, which helps if you think in words. It’s a different way of working, so test it on a real episode before you commit.
Auphonic
Auphonic is a finishing tool, so it won’t replace your editor. It applies a leveler, noise and reverb reduction, filtering, loudness control and filler and silence cutting.
Its free tier gives 2 hours of processed audio a month. Paid plans use credits, and yearly billing saves 20%, according to its pricing page.
Run your edited file through it at the end. It’s a quick way to get steady loudness without learning a meter.
Podcast recording software: local versus cloud
If you’re shopping for recording software, what you may really need is a reliable way to record a remote guest, which is a different job from editing. The big risk is a weak internet connection ruining a take.
Riverside’s own guide to recording tools explains the usual fix: local recording, where everything records directly on each participant’s device. It adds that many tools also upload files to the cloud as you record. Riverside sells one of these tools, so read it as a vendor view.
That difference is worth testing. A call recorded only in the cloud inherits every glitch in the connection, while a local copy on each side doesn’t. Ask any tool you try whether it keeps a local file for each person.
You can record for free, but the free tiers differ. Audacity records on your own computer and costs nothing, and Descript and Auphonic offer limited free hours, as shown in the table above. We didn’t verify the recording limits of other free plans, so check each vendor page.
Podcast editing software, free picks and video
Lists of podcast editing software often copy each other. Riverside’s roundup, for example, lists REAPER at a $60 one-time fee. REAPER’s own page limits that price to personal use, small commercial use and non-profits, so your business could pay $225.
Two other gaps show up in many lists. They rarely say how prices were checked, and they skip the cost of leaving a tool. We count both as part of what a tool really costs.
If you want to spend nothing, our short list is Audacity for full editing, Auphonic for finishing and Descript’s free plan for a first try at text editing. Each has limits, which the table above states. Free is a fine start and a poor permanent plan.
Video is a separate shopping trip. Descript says free exports are 720p with a watermark, and we didn’t confirm video features for the other tools. If video matters to you, test an export before you commit, because a tool that handles audio well may handle video poorly, and video features often sit in a higher price tier.
Which software fits your situation?
| Your situation | Start with | Why | Watch out for |
| One voice, small budget, time to learn | Audacity | Free and runs on any computer | Slow, manual workflow |
| You like control and may grow | REAPER | Low cost and long free evaluation | Check the license tier |
| You want speech cleanup built in | Adobe Audition | Essential Sound panel and multitrack | Subscription cost |
| You edit on a Mac and may make music | Logic Pro | Powerful tools, one-time or subscription | Overkill for talk |
| You think in words, not waveforms | Descript | Edit by transcript | Plan limits on hours |
| Your edit is done and you need a steady loudness | Auphonic | Free hours, automatic finish | It does not replace an editor |
| You do not want to edit at all | A production partner | They handle all three jobs | You still own the feed |
What good output looks like
Software doesn’t decide quality. The file does. Apple recommends loudness around -16 LKFS, with a tolerance of 1 dB, and a true peak no higher than -1 dBFS. A good tool makes both easy to check, and if yours can’t, add one that can.
Listen to the finished episode on earbuds, a laptop speaker and in a car. Every app handles sound differently, so a file that sounds fine in one place can fail in another. Fix problems in the edit, not in the export.
Want the craft details? Our guides to podcast editing and how to record a podcast cover the work software can’t do for you. Your host affects output too, so read about the best podcast hosting before you publish.
How to test a tool in one hour
Don’t trust a feature list. Record five minutes of yourself and five minutes of a guest, then open the same files in each tool you’re considering. Time how long it takes to remove a cough, cut a long pause, balance two voices and export.
Write down three numbers for each tool: minutes to finish, features you had to look up, and whether the export sounded the way you expected. The fastest tool wins, even if it costs more. Your time is the largest cost in any podcast workflow.
Remote guests add one more test. Does the tool record each person on a separate track, or will you be splitting one mixed file later? Separate tracks make editing far easier, because one speaker’s cough never ruins the other’s words. If a tool can’t do this, pair it with a recording service that can.
Before you commit, check the exit. Export a project and open it elsewhere. If your episodes are trapped in a format only one app can read, the tool has a hidden price no pricing page shows.
Three software mistakes to avoid
The first mistake is switching editors every month. You never build speed in any of them, so pick one and use it for ten episodes. The second is paying for overlapping tools: three subscriptions doing the same job, billed monthly, with nobody checking. List your tools once a quarter and cancel the one you never open. The third is trying to fix bad audio in the edit. Software can’t rescue a weak recording, so move the microphone closer, record in a quiet room and let the software polish.
Don’t want to spend your time on software? An agency can take all three jobs. Our podcast production services page explains the options, and the guide to what is included in full-service production shows what you’d stop paying for.
What we can’t tell you
We didn’t test this software in a studio. We went by vendor pages, and a vendor page tells you what the tool sells. It can’t tell you how the tool feels at 11 pm with a deadline looming.
Prices, trial lengths and free limits change often, so the best test is your own episode: edit the same ten minutes in two tools and keep the faster one. Curious what the whole show costs? See the B2B podcast cost breakdown.
Conclusion
Pick software by the job it does, and check the price tier that applies to you. A free tool is enough to start, and a paid one is worth it when it saves you hours.
Test two tools on the same ten minutes of audio and keep the faster one. Would you rather not edit at all? Book a call and we’ll take it on.
