Quick Answer
- ZeroAds is an AI “middleware” that removes podcast ads and gives you a clean RSS feed you can use in any normal podcast app. Price is listed as “$5.99/month” forever. ZeroAds say they share part this price with the podcasters
- Herd is a standalone, ad‑free podcast player app for Apple devices with built‑in smart ad skipping, comments, and offline support. Pricing is $4.99/month or $29.99/year.
ZeroAds (Service)
- You paste a public podcast RSS into ZeroAds, it transcribes the audio, detects sponsor reads and dynamic ads using AI, cuts them out with FFmpeg, and publishes a new “clean” RSS feed.
- You then subscribe to that clean feed in any regular podcast app (Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, etc.). I outline the benefits of Pocket Casts player in this post.
- Reported removal is ~90%+ of host‑read and dynamic ads, with a bias toward not cutting real content.
- Processing is server‑side only, using publicly available RSS/audio. Pricing is roughly in the $5.99–$7.99/month range with some these funds shared with podcast creators.
- ZeroAds shares part of your subscription with podcasters via a creator compensation pool based on listening time — details here.
Herd (App)
- Herd is an iOS/macOS podcast player that offers “true ad‑free listening” for all podcasts by identifying external, dynamically inserted, and host‑read ads via its own AI detection system.
- It’s a full‑featured client: audio and video support, comments and discussion, autoplay, queue management, downloads and offline play, and progress sync across devices.
- The app is free with optional premium subscriptions, but the App Store listing notes data linked to you (contact info) and data not linked to you (location, identifiers, usage, diagnostics).
- Pricing is $4.99/month or $29.99/year.
