How to Get Rid of Ads on Spotify Podcasts
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Can you turn off ads on Spotify podcasts?
Section titled “Can you turn off ads on Spotify podcasts?”No, not inside Spotify. Premium keeps the ads in audio podcasts and ad blockers can’t reach them. What works is moving the show to an app that takes RSS and following its ad-free feed there.
It’s less work than it sounds. Moving a handful of shows takes about 20 minutes, and Spotify stays put for music.
Why Spotify Premium doesn’t remove podcast ads
Section titled “Why Spotify Premium doesn’t remove podcast ads”Premium is a music subscription. Spotify’s own support page puts it in one line: Premium subscribers and free tier listeners “may receive both Spotify ads and creator sponsorships on audio podcasts.”
Video podcasts are the one carve-out. In select markets, Premium plays them without Spotify’s own ads, but the creator sponsorships stay in. If you’re hearing ads in an audio show, that carve-out doesn’t cover it.
The longer answer, with where each kind of ad comes from, is in does Spotify Premium remove podcast ads?
Why ad blockers and the skip button don’t fix it
Section titled “Why ad blockers and the skip button don’t fix it”Podcast ads are part of the episode audio. Shows stitch them in at their hosting service, hosts read them out themselves, and Spotify inserts more of its own. A browser or network ad blocker filters separate requests for ads, and here there’s no separate request. The ad is the audio. More on that in why ad blockers can’t block podcast ads.
The skip button works. It also means you doing the skipping, every ad break, every episode.
How to get rid of ads on Spotify podcasts
Section titled “How to get rid of ads on Spotify podcasts”The fix happens outside Spotify, because Spotify won’t follow a show by its RSS URL. Four steps:
- Pick an app that follows a feed by URL. Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast and Podcast Addict all do, and so do 47+ other apps. Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeartRadio don’t.
- Move your shows. Spotify has no export button, so you search for each show in the new app and follow it. How to move your podcasts off Spotify walks through it.
- Get the clean feed. Sign up at zeroads.ai and add a show. Your first 5 episodes play free in the ZeroAds web player. Subscribe and each show you add gets its own private clean feed URL. Founding members pay $5.99 a month.
- Follow the clean feed in your new app, then unfollow the original so you don’t see every episode twice.
New episodes arrive with the ads already cut out of the audio.
How well it works
Section titled “How well it works”In our accuracy tests against hand-labeled episodes, ZeroAds catches 97-98% of ad time. Every cut is listed with timestamps in an episode report, so you can check its work.
Before signing up, browse sample episode reports from public shows we’ve already processed. The whole product on one page is at ad-free podcasts in the app you already use.
Can I turn off ads on Spotify podcasts? No. There is no setting for it, free or Premium. The ads are part of the episode audio, and Spotify adds some of its own into the stream. To hear a show without them, follow an ad-free feed of that show in an app that accepts a feed by URL.
Does Spotify Premium remove podcast ads? Not from audio podcasts. Spotify’s support page says Premium and free listeners may both hear Spotify ads and creator sponsorships on audio podcasts. Premium removes Spotify’s own ads from video podcasts in select markets; creator sponsorships stay.
Can I add an ad-free RSS feed to Spotify? No. Spotify doesn’t let listeners add a show by its RSS URL, so a clean feed can’t reach it. Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast and Podcast Addict all can.
Will an ad blocker stop ads on Spotify podcasts? No. Ad blockers filter web requests. Podcast ads arrive inside the audio itself, so there is nothing separate for a blocker to catch.
Do I have to cancel Spotify? No. Keep it for music. Only the podcasts move, and Spotify stays exactly as it is.
Every other app, and what each one can do: how to remove podcast ads, app by app. Every method compared, ours included: the complete guide to removing podcast ads.