Question 1

What's the catch?

Accepted Answer

There isn't a hidden one, so here is the visible one: the catalogue is young and this is a small, independent platform, not a giant. What there is not is an ad business, a data business, or an investor waiting to be paid back. The first creators to join pay nothing; later, the revenue will come from a 10% commission on creators who are already earning money. Listening is not, and will not be, where the money comes from.

Question 2

Is it really free forever?

Accepted Answer

Listening is free and there is no plan to charge for it. No trial, no credit card, nothing to cancel. Being honest about the word "forever": nobody can promise what happens in a decade. What we can promise is that the business is built so that charging listeners is not the business model.

Question 3

Do I need an account?

Accepted Answer

No. Browse, search, and play any public episode with no account at all. You do not even need one to download episodes in the mobile app. An account only exists for the features that require memory: following shows, playlists, and syncing your playback position between your phone and the web.

Question 4

How do you make money?

Accepted Answer

Right now, we don't. That is the honest answer. When a listener subscribes to a creator, the payment goes directly into that creator's own Stripe account and we take no cut of it. 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 a listener, and never a creator who has earned nothing.

Question 5

Do you track me or sell my data?

Accepted Answer

No. We do not build an advertising profile of you, we do not track you across other websites, and we do not sell data to anyone. There is no advertising business here, so there is nothing to feed. Everything is hosted in the EU under GDPR, and you can export or delete your data from your settings at any time.

Question 6

Can I listen offline?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in the mobile app. Download any episode and keep it. No download limit, no expiry, no auto-deletion, and no account needed. You manage downloads yourself from a single screen — start, watch progress, cancel, delete, and see exactly how much space they take. Offline listening is a mobile-app feature; the web player streams.

Question 7

What do I get if I make an account?

Accepted Answer

Cross-device sync — your exact position in an episode moves between the mobile app and the web. Plus following shows, playlists, and your listening history. It is free, it takes under a minute, and it is the only thing on this page that asks anything of you.

Question 8

Who is behind this?

Accepted Answer

Onion Podcasts is made in Mallorca: no venture capital, no parent company, servers in the EU. There is no growth target to hit, which means there is nobody to sell your attention to.

Question 9

What does it cost to publish here?

Accepted Answer

Nothing. Upload episodes, get an RSS feed, see your stats. There is no monthly fee, no trial that expires, and no card to enter.

Question 10

Does Onion take a cut of what my subscribers pay?

Accepted Answer

Not today. Subscription payments are charged on your own Stripe account, with your own keys — the money never passes through Onion, so there is nothing for us to take. The first creators to join pay nothing. The plan is to eventually charge a 10% commission to creators who are already earning money. Never a listener, and never a creator who has earned nothing. If that changes, it will be written here in plain language before it happens.

Question 11

Do my listeners have to use Onion to hear me?

Accepted Answer

No. Your podcast gets an open RSS feed that works in any podcast app. Publish here, and people can listen wherever they already are.

Question 12

What about video podcasts?

Accepted Answer

Audio is the focus right now. Video podcast support is on the roadmap. If that matters to you, sign up and let us know -- your input shapes what gets built next.

The questions you should be asking

If you make podcasts