Does Apple Podcasts Have Ads? Yes. Here's Who Puts Them There
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Does Apple Podcasts have ads?
Section titled “Does Apple Podcasts have ads?”Yes, but Apple doesn’t put them there. The shows do, inside the audio file. No setting turns them off. Cutting them out of the file does work, and Apple Podcasts will play the cleaned-up file. Spotify won’t.
Every ad you hear in Apple Podcasts was either read by the hosts or stitched into the audio by the show’s hosting service before the episode reached your phone. Apple Podcasts plays the file it’s given. That’s why switching podcast apps never fixes the ads: they travel inside the audio.
Where the ads actually come from
Section titled “Where the ads actually come from”The ads you hear come from two places.
- Host-read ads. The hosts pivot to a mattress or a meal kit mid-episode. These are recorded into the show itself.
- Dynamic ad insertion. The hosting service assembles a fresh copy of the episode each time it’s downloaded and stitches in ads chosen for you: your region, your device, whatever the ad market pays for that day. It’s why an episode from 2022 suddenly carries ads for a phone released last month, and why you and a friend hear different ads in the same episode. More on the mechanics: what is dynamic ad insertion?
The heaviest feeds we’ve measured run 20 to 38 percent ads, mostly short daily shows built from radio formats; the full table is in our August 2026 study.
Apple’s per-show subscriptions are the official escape hatch, but they’re per show: a few dollars a month, each, priced by the creator. Follow ten shows and the math stops working.
Spotify podcast ads vs Apple Podcasts ads
Section titled “Spotify podcast ads vs Apple Podcasts ads”People compare the two apps as if one had fewer ads. For the shows you actually listen to, they don’t. What differs is who adds ads, what paying gets you, and whether you’re allowed to fix it yourself.
| Apple Podcasts | Spotify | |
|---|---|---|
| Who puts the ads in | The show’s hosts and its hosting service. Apple inserts none of its own. | The show’s hosts and hosting service, plus ads Spotify inserts itself. |
| Does paying remove them? | There’s no all-of-Apple-Podcasts plan. Subscriptions are per show, priced by each creator. | Premium removes music ads. Audio podcasts keep their ads. Spotify’s own ads come out of video podcasts in select markets; creator sponsorships stay. |
| Can you bring a clean feed? | Yes. Library > More > Follow a Show by URL. | No. Spotify accepts no outside feeds. |
So Spotify adds ads of its own on top, and locks the door. Apple adds none and leaves the door open. The details on the Spotify side, straight from Spotify’s support pages, are in does Spotify Premium remove podcast ads?
Can you get rid of the ads in Apple Podcasts?
Section titled “Can you get rid of the ads in Apple Podcasts?”Yes, and Apple Podcasts makes it easy, because it accepts any podcast RSS URL. That one feature is the whole trick behind ad-free feed services:
- ZeroAds fetches each new episode of your shows and finds the ad segments in the audio. In our accuracy tests against hand-labeled episodes it catches 97-98% of ad time.
- It cuts them out and rebuilds the episode. Every cut is listed with timestamps in an episode report, so you can check its work.
- You get a private RSS URL for each show. Follow it once in Apple Podcasts, and episodes arrive already clean.
Same app, same shows. The ads just aren’t in the file anymore.
Before signing up, browse sample episode reports from a small selection of public shows we’ve already processed. Each report lists the detected cuts with timestamps. Detection can miss ads or cut other audio.
Hear it on your own shows. Try ZeroAds. Your first 5 episodes are free
The exact taps for iPhone, iPad and Mac are in our step-by-step guide: how to get rid of ads on Apple Podcasts. If you use another app, the same clean feed plays in Pocket Casts, Overcast and 47+ others; the one-page version is ad-free podcasts in the app you already use.
What doesn’t work
Section titled “What doesn’t work”- Ad blockers. They filter web requests. Podcast ads are inside the audio stream, so there’s nothing to block. (Full explanation.)
- Paying for other Apple services. Apple One, Apple Music, iCloud+: none touch podcast ads, because the ads were never Apple’s to remove.
- Skip buttons. They work, thirty seconds at a time, every episode, forever. Fine on the couch. Worse on a run or while driving.
Does Apple put ads in podcasts? No. Apple Podcasts is the player. The ads are inserted by each show’s hosting service through dynamic ad insertion, or read by the hosts themselves, before the episode ever reaches Apple.
Why do I hear different ads when I replay the same episode? Dynamic ad insertion builds a fresh copy of the episode per download, choosing ads by where you are and what the ad market is paying that day. Same episode, different ads each time.
Spotify or Apple Podcasts: which has fewer podcast ads? The same show carries the same ads in both, because the ads are inside the audio. The difference is what you can do about it: Apple Podcasts follows a clean feed by URL, and Spotify accepts no outside feeds at all.
Can Apple Podcasts play ad-free feeds? Yes. Apple Podcasts accepts any podcast RSS URL (Library > More > Follow a Show by URL on iPhone, File > Follow a Show by URL on Mac), which is why ad-free feed services work in it.
Is there an ad-free subscription for all of Apple Podcasts? No. Apple Podcasts subscriptions are per show, priced by each creator. There’s no single plan that removes ads from everything you follow.
For the complete rundown of every option, including our competitors: how to remove podcast ads in 2026.