Most people who start a radio station discover the same thing in about week two: the station only exists while they're sitting in front of it. Close the browser tab, shut the laptop, and it goes quiet. Anyone who tunes in an hour later hears nothing, and doesn't try again.
Broadcasting itself has been free here from the start, and stays that way — microphone, music from your laptop, a page you can share, a hundred people listening at once. What this release adds is the other half: your station carrying on without you, playing the music you uploaded, dropping in your own station IDs, and handing the microphone straight back the moment you go live.
Here's what's new, what you get without paying, and how to get Pro if you want it.
Why Small Stations Go Quiet
A station that plays around the clock needs three things, and most home setups only manage two of them.
It needs something to play when you're not there. It needs a link that keeps working even during the gaps, so listeners aren't knocked out of the stream and forced to find it again. And it needs a clean handover between you and the music, quick enough that nobody hears the join.
That last one is the part that quietly loses you an audience. If your stream cuts out for a few seconds every time you sit down to talk, people learn to stop listening.
What's New
Your Music Plays When You're Off
Upload tracks to your station, drag them into the order you want, and they play whenever you're not live — then start again from the top. We call it AutoDJ.
It's your own music, not a shared pool of stock tracks, so you decide exactly what airs. That also means the licensing is yours to sort out, which we cover in our guide to starting an internet radio station . Each station gets 3 GB of space — somewhere around 30 to 35 hours of music, enough that a regular listener won't hear the same run twice in a day.
Going Live Takes Over Instantly
When you go live, the music stops and you're on. When you finish, the music picks back up. Listeners stay connected through both switches — nobody gets dropped, and nobody has to re-open the link.
The same thing happens if your internet drops mid-show. Your listeners hear the station carry on instead of hearing silence, and you rejoin when you're back.
Station IDs and Jingles
Jingles are uploaded separately from your music and slot in automatically. You choose how often, three ways:
- By song count — one every few tracks. Good for station imaging, because it never lands in the middle of a song.
- By the clock — one every so many minutes, at the first break once the time is up.
- At set times — :00 and :30, say. Good for legal IDs and sponsor reads, because they land on the dot: AutoDJ picks songs that end in time, and if none does, the song playing fades out.
They're played in random order from whatever you upload, so a handful of them doesn't start sounding like a loop.
Everything Sounds the Same Volume
Uploads get checked for two things: how loud they are, and whether there's dead air at the start or end. Both get corrected on playback. A quiet old recording and a loud new one sit at the same level, and a file with three seconds of nothing at the front doesn't put three seconds of nothing on your station.
An On/Off Switch for the Station Itself
Your station is now something you switch on, separate from you picking up the microphone. One button on the station page does it, and it always tells you where things stand: off air, starting up, on air, live, or — if something has gone wrong between you and your audience — not reaching listeners.
If a station ends up on air making no sound at all, with nobody broadcasting and nothing queued to play, it switches itself off. A station playing music to an empty room is left alone; that's the feature working, not something to clean up.
You Can See What's Happening
The station page tells you where things stand at a glance: how many people are listening right now, what's playing, what's coming next, and how your last two weeks of shows went — including the biggest audience you pulled.
What You Get Without Paying
Free isn't a trial and it isn't a demo. There's no card, no countdown, and nothing that stops working after a fortnight. A free station is a real station:
- Broadcast from your browser — microphone, push-to-talk that ducks the music while you speak, and a drag-and-drop queue so you can play tracks off your own machine during the show.
- A hundred people can listen at once. For context, most small stations settle somewhere between ten and a hundred regulars, so that's not a starter allowance — it's room to actually grow into.
- A player page you can share anywhere, showing what's playing right now, plus a live count of who's tuned in.
- People who find your station while it's off can ask to be emailed the next time you go live — so an audience builds up between shows even when nothing is playing.
- As many broadcasts as you like, for as long as you like. Nothing is metered.
Plenty of stations never need more than that. If you broadcast a show a week and tell people when you're on, free does the whole job. Pro is for when you want the station to be there between your shows.
Free vs Pro
| Free | Pro — $20/month | |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast from your browser, push-to-talk, file queue | Yes | Yes |
| Shareable player page with live track info | Yes | Yes |
| Listeners emailed when you go live | Yes | Yes |
| How much you can broadcast | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Listeners at once | 100 | 1,000 |
| Music plays 24/7 when you're off | — | 3 GB per station |
| Jingles and station IDs | — | Yes |
| Broadcast from BUTT, Mixxx or similar apps | — | Yes |
| Stream link for TuneIn and Sonos | — | Yes |
| Your own domain and listener stats | — | Yes |
How to Get Pro
Pro is $20 a month, or less a month if you pay for 3, 6 or 12 months ahead. You buy it from inside your dashboard.
- Sign up free and set your station up: name, genre, artwork.
- Open your station's Library page, or use Get Pro in the sidebar.
- Pick a term and pay. If you have a coupon, enter it before you pay.
Pro switches on as soon as your payment is confirmed, and the dashboard updates by itself.
Pro is paid in advance for the term you pick and doesn't renew on its own. You can cancel any time and we refund what you paid, minus the months you've used at the monthly price — and your uploads stay yours either way. For where that sits against everything else a station pays for, see what it actually costs to run a station.
What's Coming Next
Scheduled shows are what we're building now: pick a time, and your show cuts into the rotation when it arrives, without you having to be there to press anything.
Until then there's a workaround that gets you most of the way. Your library lists the length of every track and the total run time of the rotation, so you can add up where the loop lands and order it to suit — a two-hour block of music before the slot you care about puts you where you want to be. And because going live cuts in instantly, a show that starts at eight starts at eight: you press the button, the music stops, you're on.
Separate logins for a team of DJs and a broadcasting app for your phone are further out, and we'll say so plainly rather than let you find out in week three.
What is fixed is the thing that kills most small stations: going silent the moment the person running it walks away. A station that's always playing something gives people a reason to come back — and if you'd rather do that with a weekly show and an email list, that's free, and it works too. Coming back is the whole game; there's more than one way to earn it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my station keep playing if I close my laptop?
On Pro, yes. Your uploaded music keeps playing and the link keeps working. On the free plan, broadcasting needs you at the browser — the station goes quiet when you close the tab and switches itself off a few minutes later. Your page stays up either way, and anyone who lands on it can ask to be emailed the next time you're on.
Do I need Pro to start a station?
No. Sign up, name your station and you can be broadcasting to a hundred people in about a minute, without entering a card. Most stations should start free and only look at Pro once they know they want to be on the air between shows.
What happens to the music when I go live?
It stops and you take over straight away. When you finish, it picks back up. Listeners stay connected through both, so nobody has to re-open the link.
How much music can I upload?
3 GB per station, shared between your music and your jingles. That's roughly 30 to 35 hours.
How much does Pro cost?
$20 a month, and you buy it from your dashboard. It doesn't renew on its own, and you can cancel any time.
Can I use BUTT or Mixxx instead of the browser?
Yes, on Pro. Your station speaks the Icecast 2 source protocol, so BUTT, Mixxx, RadioDJ, Audio Hijack and anything else that does will connect to it. The server address, port, mount and stream key are on your station's settings page — set the server type to Icecast 2, not Shoutcast. OBS is the one exception: it sends RTMP, which is video streaming, and cannot publish to a radio station.