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Apple Podcasts Ads: Why Every Show Has Them (and How to Remove Them)

- 3 min read
Andrey
Andrey
Founder @ ZeroAds

The Short Answer

Section titled “The Short Answer”

Apple doesn’t put ads in your podcasts. The shows do.

Every ad you hear in Apple Podcasts was either read by the hosts or stitched into the audio file by the show’s hosting service before the episode reached your phone. Apple Podcasts just plays the file it’s given. That’s why switching podcast apps never fixes the ads: the ads travel inside the audio.

Where the Ads Actually Come From

Section titled “Where the Ads Actually Come From”

Two sources:

  1. Host-read ads. The hosts pivot to a mattress or a meal kit mid-episode. These are recorded into the show itself.
  2. Dynamic ad insertion (DAI). 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?

Apple’s per-show subscriptions are the official escape hatch, but they’re per show: a few dollars a month, each, set by the creator. Follow ten shows and the math stops working.

The Good News About Apple Podcasts

Section titled “The Good News About Apple Podcasts”

Here’s the part that surprises people: Apple Podcasts is one of the best apps to go ad-free in, because it accepts custom RSS feeds. (Library > Follow a Show by URL. Spotify has no equivalent; that door is locked.)

That’s the whole trick behind ad-free feed services:

  1. ZeroAds fetches each new episode of your shows and finds the ad segments in the audio, at 90%+ verified accuracy.
  2. It cuts them out and rebuilds the episode. Every cut is listed with timestamps in an episode report, so you can check its work.
  3. You get a private RSS URL. Paste it into Apple Podcasts once, and episodes arrive already clean.

Same app, same shows, same queue. The ads just aren’t in the file anymore.

Hear it on your own shows. Try ZeroAds. Your first 5 episodes are free

Step-by-step setup for this app: remove ads in Apple Podcasts.

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.

For the complete rundown of every option, including our competitors: how to remove podcast ads in 2026.