Private, Paid, or Members-Only Feeds

Pocket Casts lets you add private, paid, ad-free, and members-only podcast feeds — including premium or ad-free subscriptions from networks like NPR Plus and Wondery+, and creator feeds from platforms like Patreon, Memberful, and Substack. You can follow these premium feeds yourself by copying the private RSS feed URL and pasting it into Pocket Casts. This guide walks you through adding your feed and accessing password-protected podcasts.

Paid Podcast Network Subscriptions (NPR Plus, Wondery+, etc.)

If you subscribe to a paid, premium, or ad-free podcast network tier like NPR Plus, Wondery+, or similar services, you can still listen in Pocket Casts — you do not have to use the network’s own app. Pocket Casts cannot sign in to or authenticate these subscriptions directly (there is no in-app sign-in or “Podcast Networks” setting), but you can add your premium, ad-free episodes by copying the private RSS feed URL the network provides and pasting it into Pocket Casts.

To get set up:

1. Log into your account on the podcast network’s website (e.g., plus.npr.org for NPR Plus).
2. Find your private RSS feed URLs — the network should provide instructions for accessing your feeds in a third-party podcast app.
3. Copy a private RSS feed URL and paste it into the search bar on the Podcasts or Discover screen in Pocket Casts.
4. Subscribe to the podcast that appears.
5. Repeat for each podcast in your subscription.

If you need help finding your private feed URLs, contact the podcast network’s support team directly, as they manage your subscription and feed access.

How To Submit or Add a Private Members-Only Feed

Here are the steps you can take to submit your members-only feed to Pocket Casts:

1. Locate your private feed URL: the exact steps will depend on the platform used by the creator of the private feed.
   • For Patreon feeds: you can log in to your Patreon account, visit the creator’s page you support, and find the custom RSS feed URL they have provided to their supporters. The feed will look something like this: https://www.patreon.com/rss/podcastname?auth=lettersandnumbers.
2. Copy the private feed URL: Ensure that you have copied the entire URL, including any unique strings or tokens.
3. Add the feed to Pocket Casts: Submit the feed URL to our platform so our system can begin parsing it. If you are submitting through our submission form, please ensure you select Private so that the podcast won’t be shared with anyone or appear in search for anyone else.
4. Copy the provided short URL: After you’ve submitted the podcast, the page will give you back a short URL that you can use to access the feed in our apps.
5. Follow the podcast in the app: Within your app of choice, paste the short URL into the search bar located on either the Podcasts or Discover screens.

Accessing Password-Protected Feeds

Some podcast creators may provide you with a private feed URL that requires a username and password for access. To learn how to add password-protected podcasts to your Pocket Casts app, please refer to our Password-Protected Podcasts Guide.

Other Issues with Private Feeds

If you encounter an error message when submitting a private podcast feed or need further assistance, please contact the Pocket Casts support team. If you reach out privately, through the app or by email, you can include the full RSS feed URL. This will help us resolve the issue quicker. Do not share the private URL in our support forums, since that is a public space.

FAQs

What happens if I pause my members-only subscription on Patreon, Memberful, Substack, or similar?

When you pause your members-only subscription to a podcast, podcast authors will normally stop updating your private feed. After a period of inactivity, our system will also stop parsing your private feed.

What happens if I reactivate a paused subscription to a private feed?

In our experience, when users reactivate their paid feed subscriptions, it can take a while for our system to catch up, especially if the subscription had been paused for a while.

This issue occurs because our servers will continue to check the podcast feed for updates after the associated subscription is canceled or expired, even if you’ve unfollowed the podcast in Pocket Casts. Since the podcast feed is no longer active, we receive errors with each attempt to refresh the feed. This results in the podcast being temporarily deprioritized in our parsing queue.

If we receive enough of these errors, our servers will treat the podcast as permanently unavailable.

Generally, if you follow the podcast again and give the system some time, it will automatically refresh and new episodes will appear in the app. If you’ve already waited and new episodes still aren’t available, though, you can refresh of the feed.