Radio hosting
Primcast radio hosting gives your internet radio station a secure listen link, a web player and its own control panel as soon as your order goes through. Start on the free plan, connect your encoder, and up to 1,000 people can listen at once.
Want music playing while you sleep? That is Auto DJ, on Premium and Platinum. The free plan's whole bill is right here, setup fee included, so nothing new shows up at checkout.
Hosted on our own servers in New York and Bucharest. Primcast has run radio stations since 2009.
Plans
Every plan comes with unmetered bandwidth, a secure https:// stream, a station page and the same control panel. What you pay for is sound quality, Auto DJ, live tools and how many people can tune in at the same time.
$0 a month
Plus a one-time setup fee of $5
Delivery from the closest of five cities comes with Platinum
Right for: trying radio, live shows from an encoder, a station that is only on air when you are.
Start free$39 a month
Or $390 a year, which saves $78. No setup fee.
Delivery from the closest of five cities comes with Platinum
Free for 14 days Card or PayPal at checkout, first charge on day 15
Choose Premium$79 a month
Or $790 a year, which saves $158. No setup fee.
Global radio CDN
Your listeners and your encoder connect to our closest server: New York, Miami, San Francisco, Amsterdam or Bucharest.
Your station comes on sooner and buffers less for people listening in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, North Africa and West Asia. How it works
Free for 14 days Card or PayPal at checkout, first charge on day 15
Choose PlatinumPlatinum connects each of them, and your encoder, to the closest of five cities, so your station comes on sooner and buffers less wherever they tune in. If a server goes quiet, the next closest city takes over. How our radio CDN works
That is where Platinum stops. Tell us your peak audience and we will quote a station built for it, so nobody gets turned away in the middle of a broadcast.
The setup fee applies to the free plan only, and it is not refundable because it pays for building the station. On Premium or Platinum, write to us within three days of activation and you get your money back pro-rated at the monthly price, minus a 15% admin fee (crypto payments excepted; see the refund policy). Every plan gets the same secure stream link, and you can move up a plan whenever the station outgrows its own. See every feature side by side.
Add a card or PayPal when you sign up and nothing is charged before day 15. Cancel before then and you pay nothing at all. One trial per new customer, and one more when you move up from Free or Premium.
Every feature
This is the full list our radio platform switches on for each plan. A tick means it is in the plan you order. A dash means it is not, and moving up a plan switches it on.
| Feature | Free | Premium | Platinum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radio CDN · Platinum only | |||
| Listeners hear you from the closest of five cities | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Your encoder connects to the closest city | Not included | Not included | Included |
| If a server fails, the next closest city takes over | Not included | Not included | Included |
| On air | |||
| People listening at the same time | 1,000 | 2,500 | 5,000 |
| Monthly allowance of listener hours | No monthly allowance | 500,000 | 1.5 million |
| Best sound quality you can send | 32 Kbps | 128 Kbps | 320 Kbps |
| Streams (extras are lighter copies for phones) | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Secure https:// link and a player that works in any browser | Included | Included | Included |
| Connect an Icecast or a SHOUTcast encoder | Included | Included | Included |
| Auto DJ | |||
| Auto DJ plays when nobody is live | Not included | Included | Included |
| Space on our servers for your songs | Not included | 20 GB | 100 GB |
| Hour clocks, plus weekday, weekend and seasonal schedules | Not included | Included | Included |
| Crossfades, silence trimmed, artists kept apart | Not included | Included | Included |
| US webcasting play rules applied for you | Not included | Included | Included |
| A fallback playlist so the station never goes quiet | Not included | Included | Included |
| Every song played at the same volume | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Mark where each song starts, talks over and ends | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Favorites played more often, explicit tags and a clean mode | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Song requests from listeners, with limits you choose | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Recorded voice links played between songs | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Live shows and DJs | |||
| DJ logins, each with its own hours on air | Not included | 5 | 20 |
| Go live from your browser, nothing to install | Not included | Included | Included |
| Live DJs take over and hand back on their own, plus a kill switch | Not included | Included | Included |
| An alert if the station goes silent | Not included | Included | Included |
| A backup encoder and gapless handovers between DJs | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Invite a guest on air with a link | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Your audience | |||
| How far back your stats go | 7 days | 30 days | 90 days |
| Countries, devices, apps, referring sites and listening time | Not included | Included | Included |
| Results for every show and playlist | Not included | Included | Included |
| Which songs make people switch off, and traffic quality checks | Not included | Not included | Included |
| CSV downloads and email reports on a schedule | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Getting found | |||
| Your own station page, listed in the radio guide once approved | Included | Included | Included |
| A public show line-up with what is on now and next | Included | Included | Included |
| Your station in its own iPhone and Android app, CarPlay and Android Auto too | Not included | Included | Included |
| Licences and royalties | |||
| The complete airplay log, ready to download | Included | Included | Included |
| A tamper-evident seal on every day of that log | Included | Included | Included |
| Royalty reports: SoundExchange-style usage, PRO reports, cue sheets and hours by country | Included | Included | Included |
| Your licences kept on file and checked by us | Included | Included | Included |
| Country limits that follow your licences | Included | Included | Included |
| Songs leave rotation by themselves when their rights run out | Not included | Included | Included |
| Help | |||
| Help from our team | Chat and phone | Priority, with your first clock built for you | |
| Try it before the first charge | Not included | 14-day trial | 14-day trial |
The licensing tools keep your records. They are not a licence to play music, and arranging those stays with you; our royalty fees guide explains where to start.
Radio CDN, on Platinum
Your station lives in New York or Bucharest. On Platinum, each listener connects to the closest of our five cities instead, and so does your encoder. Every one of those servers pulls a single copy of your stream, however many people are listening there.
Share your station's CDN link. Whoever opens it is answered by our server closest to where they are, and everybody listening through that city shares a single copy of your stream.
Use the Nearest server settings and that server relays your show to your station's own server. Your password, your DJs' hours and your show all work exactly as they do now.
We check every server every 10 seconds. One that misses 2 checks in a row is taken out, and anyone who reconnects is sent to the next closest city.
Nobody has to reach across an ocean to hear you: each listener, and your encoder, connects in or near their own region. When we measured it, sound started 0.25–0.7 seconds after the player connected.
On Platinum, your dashboard's Radio section adds your CDN link and your Nearest server details. Free and Premium stations are reached directly, on the server they live on. Every plan keeps the links and settings you have now. How our radio CDN works
Inside the panel
These are real screens from the Radio section of the Primcast dashboard, taken on a demo station called Midnight Lounge FM. Free, Premium and Platinum all sign in to the same panel; a paid plan opens more of it.
The first screen after you sign in. How many people are tuned in this minute, the last 24 hours on a chart, how much of the month's listener hours you have used, and the https:// link to hand out to anyone who wants to listen.
Place your shows and music blocks on the days and times they belong: overnight music, a morning show, something different at the weekend. Your station page shows the same line-up, so listeners can see what is on now and what comes next.
On Premium and Platinum, Auto DJ plays the blocks you placed whenever nobody is live.
Listener hours, sessions, unique listeners, average listening time and your peak, with a chart of the whole week. Free keeps 7 days of it. Premium keeps 30 and adds countries, devices and results for each show. Platinum keeps 90 and sends the reports to your inbox.
Upload the licences you hold, declare your rights and download the airplay log, sealed day by day so nobody can change it afterwards. Royalty reports come out ready to file. This is on every plan, the free one included.
Getting on air
There is no sales call and no approval queue. Your station is built automatically after you order, and most of the ten minutes is you setting up your encoder.
An email address and a password. On the free plan this is where the one-time setup fee is paid. It is the only charge a free station ever has.
Your station lives in the Radio section of your Primcast dashboard. Start and stop the stream, see who is listening, set up your station page and copy the player for your website.
The Go live tab prints the server, port, mount point and password. Icecast encoders and SHOUTcast encoders both connect, on every plan.
No encoder yet? Mixxx is free and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. A hardware encoder broadcasts straight from the studio with no computer at all. On Premium and Platinum you can also go live from your browser.
Your listen link starts with https:// from the first minute, so it plays inside any secure web page. Embed the player, send the link as it is, or point people to your station page.
On every plan
Each plan has a ceiling it stops at. None of them has an overage that turns up on your invoice.
Nobody counts the data your listeners use. A quiet week and a week your show takes off cost the same.
Every station's link is https://, never sold as an extra, with a plain http:// copy for old players. Browsers, apps and directories play it without a security warning.
See how many people are listening right now, then look back over recent days: 7 on Free, 30 on Premium and 90 on Platinum.
Your station gets its own page with a working player and your show line-up, and once we approve it, a place in Primcast Tune In. No website of your own needed.
A full airplay log you can download, sealed each day, plus royalty reports and a place to keep your licences on file.
Close the station and billing stops with it. No exit charge and no notice period.
Where it runs
Your station runs on our Icecast radio platform in New York or Bucharest, on hardware Primcast owns and runs. On Platinum, our radio CDN then plays it to every listener from the closest of five cities, New York, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Miami and San Francisco, and lets your encoder connect to the closest one too. Each station gets its own Icecast server, so another station's busy night never becomes yours. And because the port is ours, bandwidth is never billed by the gigabyte. How the radio CDN works.
Who answers
Questions before you order? Open the chat on this page. Our AI assistant answers in seconds, and you can ask for one of our team at any point. Once you are on air, Free stations get help by email, Premium adds chat and phone, and Platinum gets priority help with your first hour clock built for you.
Questions
It is free and it does not expire. You pay one setup fee of $5 when the station is built, and after that a free station costs nothing for as long as you broadcast.
Not on the free plan. Auto DJ plays from music stored on our servers, and the free plan has no storage, so there is nowhere to keep a library. Premium includes Auto DJ with 20 GB for your music and Platinum with 100 GB.
Up to 1,000 on the free plan, 2,500 on Premium and 5,000 on Platinum. These are real ceilings. If you expect more, tell us and we will quote the station properly instead of letting you hit the limit live. Premium and Platinum also include a monthly allowance of 500,000 and 1.5 million listener hours.
One person listening for one hour. Premium's allowance is about 690 people tuned in around the clock for a whole month, and Platinum's about 2,080. We email you at 80% and again at 100%. At 100%, people already listening keep listening, and new listeners can tune in again on the 1st of the next month, or straight away if you move from Premium to Platinum. Nothing is ever added to your bill. The free plan has no listener-hour allowance, only its ceiling at once.
Stations are delivered on Icecast, one server per station. Your encoder can still speak SHOUTcast: BUTT, RadioBOSS, SAM Broadcaster, Mixxx and the SHOUTcast DSP connect with the server, port and password from your panel, on every plan including Free, and listeners hear the same https:// stream either way. New stations run Icecast; flip to a real SHOUTcast DNAS 2.6 server from the Primcast panel whenever you like, on any plan including Free, and keep its admin pages, a SHOUTcast Directory listing and every panel tool.
Something to broadcast, a hosting plan and a way to send your sound: a computer with an encoder, a hardware encoder, or on the paid plans just your browser. The free plan covers the hosting, and free software such as Mixxx covers the encoder. If you want the station to keep playing when you are not live, you also need Auto DJ, which comes with Premium and Platinum.
No. Every station gets its own page with a working player and your show line-up, and once we approve it, a listing in Primcast Tune In. The same player embeds into a site you already have, and the link is https:// either way.
Yes, on Premium and Platinum, at no extra cost. Your station gets its own iPhone and Android app, with CarPlay and Android Auto, published under your own store accounts. See how the station app works.
You do, and the licences are yours to arrange. Hosting a stream is not a licence to play recordings, and what you owe depends on where you broadcast from and what you play. What we give you is the paperwork: the airplay log, royalty reports, a place for your licences and country limits that follow them. Our royalty fees page explains the main schedules.
On Primcast hardware in New York or in Bucharest. With Platinum, our radio CDN connects your listeners and your encoder to the closest of five cities across Europe and the US: New York, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Miami and San Francisco. How it works.
Platinum, because its radio CDN gives each region a server close by. North America hears you from New York and Latin America and the Caribbean from Miami; Western Europe and North Africa tune in through Amsterdam; Eastern Europe, the Middle East, West Asia and South Asia through Bucharest; Asia-Pacific through San Francisco. Your encoder sends to its closest city as well, and should one server go quiet, the next closest city picks up its listeners. How it works.
Yes. Your panel, your station page and your listeners' link all stay the same. What changes is the bitrate, the listener ceiling, the storage and the tools you can use. Nobody has to re-tune anything.
Open the station, connect your encoder and find out who tunes in. A free station runs on the same servers and the same panel as a paid one.
