Async formerly known as Podcastle is the easiest way to start a podcast without installing anything or spending a cent upfront. You record, clean up, and export entirely in the browser, which removes the usual barrier of stitching together a DAW, a noise-reduction plugin, and a separate remote-recording tool. I point new podcasters here when the goal is to get a show out the door rather than to chase studio-grade production.
What it does best
All-in-one recording and cleanup for solo creators. The free plan alone covers a surprising amount: unlimited recording, basic AI audio enhancement, remote guest recording, and no watermark. On top of that, Silence Removal and Filler Word Removal run in one click with solid accuracy, which is the kind of edit that otherwise eats an hour per episode. The Revoice feature builds a voice clone you can use to generate AI-read audio when you cannot get to a mic. For a one-person show, having capture, cleanup, and export in a single tab is the real value.
Pricing and what you actually get
The free tier is genuinely usable for a new show, with unlimited recording and basic enhancement at no cost. The Essentials plan at $19.99/month is the main upgrade, adding higher-quality exports, unlimited AI enhancement, and the Revoice voice cloning feature. A Pro tier above that runs around $39.99/month for heavier creators who need more hosting and download headroom.
Where it falls short
The audio quality ceiling is lower than Riverside for remote multi-guest recordings, where Riverside's local recording architecture captures noticeably cleaner guest audio. Revoice asks for a 70-sentence training session and the clone quality varies a lot by voice type, so it is hit or miss. Export options are limited on the free plan, with MP3 quality capped below studio standard, which matters once you are publishing seriously rather than experimenting.
Who it's for
Solo podcasters and low-footprint interview shows that value getting started over squeezing out the last bit of fidelity. If your guest audio is secondary and you want one tool for the whole pipeline, Async fits. For video podcasts or shows in a competitive niche where production quality is the differentiator, Riverside is the upgrade worth paying for once quality becomes the bottleneck.
Getting the most out of it
Set your recording level once during a test, aiming for about a -12dB peak, then let Magic Dust handle the rest. Do not stack additional EQ or compression on top of it, because the enhancement is already running compression and noise reduction internally and double-processing muddies the result. Run Silence and Filler Word Removal as your first edit pass before any manual trimming, since they clear out most of the dead weight and leave you a tighter timeline to work from.
