Glow Stops Processing Payments for Listener Support

Glow announced that they are no longer charging to process payments. If you use Glow to collect listener support, you will pay credit card processing fees, and nothing more.

Many podcasts, as Glow points out, create immense value for their listeners. Despite that, most podcasters are still paying to podcast. Your listeners love what you make and want to see more of it.

Unfortunately, many podcasters are not making money from their podcasts. It can take a tremendous amount of work just to put out one episode. There is a lot of time and effort spent on planning topics, recording the episode, booking guests, dealing with whatever tech issues come up, writing show notes, transcribing the show, and more.

Glow is here for you as you build your podcast business, and that starts with making listener support drop-dead simple and as free as we can make it. If you want to get started with launching your listener support page, you can do that here.

How does Glow make its money? It says it does that “by growing with you.” When you’re ready to take your membership program to the next level, Glow has built what it describes as the world’s easiest and most flexible way to offer exclusive content to your listeners.

In short, Glow is now offering two pricing plans: Listener Support and Exclusive Content.

Listener Support

Collects payments and manage a membership program
$0 per listener per month (plus card processing fees)
Custom Glow Page
One-tap Listener Payment
Apple Pay and Google Pay Integration

Exclusive Content

Offer premium content to membership
$0.55 per listener per month (plus card processing fees)
Custom Glow Page
One-tap Listener Payment
Private Feed Distribution
Feed Piracy Monitoring

Glow Raised $2.3 Million in Seed Financing

Glow Technologies wants to make it easy for your fans to pay for your podcasts. It was built by content creators and fans who saw first-hand how difficult it was to build a business off of creating great content, and they decided to do something about it.

Variety reported that Glow raised $2.3 Million in seed financing from from backers including venture-capital firm Greycroft, rap artist Nas and Jeffery Katzenberg’s WndrCo investment company.

According to Variety, Greycroft led the round with participation from WndrCo, Norwest Venture Partners, PSL Ventures, and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Angel investors in the round included Nas and Electronic Arts CTO Ken Moss.

Glow offers a website for your podcast that lets people pay you and listen in any podcast app. Your Glow page is a custom marketing webpage which you can design to match your brand. Place your Glow Page URL in your Episode Notes, on your website, in social media, or wherever else you like.

Listeners to your podcast can sign up for recurring subscriptions or send one-time payments through your Glow Page without leaving their favorite podcast streaming apps. Payments are quick and easy with Apple Pay and Google Pay, or directly through Stripe. Listeners can also pay with credit, debit, or prepaid cards.

There are three options for podcasters who want to join Glow. One is a Landing Page, which, at the time I am writing this blog post, is listed as “Coming Soon”. It is free, and features a Glow Page. Those who are interested in this can join a Waitlist.

Listener Support
You get a Glow Page and the ability to ask listener to support your existing show (Payment).
There is a 12% transaction fee.
For a $5 transaction:
$4.40 goes to you
$0.45 is Card Fees (2.9% + $0.30)
$0.15 Glow keeps 3%

Paid Content
Allow listeners to pay for bonus content, episode archives, or an ad-free version of your show.
You get a Glow Page, Payment, and Private Feed
There is a 20% transaction fee.
For a $5 transaction:
$4.00 goes to you
$0.45 is Card fees (2.9% + $0.30)
$0.55 Glow Keeps 11%

Variety reported that over 100 podcasts have begun to use Glow, including Twenty Thousand Hertz, Techmeme Ride Home, and The Newsworthy.