Independent. EU-hosted. No investors.
Everything other podcast apps charge you Premium for. Free.
No ads. No tracking. No profile built on your listening. Offline downloads in the mobile app, and with a free account your place in an episode follows you between phone and laptop. That is the whole product, and it costs nothing.
No account needed to listen. No credit card, ever. Nothing to cancel.
The €0 Premium
Four things you normally pay a monthly fee for. Here they are the default.
Onion Free
Others: €11.99/mo
No ads
Not fewer ads. Zero. There is no advertising code in this platform — no pre-rolls, no mid-rolls, no banners. What the creator published is what you hear.
Offline downloads Mobile app
Download episodes and listen with no signal. No limits, no expiry, no account required. See progress, cancel, delete, and check how much storage you are using.
Cross-device sync Free account
Pause on the train, pick it up on the laptop at the exact second you left. This is the one thing that needs a free account, because your position has to live somewhere. That somewhere is our servers in the EU, and it is not for sale.
No tracking, no profiling
We do not build a profile of you. No cross-site tracking, no advertising cookies, no behavioural targeting, no data sold to anyone. What you listen to is your business.
No card. No trial. No upgrade prompt.
What you pay for elsewhere
Same features. Different bill.
| Feature | Onion Podcasts | Spotify Premium | YouTube Music Premium | iVoox Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | €0 | €11.99 | €10.99 | €3.99 |
| Ads | None | Yes, unless you pay | Yes, unless you pay | Yes, unless you pay |
| Offline downloads | Yes, mobile app | Paid feature | Paid feature | Paid feature |
| Cross-device sync | Yes, free account | Yes, free | Yes, free | Paid feature |
| Tracking and profiling | None | Yes — see their privacy policy | Yes — see their privacy policy | Yes — see their privacy policy |
Onion Podcasts
- Monthly price
- €0
- Ads
- None
- Offline downloads
- Yes, mobile app
- Cross-device sync
- Yes, free account
- Tracking and profiling
- None
Spotify Premium
- Monthly price
- €11.99
- Ads
- Yes, unless you pay
- Offline downloads
- Paid feature
- Cross-device sync
- Yes, free
- Tracking and profiling
- Yes — see their privacy policy
YouTube Music Premium
- Monthly price
- €10.99
- Ads
- Yes, unless you pay
- Offline downloads
- Paid feature
- Cross-device sync
- Yes, free
- Tracking and profiling
- Yes — see their privacy policy
iVoox Premium
- Monthly price
- €3.99
- Ads
- Yes, unless you pay
- Offline downloads
- Paid feature
- Cross-device sync
- Paid feature
- Tracking and profiling
- Yes — see their privacy policy
Prices are the individual monthly plan in Spain, checked on 13 July 2026. They change. Check theirs; ours will still be €0.
Spotify, YouTube Music and iVoox are trademarks of their respective owners. This comparison reflects each service's own published plan pages and is for information only.
Where's the catch
There is no venture capital in this company. Nobody is waiting on a return, so nobody is going to demand ads, a Premium tier, or a data deal in eighteen months. There is no board to sell you out to.
Onion Podcasts is built in Mallorca and hosted in the EU. Your data sits on European servers under GDPR, not because a compliance page says so, but because that is where the machines physically are.
We do not run ads and we do not sell data. We have no advertising business, which means we have no reason to know who you are, what you listen to at 2am, or what you might be persuaded to buy.
Here is what we earn from you today: nothing. And from creators today, also nothing: when a listener subscribes to a creator, the money goes straight into that creator's own Stripe account and never passes through us. The first creators to join pay nothing. Later on, the plan is to charge a 10% commission to creators who are already earning money — never listeners, and never a creator who has earned nothing. The mission is to help creators share what they make with their listeners easily, without it being overcomplicated.
So the listener is not the product. The listener is the point.
If that ever changes, it will be written here first, in plain language, before it happens.
What's in here
Podcasts and live radio, in one player, with nothing between you and the play button.
Podcasts
Browse by category, language, or search. Any public episode plays instantly, with no sign-up wall in front of it.
Live radio
Live radio stations stream in the same player as your podcasts. Switch from a show to a station without switching apps.
Three languages
The app speaks English, Spanish and Catalan — interface, search and discovery. Find shows in your language instead of scrolling past an English-first algorithm.
We are new. The catalogue is growing, and if a show you love is missing, ask for it and we will go get it.
How it works
Three steps, and you can stop after the first one.
Open it and press play
No account. No email. No "continue with" button. Search for a show, hit play, and it plays. That is the whole first step.
Create a free account when you want it to remember you
An account gives you the things that need memory: follow shows, build playlists, and pick up on your laptop exactly where your phone left off. It takes under a minute and costs nothing, now or later.
Get the mobile app for offline
The Onion app downloads episodes for planes, tunnels and the metro. Downloads have no limit and no expiry, and you do not even need an account to use them. The app is in closed testing right now — we need a handful of testers to get it into the store, and you can be one of them.
The Android app is in closed testing. Google needs 12 testers before it can go public — email us and we'll add you.
The questions you should be asking
You are right to be suspicious of free. Here are straight answers.
Press play. That's the whole onboarding.
No ads. No tracking. No monthly fee. Offline downloads in the app, sync across your devices with a free account, and nothing to cancel because there is nothing to cancel.
No account needed. No credit card. EU-hosted, GDPR, built in Mallorca.