If you're looking for Radio.co alternatives, then you're in the right place. Radio.co and Radio Cult are both great products, with fantastic features. They both help you run your radio station and stream over the internet.
What's the difference between Radio.co and Radio Cult?
Short answer: Radio Cult is specifically built for independent and community radio. And, in particular, for those that play mixes.
Radio Cult and Radio.co do have some overlaps but really shine in different use cases. Radio.co was built over 10 years ago when online radio was mainly about maintaining and playing playlists. Radio Cult is a modern platform, with ongoing development, that is built specifically for the current state of online radio.
Many radio stations play a range of content - from pre-records, to playlists, to live sets and everything in between. You need a tool that is fit for purpose.
So if you’re a modern station looking for a tool that is a delight to use, has dedicated mix support and is more affordable then you’re in the right place.
Eight reasons why stations use Radio Cult over Radio.co
We've condensed eight propositions that explain why you might consider Radio Cult to be a better alternative to Radio.co for your station.
Reasons to choose Radio Cult over Radio.co
1. A mix focussed platform
Stations evolve as listeners' habits change. Nowadays many stations stream live sets, pre-recorded mixes, playlists and everything in between. We made sure to support all the different content that you might need.
A particular area where we shine is in handling mixes. With Radio.co, if a file is larger than 200MB then you can’t upload it via the web interface. You have to break up the mix into multiple smaller files. This is time consuming and can ruin the sound of your station as each chunk of your mix will be treated as an individual song and crossfaded into one another. You can upload very large mixes to Radio Cult and we handle it fine. We have stations that upload 500MB mixes regularly.
Radio Cult also has native scheduling support for mixes. Create an event, set it to a mix and choose what file you want to play. It’s that simple. With Radio.co you have to create a playlist, put the individual mix file into a playlist, create the event and then attach the playlist. It’s a lot more cumbersome, especially if you are scheduling multiple pre-recorded mixes.
This next feature is unique to Radio Cult. We call it a live-stream fallback. It allows you to specify what you want to play while we wait for you to connect live. Sometimes you, or your hosts, might be a few minutes late or disconnect a bit early from a live set. The live-stream fallback allows you to configure what you want to play in those moments - either silence, an audio file like a jingle/sting or your default playlist. These options let your station stream sound polished and professional and removes the scheduling burden from yourself.
2. Cloud storage
We know that stations need a lot of cloud storage space nowadays. Pre-recorded mixes can be anywhere from 300 - 400 MB. Not to mention that high quality 320kbps mp3s can take up a lot of space. That’s why we offer so much more cloud storage at Radio Cult.
Radio.co’s Hobby plan is $59 USD and comes with 20GB of storage. Our comparable plan is $55 USD and comes with 50GB of storage. Thats 2.5x more storage for a cheaper price.
3. Affordability
Running a station isn’t always cheap. To stay afloat you need the best tools possible at the best price point. That’s why we endeavour to keep our costs low. In fact, we’ve architected Radio Cult in such a way that we can drive prices down and pass these discounts on to you.
Our plans are either cheaper than Radio.co and/or come with a lot more value for the same price. We give more cloud storage and more customer support.
For example, Radio.co’s Hobby plan is $59 USD and comes with 20GB of storage. Our comparable plan is $55 USD and comes with 50GB of storage. Thats 2.5x more storage for a cheaper price.
Another example - our Premium plan comes with 75GB of storage for $70 USD. Radio.co’s Plus plan also comes with 75GB. Except it costs $139USD! That’s pretty much 2x the cost for the same amount of storage.
Another way we save money is by avoiding feature-gating as much as possible. For example, Radio Cult allows you to stream in 320kbps quality on our Hobby plan ($55 USD) and up. Radio.co only allows 320kbps stream quality on their highest plan ($199 USD a month).
You can see how running your station on Radio Cult is a lot cheaper. Especially as your station grows.
4. Customer support
Radio.co is a big company. Their business model is based around getting many stations to sign up. But they don’t provide dedicated customer support unless you are on their higher plans.
Here at Radio Cult we love independent and community radio. We endeavour to help as much as we can. Have a problem? We will jump on a call, reply to an email or live chat. You can even contact us on Whatsapp if you want.
We also help you migrate off your old streaming provider. So many stations we talk to feel trapped with their current provider because they don’t have the technical knowhow to update their site. Don’t bother paying a developer to update your streaming link - we can do it for you. In most cases, we migrate stations for free!
5. Integrations
Radio isn’t one dimensional. Running a radio station involves integrating with many different tools. One of the most important of these being archival tools like Soundcloud & Mixcloud.
Radio Cult integrates with both Soundcloud & Mixcloud. Radio.co only integrates with Mixcloud.
Our integrations can save you a lot of time. You should be able to focus on the important things - not uploading media to different tools.
6. Mobile
Gone are the days where web radio could only listened on computers. Most listeners now have the means to enjoy web radio using the device in their back pockets. We know it's important to you as stations to allow your listeners to lock in through as many mediums as possible, especially through their mobile phones.
Radio Cult offers our aggregator mobile app (which is available on both iOS and Android) on all of our plans at no additional cost. Radio.co does offer a dedicated app (also available on both iOS and Android), which is a paid add-on depending on the plan you go for - their two most expensive plans include the apps as part of the monthly cost.
It must be noted, that you will also have to pay an additional ongoing cost for the required Apple developer account and a one-off fee for an Android developer account, regardless of which Radio.co plan you choose.
You’ll also have to deal with navigating the complications of releasing apps on iOS & Android if you go with Radio.co. With Radio Cult, we host our aggregator app ourself so you get it for no additional cost. Your station appears on the app within seconds after signing up so it couldn’t be easier.
7. Chat rooms
Community radio as the name suggests is all about engagement with your community of listeners. Not only do you want to know that your audio content is resonating with your listeners, you also want to provide a place where you listeners can engage with each other and a chat room provides just that.
Radio Cult provides a chat room for you on all of our plans, which is accessible on our aforementioned app as well as an embeddable component on your own website. Radio.co provides no chat functionality of any kind.
8. Station management
Running an online station is time consuming and resource intensive. We know that managing all your artists and residents can be a lot. So you need processes in place to ensure that when a show goes live, everything is in place so it goes off without a hitch.
Radio Cult offers dedicated station management functionality, allowing you to store all of your artists and presenters data in one place. A central repository to track everything about your artists and make sure you have everything from them to make certain your station runs seamlessly.
You can even use this data to power your own site, so your listeners know everything they need to about your artists. And when you need to update an artist’s information, you only need to update it in one location. Radio.co provides no comparable station management functionality.
Please note: If Radio.co gets an update and this article becomes outdated, please email us and we will update it.