You start a podcast on YouTube by going to Content, then Podcasts, inside YouTube Studio. From there you either build a new podcast from video episodes you upload and organize into a playlist, or you import an existing audio show by submitting its RSS feed. YouTube treats both the same way once they're live: a podcast on the platform is really just a playlist marked with the podcast designation, and that designation is what makes it eligible for YouTube Music and the dedicated Podcasts tab on your channel.
This isn't a side project move anymore. More podcast listeners are choosing YouTube over audio-only apps, and if your audience already lives there, setting up your show properly means fewer copyright headaches and a better shot at getting discovered.
Here's what's ahead: why creators are moving to YouTube for podcasting, the two paths for getting your show onto the platform, a step-by-step walkthrough of the native setup inside YouTube Studio, how the RSS import works if you're already publishing elsewhere, what you need before you hit record, how to handle music licensing so you don't trip a Content ID claim, whether you can monetize a podcast on YouTube, and how to grow once you're live. If you haven't planned out the show itself yet, start with how to create a podcast and set it up for success and come back here for the YouTube-specific setup.
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Why Creators Are Moving Podcasts to YouTube
YouTube is now the most-used podcast platform among weekly consumers: 37% of weekly podcast consumers name it as their primary way to listen or watch, up from 31% two years ago. That's not a fluke season. U.S. podcast consumption hit an all-time high in 2026, with 58% of Americans 12+ (167 million people) consuming a podcast in the last month, and 90% of Americans 12+ having used YouTube at all, with 84% checking in monthly and 78% checking in weekly. Put those numbers next to each other and the overlap is obvious: the audience is already there.
Video is a real part of that shift, not just a marketing line from YouTube. Edison Research's full 2026 podcast consumer study found that video podcast consumption overtook audio-only listening for the first time in Q3 2025, with 82% of weekly podcast consumers watching video versus 78% listening to audio-only. Those two formats are running close together now, and neither one is winning outright. What that means for you: if you're only distributing audio, you're leaving a real chunk of your potential audience on the table.
The Two Ways to Start a Podcast on YouTube
YouTube gives you two doors in, and YouTube's own guidance on starting a podcast on the platform frames the choice as a deliberate one. Which door you use depends on whether you're starting a new show from video, or you already have an audio podcast living somewhere else and want it on YouTube too.
Starting from scratch with video (native path)
If you're recording video from day one, whether that's a two-camera interview setup or just you and a webcam, you upload those episodes directly into YouTube Studio and organize them into a playlist. Once you mark that playlist as a podcast, YouTube treats it as one: it's eligible for the Podcasts tab on your channel, for inclusion in YouTube Music, and for podcast-specific discovery. This is the path most YouTube-native podcasters use, since it gives you full access to thumbnails, chapters, end screens, and everything else YouTube's toolset offers a regular video.
Bringing an existing audio show over (RSS path)
If your podcast already exists somewhere else, you don't have to re-record anything. You submit your feed URL directly to YouTube, and it builds a static-image video for each audio episode using your show's cover art, then keeps pulling in new episodes automatically as you publish them. No camera required. The trade-off is that these episodes look like a still image with a waveform, not a produced video, so they don't get the same engagement boost that native video does.
Which path should you actually pick
The honest answer depends on whether you can sustain video production, not on which one performs better in the abstract.
Native video wins on engagement and discovery. You get thumbnails, chapters, end screens, and the full recommendation engine working on your episodes rather than a static image nobody clicks. It's also the format the audience is moving toward. But it roughly doubles your production load: lighting, framing, multi-cam sync, and an edit that now has a visual dimension to get wrong.
RSS import wins on effort. It's a few minutes of setup, then it runs itself. Every episode you publish appears on YouTube without you touching anything. The trade-off is that static-image episodes don't get meaningful algorithmic lift, so treat this as distribution rather than growth.
The pragmatic move for most shows already publishing audio: set up the RSS import today, since it costs almost nothing and gets you present on the platform. Then add native video later, once you know you can produce it every week without the audio quality or your publishing schedule slipping. Starting with video and abandoning it after four episodes is worse than never starting, because the inconsistency is visible on your channel page.
How to Create a Podcast in YouTube Studio (Native Path)
Here's the exact sequence for setting up a new podcast natively. It follows the same steps YouTube lays out in its own guide to create a podcast in YouTube Studio.
How to Create a Podcast in YouTube Studio
- Confirm you have a YouTube channel
You need an existing YouTube channel before you can create a podcast. If you don't have one yet, set it up first. It takes a Google account and a few minutes.
- Open Content, then Podcasts, in YouTube Studio
Inside YouTube Studio, go to Content in the left sidebar and click Podcasts. This is where every podcast tied to your channel lives.
- Create a new podcast or set an existing playlist as one
Click Create, then New podcast. You'll get the option to build a brand-new podcast from scratch or take a playlist you already have and mark it as a podcast instead.
- Add your podcast's title, description, and thumbnail
Give your show a clear title. Use your actual podcast name, not something generic like "Full Episodes" or "New Uploads," since a vague title gets replaced with your channel name inside YouTube Music. Add a description and a square thumbnail that meets YouTube's size requirements.
- Upload episodes and put them in order
Add your episodes to the playlist in the order you want listeners to consume them. If your show has multiple seasons, keep them inside the same podcast rather than splitting them into separate ones.
- Publish and check YouTube Music eligibility
Once your episodes are uploaded, publish the podcast. Not every playlist qualifies for YouTube Music inclusion. Content that isn't owned by you as the creator is one common reason a podcast gets excluded, so make sure everything in the playlist is yours to publish.
How to Import an Existing Podcast via RSS
If you're bringing an existing audio show over instead of starting from video, the process runs through the same Podcasts tab in YouTube Studio, just with a different starting point. Here's how to submit your podcast to YouTube via RSS feed, step by step.
How to Import a Podcast to YouTube via RSS Feed
- Open the RSS submission flow
Go to Content, then Podcasts, then click Create and select Submit RSS feed.
- Accept the ingestion terms
Read and accept YouTube's RSS ingestion terms before continuing.
- Enter your feed URL
Paste the RSS feed URL for your existing podcast. Your hosting platform provides this in your show settings.
- Verify ownership of the feed
YouTube sends a verification code to the email address associated with your feed. If you don't know which address that is, check with your podcast host before starting.
- Choose which episodes to import
Pick from all existing episodes, everything published since a specific date, or only new episodes going forward. Importing a large back catalog all at once can look like a flood of uploads on your channel, so consider a start date if you have hundreds of episodes.
- Review visibility and save
Check the visibility settings and save. From here, every new episode you publish to your RSS feed uploads to YouTube automatically, so you're not doing this step twice.
If you're converting existing YouTube uploads that don't have music yet into podcast episodes, that's a separate workflow from the podcast setup itself. Soundstripe has a full walkthrough on adding music to a YouTube video if that's the step you're on.
What You Need Before You Start
Equipment basics
You don't need a studio to start. A decent USB microphone and a quiet room will get you further than expensive gear in a noisy one. The gap between a $60 mic and a $400 mic is much smaller than the gap between a treated room and a kitchen with hard floors.
What actually moves the needle, roughly in order:
- A dynamic mic, close. Dynamic mics reject room noise better than condensers, which matters more than raw fidelity when you're recording at home. Get within a fist's distance of it.
- Soft surfaces. Bare walls, hard floors, and a big empty desk create reverb that no plugin fully fixes. A rug, curtains, and a bookshelf do more than acoustic foam squares.
- Headphones while you record. You cannot hear clipping, a rattling desk, or a fridge kicking in unless you're monitoring. This is the cheapest fix on the list and the most skipped.
- Separate audio tracks per person. If you're recording two people, record them to separate tracks. Fixing one person's levels without touching the other is impossible once they're mixed.
Video adds one more variable: light. A window in front of you beats a ring light behind your monitor, and both beat overhead lighting, which puts shadows under everyone's eyes. If you're recording video for YouTube specifically, get the framing and lighting decided before episode one, since changing it halfway through a season is visible to anyone bingeing the back catalog.
Soundstripe has a full breakdown of how to record audio for YouTube covering interfaces, room treatment, and file formats, and a separate guide to the best microphone for YouTube if you're deciding what to actually buy.
Cover art and thumbnail specs
You need two separate images, and this is where a lot of new YouTube podcasters get tripped up.
Podcast cover art (square, 1:1). YouTube's podcast setup recommends 1280 x 1280 pixels for your podcast playlist thumbnail, as JPG, GIF, or PNG under 10 MB. If you're also distributing through an RSS feed to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, design your master at 3000 x 3000 instead. That's the size Apple wants, and downsizing to 1280 for YouTube takes seconds. Going the other direction doesn't work.
Video thumbnails (16:9). Individual video episodes use standard YouTube thumbnail dimensions: 3840 x 2160 pixels, minimum 640 pixels wide. If you upload a video episode without a custom thumbnail, YouTube may fall back to your square art and letterbox it with black bars on either side, which looks like a mistake because it is one.
Two things worth testing before you commit to a design. Shrink it to 55 x 55 pixels and see whether the title is still readable, because that's roughly the size it appears at in a subscription feed on a phone. And check it against a dark background, since a design with a transparent or very dark border can disappear entirely in dark mode.
Licensing Music for Your YouTube Podcast (Without Getting a Content ID Claim)
Every episode you upload as video runs through YouTube's Content ID system the same way any other video does. If you're using music you don't have the rights to, you're risking a claim on the episode itself, not just a strike against your channel. Soundstripe has a full explainer on how YouTube's Content ID system works if you want to understand exactly what gets flagged and why.
The fix is licensing music built for this, not hoping a track slips through. That's true whether you're using music inside the episode itself or just for an intro and outro. If you're distributing the same episode as audio anywhere else, the licensing question isn't limited to YouTube either: read up on using copyrighted music in a podcast for the broader picture.
One detail specific to the RSS path: if your existing audio episodes contain music you licensed for audio distribution only, importing them to YouTube puts that same audio through Content ID for the first time. A track that never caused a problem on Apple Podcasts can generate a claim the moment it lands on YouTube. Check your licence terms cover video before you import a back catalog.
And if you haven't picked out your show's actual sound yet, Soundstripe has a guide to finding the perfect podcast intro music and a collection of royalty-free background music for podcasts built to sit under dialogue without competing with it.
Can You Monetize a YouTube Podcast?
Yes, through the same routes as any other YouTube channel. There's no separate podcast monetization program, which is worth knowing up front because it means podcast episodes are treated as regular videos for eligibility purposes.
YouTube Partner Program thresholds
Full ad revenue through the YouTube Partner Program requires 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the trailing 12 months, or 10 million Shorts views in the trailing 90 days. There's also an earlier tier at 500 subscribers, three public uploads in the last 90 days, and 3,000 watch hours, which unlocks channel memberships, Super Thanks, and Super Chat but not ad revenue.
Two details that matter specifically for podcasts. Long-form watch hours and Shorts views are tracked separately and don't combine, so cutting Shorts from your episodes helps discovery but not your watch-hour total. And only public videos count. If you've been uploading episodes as unlisted while you find your footing, none of that time is accruing toward the threshold.
This is one place the podcast format has a genuine structural advantage. A 45-minute interview episode accumulates watch hours far faster per view than a six-minute video does, even at a lower completion rate. Shows that publish weekly long-form episodes often clear 4,000 hours before they clear 1,000 subscribers.
Publishing and Growing Your YouTube Podcast
Once you're live, consistency does more work than any single optimization tweak. Publish on a schedule your audience can count on, and keep episodes inside the same podcast playlist so new listeners can find the whole catalog in one place, not scattered across separate uploads.
What actually moves episodes on YouTube
- Thumbnails and titles do the heavy lifting. On an audio platform, discovery happens through directories and recommendations. On YouTube, someone decides whether to click based on a thumbnail and a title, the same as any other video. A guest's name in the title outperforms a clever episode name almost every time.
- Chapters matter more for long episodes than short ones. A 90-minute interview with timestamped chapters gives viewers a reason to jump in at the part they care about instead of bouncing at the two-minute mark. Add them in the description and YouTube generates the segmented progress bar automatically.
- The first 30 seconds decide the session. Cold-opening on the best moment of the conversation, then rolling your intro, consistently outperforms starting with your theme music and a two-minute preamble.
- Shorts feed the main channel. Clipping a strong 45 seconds out of each episode is the cheapest discovery lever available. Those views don't count toward your watch-hour threshold, but the subscribers they bring do watch full episodes.
If audience growth is the bigger priority than setup right now, Soundstripe's guide to boosting YouTube engagement rate covers the channel-level tactics. And if search visibility is what you're after, the deeper walkthrough on podcast SEO covers the keyword and metadata side in more depth than we're getting into here.
Every episode you upload runs through Content ID.
Find music cleared before the claim lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
You start a podcast on YouTube inside YouTube Studio, under Content and then Podcasts. From there you either upload video episodes into a playlist and mark that playlist as a podcast, or you import an existing show by submitting its RSS feed. Both paths lead to the same result: a podcast that's eligible for YouTube Music and your channel's dedicated Podcasts tab.
At minimum, you need a YouTube channel, a way to record audio (or video, if you're going that route), and cover art sized for a square thumbnail. You don't need professional equipment to get started. A decent USB microphone and a quiet room cover the basics for most new shows, and a rug and curtains do more for your sound than an expensive mic in an untreated room.
Video gets meaningfully better discovery on YouTube, since static-image episodes don't benefit much from the recommendation engine. But video roughly doubles your production load. If you already publish audio elsewhere, the practical move is to set up the RSS import now, which takes minutes and costs nothing, then add native video once you know you can produce it consistently without your schedule slipping.
Yes. Podcast episodes are treated as regular videos for YouTube Partner Program eligibility, so their watch time counts toward the 4,000 valid public watch hours required alongside 1,000 subscribers. Only public videos count, so unlisted episodes accrue nothing. Long-form watch hours and Shorts views are tracked separately and don't combine. Long episodes are actually an advantage here, since a 45-minute episode banks watch hours far faster per view than a short video does.
YouTube recommends 1280 x 1280 pixels, square, as a JPG, GIF, or PNG under 10 MB for your podcast playlist thumbnail. If you also distribute through an RSS feed to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, design your master at 3000 x 3000 and downsize for YouTube, since Apple requires the larger size. Individual video episodes need a separate 16:9 thumbnail at 3840 x 2160.
Yes. Creating a podcast in YouTube Studio, whether you're building one natively from video or importing an existing show through RSS, doesn't cost anything. You're not paying YouTube for the podcast designation itself.
You don't convert a whole YouTube channel into a podcast. You designate a specific playlist on that channel as a podcast instead, which is what makes those episodes eligible for YouTube Music and podcast-specific discovery. The rest of your channel's content stays exactly as it was.
No. An RSS feed is only required if you're importing a podcast that already exists somewhere else. If you're starting a new show directly on YouTube by uploading video episodes into a playlist, there's no RSS feed involved at all.
