Ausha

What Is Ausha?

Most podcast hosts treat discoverability as an afterthought, something that happens automatically once your show hits Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Ausha built an entire product around the opposite assumption. Podcast search rankings can be researched, tracked, and improved the same way SEO tools track website rankings. That product, Podcast Search Optimisation, is the clearest reason to know Ausha's name.

Ausha SAS was founded in Lille in 2018 by Maxime Piquette and Charles de Potter. Piquette brought prior experience from co-founding the radio-streaming platform RadioKing. The company opened a Paris office in 2020 after raising a EUR 1.2 million seed round. By 2024, Ausha said roughly 40 percent of CAC 40-listed companies used its platform for corporate podcasting, a striking penetration rate for a hosting company still operating at seed-stage funding levels.

Beyond PSO, Ausha covers the standard podcast-hosting feature set: unlimited hosting, distribution to more than a dozen apps, analytics, and AI-powered transcription. What sets it apart from Acast's marketing-driven scale or Podigee's compliance-first focus is a specific bet. Ranking visibility, not just distribution, is where podcasters lose the most potential audience.

Key Features

Podcast Search Optimisation (PSO)

PSO tracks how a show ranks against specific keywords inside Apple Podcasts and Spotify search results. It benchmarks performance against competitor shows in the same category and surfaces which keywords are worth targeting in episode titles and descriptions. Ausha sells PSO as a separate product line from hosting, with its own pricing tiers starting at EUR 29 monthly for tracking one show across 100 keywords with a six-month ranking history.

Nothing else in this category offers a comparable dedicated ranking-and-keyword tool. Buzzsprout and Acast both provide download analytics, but neither treats podcast search visibility as its own discipline with competitor benchmarking built in.

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Certification

Ausha achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification and renewed it in 2025 following a full external audit that found no non-conformities. For an information-security management system, that is a meaningful signal. It means an independent auditor reviewed Ausha's security policies, access controls, and documentation, and found them compliant with an internationally recognised standard rather than a marketing claim. Few podcast-hosting platforms of Ausha's size hold this certification.

Three Monetisation Paths

Ausha offers self-managed sponsorships with dynamic ad insertion, keeping 100 percent of ad revenue for the creator. It also offers access to the Audacy Creator Lab brand marketplace, which connects podcasters with advertisers directly, plus direct listener support through donations. Splitting monetisation into three distinct paths gives creators flexibility that a single ad-marketplace model, like Acast's, does not offer in the same way.

AI Transcription and Zapier Automation

Ausha Intelligence, a separately priced AI product starting at EUR 12.50 monthly billed annually (EUR 15 month-to-month), handles transcription, automatic asset generation, and speaker identification. The Zapier integration, available on the Supersonic hosting tier or the separate Pro package, connects new-episode triggers to more than 6,000 other apps. A new release can automatically post to social media, update a CRM, or trigger any other automated workflow a team already runs.

Corporate Podcasting Focus

Ausha says 40 percent of CAC 40 companies use the platform, and it has built enterprise features to match: white-label options, single sign-on on the Enterprise tier, dedicated support, and multi-show network management. This corporate lean sits alongside its indie-podcaster roots rather than replacing them.

Reputation Among Podcasters

Ausha reports a 4.8-out-of-5 rating on Capterra and 4.9 on G2, alongside a self-reported 98 percent customer satisfaction score and an average support response time of 26 minutes. Those figures come from Ausha's own marketing rather than an independent audit, so they are worth treating as a starting point rather than a guarantee. Still, a company of Ausha's size maintaining that response time across thousands of active podcasts, reportedly more than 24,000, suggests a support team that scales reasonably well with its customer base. The company expanded to the US market in October 2022, adding an international dimension to what started as a French-only hosting platform.

Pricing

Ausha splits pricing across three separate product lines rather than one unified plan, which takes some getting used to. Hosting and distribution starts at Launch for EUR 17 month-to-month, dropping to EUR 15 monthly when billed annually, and covers unlimited hosting plus 60 minutes of AI transcription monthly. Boost costs EUR 35 month-to-month or EUR 29 monthly billed annually, and it adds YouTube and SoundCloud distribution. Supersonic runs EUR 83 month-to-month or EUR 69 monthly billed annually, adding API and Zapier access alongside 240 minutes of monthly transcription.

PSO pricing runs separately, starting at EUR 29 monthly for the Starter tier and EUR 59 for Grow. Ausha Intelligence, the AI product, starts at EUR 12.50 monthly billed annually, or EUR 15 month-to-month, as its own subscription. A podcaster who wants hosting, search optimisation, and AI transcription simultaneously is realistically stacking three subscriptions rather than paying one bundled price. That structure rewards creators who only need one product line and penalises those who want the full toolkit.

Ausha Free hosts a single episode forever at no cost, which Ausha markets as a permanent plan rather than a time-boxed trial. Publishing a second episode requires upgrading to Launch, and both PSO and Intelligence offer seven-day free trials on top of that, but ongoing multi-episode hosting requires payment from the start.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Ausha SAS processes data under the French Data Protection Act of 1978 and EU Regulation 2016/679, with a published retention schedule. Account data, for example, is kept four months after subscription end, while billing information is retained for five years. Combined with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, this gives Ausha a documented, independently audited compliance posture stronger than most hosting competitors publish.

The company's privacy policy names subcontractor categories, including data hosting providers, but it does not specify which countries those providers operate in. For transfers outside the EU, Ausha uses the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, the standard legal mechanism for this situation. Organisations that require an exact data-residency statement, rather than category-level subcontractor disclosure, should request specifics directly from Ausha before signing a corporate contract.

How Ausha Compares to Other EU Podcast Hosts

Acast leans on advertising scale and Podigee leans on documented compliance, but Ausha's edge is treating discoverability as a measurable, ongoing discipline. A podcaster deciding between the three should ask what actually limits growth today. Finding sponsors is Acast's strongest ground, since its marketplace does more heavy lifting there. A legal team demanding an audited compliance story will find Podigee the safer default. Episodes that simply are not getting found in search are exactly the problem Ausha's PSO product targets, in a way neither competitor replicates.

Who It's Best For

If podcast discoverability matters as much as production quality to you, Ausha's PSO product is not replicated anywhere else in this category. Corporate communications teams weighing a compliance story alongside search visibility get both ISO 27001 certification and ranking tools from one vendor. Podcasters who want API access and Zapier automation should budget for the Supersonic tier, since lower plans do not include either. Anyone who wants one flat subscription covering hosting, search tools, and AI transcription together should expect to pay for multiple product lines instead.

The Verdict

Ausha's Podcast Search Optimisation product is a genuine point of differentiation in a category where most hosts compete on download counts and distribution breadth alone. ISO 27001 certification backs up its compliance claims with independent audit evidence rather than marketing language. The fragmented, three-product pricing structure is the clearest downside. Creators wanting everything Ausha offers end up paying for separate subscriptions rather than one bundled plan, and API access sits behind the priciest hosting tier. Podcasters and corporate teams who specifically value search visibility and certified security will find Ausha earns its place among Europe's strongest podcast platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ausha GDPR compliant?

Ausha SAS is a French company processing data under the 1978 French Data Protection Act and EU Regulation 2016/679, with a published data retention schedule and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification renewed in 2025. Its privacy policy does not name the country where third-party hosting subcontractors store data, relying instead on standard contractual clauses for non-EU transfers.

Does Ausha have a free plan?

Ausha Free hosts one episode forever at no cost, marketed by Ausha as free "forever" rather than a time-boxed trial. Publishing any additional episode requires upgrading to a paid plan starting at EUR 15/month billed annually.

How does Ausha compare to Buzzsprout?

Discoverability and certified security are where Ausha pulls ahead of Buzzsprout: Podcast Search Optimisation tracks keyword rankings, and ISO 27001 certification gives an audited security story Buzzsprout does not offer. What Buzzsprout offers instead is lower cost and simplicity, which fits podcasters who only need straightforward hosting without those extras. See our full breakdown of EU alternatives to Buzzsprout for other options in the category.

What is Podcast Search Optimisation (PSO)?

PSO is Ausha's term for tracking how a podcast ranks against specific keywords inside Apple Podcasts and Spotify search, similar to how SEO tools track website rankings. It includes competitor benchmarking and category comparisons, sold as a separate product from core hosting.

Does Ausha support API access and automation?

Yes. The Supersonic hosting tier and the separate Pro package include API access and a Zapier integration that can trigger automations in more than 6,000 other apps whenever a new episode publishes.

Ausha sits alongside Acast and Podigee on our podcasting category page, which compares all of Europe's podcast hosting platforms.