Are you ready to launch your show with Acast+? Great. Here we will walk you through the setup process and share resources for how to make the best of your offerings.
What you need:
A show setup within Acast
Network Owner access for that show
Additionally, in order to receive payment, you will need to have a Stripe account.
Acast+ uses Stripe to manage payments from your audience, manage their subscriptions and deposit funds to your bank account. If you already have a Stripe account, you can use your existing one. If not, you will be required to create a Stripe account and will need to provide your bank details.
Steps to set up your Acast+ exclusive show
Log into your Acast account. If you have more than 1 podcast and are within a network, please make sure you are a Network Owner for your show, as only Network Owners can setup Acast+ subscriptions. Please view this support article or reach out to through the live chat if you have questions on users and roles.
Navigate to your "Monetize" tab on the header in your dashboard.
Select "Launch Acast+ now" (blue button top right)
Read and accept the Terms and Conditions.
You'll now be taken to Stripe.
Setup an account with Stripe via your email address
If you have an existing Stripe account that you would like to use to receive payouts, this is where you link it.
Once you have completed the Stripe setup, you will taken back to Acast to complete the setup of your Acast+ account.
First, you should provide a description of the show along with some marketing language about what you're offering listeners. This is done on the Show Settings page. Here, you can customize what your landing page looks like along with selecting how the Acast+ link will appear in your show notes. You can modify any of this content at a later date, but please note, you should complete and publish this setup in one sitting so that you can get your Acast+ offering live. (We don’t, at this time, allow for the ability to save a draft Acast+ show.)
Next, create at least one tier. A tier is the offering you are giving to your audience. For example, if you want your fans to pay you $2.99 a month for ad-free episodes, you need to create a tier that offers this.
Tiers Explained!Listen Ad-Free- Automatically removes ads from episodes available on this tierListen Sponsorship-Free- Automatically removes sponsorships from episodes available on this tierBonus episodes- Provides members on this tier with exclusive bonus episodesEarly access- Provides members on this tier to early access of episodesAccess to archive- Provides members on this tier to older episodes in the archiveSome quick things to know about tiers in Acast+.
You can edit the descriptive information you provide in your tier at a later date, such as the name, description and price point.
You can add new “benefits” to a tier, such as ad-free, bonus content or early release. However, you cannot remove benefits to your tier once it is launched.
You can have both one-time tiers (ex: the audience pays once for a set of episodes) or you can have recurring membership tiers (ex: the audience pays $5 a month). But to get started with Acast+, you need at least one!
You can offer up to a maximum of 5 tiers at any given time.
Congratulations! You are almost at the last step. Hit Publish!
After setting up Acast+ when you login to view your show you will notice a couple of changes to your shows home page. The Acast+ tab (blue) and the Assign tiers button and the Tiers column.
Video below describes how to add tiers to individual or multiple episodes
Now your Acast+ subscription needs to be approved by the Acast team before your sign up page will be live for your audience.
Reach out to us via the chat with your request to approve Acast+, show title and RSS feed and we will approve your show for you. Don't worry, this typically takes less than a day.
Below is an example of a fully launched landing page.
How to view your income via the Stripe Dashboard.
Select the Acast+ button on your show.
Select go to Stripe Dashboard - which will open a new tab as below, where you can see all of your earnings, individual transactions and set progress goals.
After you've launched your Acast+ membership
After you’ve finished launching your Acast+ membership, a few things will happen:
A link to sign up will be automatically applied to all podcast and episode descriptions. This makes it easy to provide a call to action for your listeners to “Follow the link in the description to join”
Your revenue will be captured and managed directly inside Stripe. To see this, simply click the Acast+ button on your show page, and select “Go to Stripe dashboard”
Within Stripe you can see your revenue and get paid out. Then, click the Account icon to manage your payout details and professional details. Under professional details, you can also add teammates to your Stripe account.
Additional useful Acast+ articles for podcasters