There are now more ways to get AI show notes than there are podcasts that need them. Dedicated tools turn a transcript into notes, social posts and newsletters. Editors such as Descript draft them as one feature. A few podcast hosts sell an AI add-on. And a growing number of hosts skip all of it and paste a transcript into Claude or ChatGPT.
This page compares those options on what the published pricing pages say. We read every vendor's page on September 26, 2026 and link it below. We did not test the quality of the notes each tool writes, and quality is where these tools differ most, so we finish with a way to test them on your own episode. We are building Episodemate, an assistant for podcasters that is not released yet, and we have no commercial tie to any tool here.
9
ways to get AI show notes compared
$8.99
cheapest dedicated tool: Podsqueeze Starter
$0.66
lowest cost per hour at full use: Castmagic Hobby
$10
a month for Castos's AI Assistant add-on
- Big archive? Castmagic has the lowest cost per hour of audio at full use.
- Publish twice a month? Podsqueeze Starter is the cheapest way in at $8.99.
- Already pay for Descript or Riverside? Try their built-in notes before adding a subscription.
- Quality is untested. Run the ten-minute test at the end on your own episode.
The options at a glance
| Option | Type | Entry price | Included allowance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castmagic | Dedicated repurposing tool | $19 a month, billed annually ($239 a year) | 30 transcription hours |
| Podsqueeze | Dedicated repurposing tool | $8.99 a month | 120 minutes |
| Swell AI | Dedicated repurposing tool | Free, then $29 a month | 300 minutes on the $29 plan |
| Descript | Editor with AI writing tools | $16 a month, billed yearly | 10 media hours |
| Riverside | Recorder with AI show notes | $24 a month, billed yearly | Unlimited transcription |
| Auphonic | Audio processor | $11 a month, billed yearly | 9 hours, notes on paid plans |
| Castos | Host with an AI add-on | $10 a month add-on, on top of a plan from $19 | Per your host plan |
| Buzzsprout Cohost AI | Host with an AI add-on | Paid add-on, price on Buzzsprout | Per your host plan |
| Claude or ChatGPT | DIY chatbot | About $20 a month | Your own prompts |
Dedicated tools
Castmagic
Castmagic turns a transcript into show notes, summaries, social posts, newsletters, quotes, video scripts and audiograms. Its Hobby plan is listed at $19 a month billed annually ($239 a year) with 30 transcription hours, 3 spaces and 3 seats. Starter is $48 a month for 100 hours, and Team is $139 for 400 hours. All plans support 60 or more languages and unlimited regenerations.
At full use, Hobby works out to about $0.66 an hour of audio ($239 ÷ 12 ÷ 30). A weekly one-hour show uses about a seventh of the allowance, which is why it suits people with an archive to process.
Podsqueeze
Podsqueeze is the cheapest way in. Starter is $8.99 a month for 120 minutes, which covers two hour-long episodes. It adds 8 video clips or audiograms, quote images, a podcast website, audio enhancement and a chat over the transcript. Pro is $49 for 320 minutes and Agency Lite is $89 for 600.
The minutes are the constraint. Two hours a month is fine for a biweekly show and tight for a weekly one.
Swell AI
Swell AI writes transcripts, clips, show notes, articles, summaries, titles, newsletters and social posts, and lets you set a brand voice and reusable templates. Its free Hobby plan allows 1 upload a month. Studio is $29 a month for 300 minutes, Agency is $49 for 600, and pay as you go is $8.99 per 60 minutes.
One thing to check: the pricing page describes its writing as unlimited GPT-3.5, an older model family. Ask how current the underlying model is before you commit.
Editors and recorders that write show notes
Descript's pricing page lists a "Publish" set of AI tools that draft social posts, blog posts and show notes and summarize, with full access on paid plans and limited access on Free. Hobbyist is $16 a month yearly with 400 AI credits, and those credits are shared with the editing tools.
Riverside includes AI show notes from the Pro plan, at $24 a month yearly, alongside unlimited transcription and clips. For a full comparison of the two, read Descript vs Riverside for podcasters.
If you already pay for either, try their built-in notes before adding another subscription.
Processors and hosts with AI add-ons
Auphonic lists automatic show notes and chapters on its paid plans, with multilingual speech recognition, and not on the free plan. The S plan is $11 a month yearly for 9 hours. Its strength is the audio processing, and the notes come along with that.
Castos sells an AI Assistant add-on at $10 a month that writes titles, show notes and social posts. Its hosting plans start at $19 a month ($190 a year) and include a monthly transcript allowance: 10 on Essentials, 25 on Growth, 100 on Pro. Buzzsprout offers Cohost AI as a paid add-on on its paid plans, and transcripts are included automatically on paid Buzzsprout plans. Check the add-on price on Buzzsprout's own page, since we could not confirm it.
Host add-ons keep everything in one dashboard. The tradeoff is that your notes depend on your host's tool, and you cannot use it if you switch hosts.
The DIY option: Claude or ChatGPT with your transcript
The alternative is a general chatbot. You paste a transcript and a prompt, and you get notes back. In one case we cover in our roundup of what podcasters build with Claude and ChatGPT, a host reported about two and a half minutes per episode with a script she built, on a $20 a month Claude Pro plan.
DIY costs the least and gives you full control over the prompt. It also leaves the setup, the voice and the checking to you. If notes read like they could belong to any show, building a voice guide from your own episodes is the usual fix.
Cost per hour of audio
This is our arithmetic from the plan sizes on each page, assuming you use the full allowance.
Cost per hour of audio, at full use of each plan
Lower is cheaper, but only if you would use the whole allowance
- Castmagic Hobby$0.66
- Auphonic S$1.22
- Podsqueeze Starter$4.50
- Swell Agency$4.90
- Swell Studio$5.80
- Swell pay as you go$8.99
- Podsqueeze Pro$9.19
Our arithmetic from vendor pricing pages, read September 26, 2026.
| Option | Plan | Price | Hours included | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castmagic Hobby | Yearly | $239 a year | 30 | $0.66 |
| Podsqueeze Starter | Monthly | $8.99 | 2 | $4.50 |
| Podsqueeze Pro | Monthly | $49 | 5.3 | $9.19 |
| Swell Studio | Monthly | $29 | 5 | $5.80 |
| Swell Agency | Monthly | $49 | 10 | $4.90 |
| Swell pay as you go | Per use | $8.99 | 1 | $8.99 |
| Auphonic S | Yearly | $11 | 9 | $1.22 |
Castmagic's price per hour is the lowest because its allowance is large. That helps only if you have hours to fill. A biweekly show that uses 2 hours a month would pay about $20 a month for two hours on Castmagic, or $8.99 on Podsqueeze Starter.
Test them on your own episode
The notes are only as good as they are for your show. A ten-minute test tells you more than any table:
- 1
Pick one finished episode
Choose one with a guest and a few specific facts you can check.
- 2
Run the same transcript through two or three tools
Use each tool's free plan or trial.
- 3
Check every quoted line against the transcript
A wrong quote with a guest's name on it is the costly mistake. A short script does this in seconds.
- 4
Count the proper nouns spelled correctly
Names and brands are where generated notes slip.
- 5
Read the intro aloud
If you would not say it, the tool has not learned your voice.
Whichever tool wins, plan on a human pass. Notes that go out unread tend to carry a small error that someone finds.
Which one should you pick?
| If you... | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Have a big archive to process | Castmagic | Lowest cost per hour at scale |
| Publish twice a month | Podsqueeze Starter | Cheapest entry at $8.99 |
| Already pay for Descript or Riverside | Their built-in notes | No new subscription |
| Want one dashboard with your host | Your host's AI add-on | Keeps everything in one place |
| Want full control and will maintain a setup | Claude or ChatGPT | Lowest cost, most work |
Questions people ask
What is the best free AI show notes generator? Swell's free Hobby plan allows one upload a month, Descript's free plan has limited AI access, and a chatbot costs nothing if you already have an account. None covers a weekly show without a paid plan.
Are AI show notes good for SEO? Notes that reuse specific phrases, names and timestamps from the transcript give search engines more to index than a two-line summary. Generic notes add little.
Can AI invent quotes? Yes. Models can smooth a quote into something more quotable or supply a detail that was never said. Always check quotes against the transcript.
Where do I learn what good notes look like? See our podcast show notes template and examples.