Beta / Working prototypeDemand unprovenPodcast kit No. 008

AfterAir

Your bullets, quotes and times in. Four draft files out. Plus the playbook for a small show-notes service.

Free · no account · runs in your browser · 154,847 bytes

Contact sheet · tap any frame to enlarge

You bring the bullets. It does the formatting.

AfterAir is a free browser tool for US podcast hosts and the freelancers who write their show notes. Type your episode bullets, quotes and chapter times; it builds show notes, chapter markers, three social posts (each drafted to fit 280 characters) and a guest thank-you draft. The files are drafts you finish. It does not listen to audio, transcribe, summarise or rewrite your words, and it never makes up a timestamp: with no times it marks [TIME NEEDED].

Honest status. Beta / Working prototype · demand unproven. Free tools, a $36 human-written option and low-cost host add-ons already exist. AfterAir is not a better generator than them; read the comparison below before you decide it is for you.

Price: Free. No account, no checkout.
You supply: Bullets, quotes and timestamps (or a transcript to extract them from).
Setup: Open one HTML file. About five minutes to read the guide.
Operator time: About 20 minutes to produce the files if the client supplies the content (about 60 with client messages and selling). About 100 from a transcript and 160 from audio. Estimates, not measured.

Not included: transcription, audio upload, a host dashboard, email sending or automatic posting. Nothing you type is uploaded by the tool.

From episode bullets to four draft files

Fictional sample: Shelf Talk Ep. 42, host Casey Morgan, guest Riley Quinn, 38 minutes, four topics, two attributed quotes, five chapter times. These are the sample's real output files.

You enter

Shelf Talk · Ep. 42
Bullets · Name: "quote" · 04:12 Label times. A guest name unlocks the thank-you draft.

It builds

Reads [04:12], (04:12), Intro 04:12, 4m12s, 1h02m. Names unreadable lines instead of dropping them. Shortens long text for social posts. Rejects SSN-shaped and card-number-shaped text in any field.

You keep

show-notes.txt
chapter-markers.txt
social-posts.txt
guest-thank-you.txt

Why not just use a cheaper option?

Often, yes. Each price is marked read on page search excerpt only, or page text captured by a search tool (checked 2026-10-03); sources are on the research page.

Alternative	Cost	What it does
Zinn Hub seller (human)	$36 for audio up to 30 min; 24 h; 1 revision (read on page)	A person writes the summary, segment timestamps and links. The cheapest human we could verify; 4.9 stars from 11 reviews. This is the price floor a service built with this kit must beat on value.
episodepack.com	First episode free; $297/mo for 2 episodes, $497 for 4 (about $124/ep with blog+social), $797 for “8+” (its page also says “unlimited” for that plan)	Done-for-you show notes, an SEO blog post and social posts in 24 hours. A live done-for-you competitor with a similar-sounding name, not affiliated with this kit. Page text as captured by a search tool on 2026-10-03; a direct fetch returned an error that day, so re-check before relying on it.
Descript	Free plan: 60 min of transcription a month (read on page)	Does the hard part for free: transcript with time codes and speaker labels, plus AI actions for show notes and chapters. AfterAir only formats.
Swell AI	Free plan (1 upload a month); pay as you go $8.99/hour (read on page)	AI show notes, transcripts and social posts from uploaded media. It writes the notes; AfterAir will not.
EpisodeOps	Free trial then 1 free episode; Starter $19/mo ($15/mo annual, 10 episodes); Pro $49/mo; Studio $199/mo ($159/mo annual, white-label)	AI transcript, show notes, chapters, social posts, blog. Starter is about $1.50–$1.90 per episode. Studio adds white-label pages and client review links — the closest paid substitute for an operator studio. Prices are search excerpts of EpisodeOps's own blog and comparison pages; its pricing page shows the plan contents but no dollar amounts.
Podsqueeze	Free plan (50 min); paid plans about $9/mo on aggregator listings (search excerpt only); its pricing page shows no prices, and its show-notes page reports $12/mo for 160 minutes	AI show notes, transcripts and clips from uploaded audio, sold by the minute (120 / 320 / 600 a month). Re-check the price before you quote it.
Let's Make a Podcast	Free (read on page)	Same no-AI, in-browser model; adds YouTube-chapter and Apple/YouTube length checks AfterAir lacks.
Buzzsprout Cohost AI	+$5/mo on the $19/mo plan (more on higher plans) (read on page)	From your uploaded audio: titles, description, chapters, blog draft, three posts, transcript. Needs Buzzsprout hosting.
Freelancers	$50–$150 per episode (rate guide, read on page)	They listen to the audio, which is the hard part. An operator using this kit is this freelancer.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column →

What is actually different

It never writes or guesses: unreadable timestamps are listed, and no times means [TIME NEEDED], not made-up chapters.
Four files in one pass, including a guest thank-you, with no tool branding in them by default.
An optional transcript field checks that each quote appears word for word.
A service playbook around it: the transcript-to-bullets prompt, a pilot script, an outreach draft, and economics with listening time included.

If you only want notes for your own show, use a free tool above. AfterAir is for someone trying to run a small show-notes service, and that business is unproven. If you do run one, use your own studio name, not "AfterAir", and pick one clearly different from episodepack.com.

The economics, as hypotheses

None of this is measured. The kit costs $0 in cash; the cost is your time, including listening, client messages, finding clients and three unpaid pilots. Planning rate: $50 an hour.

Case (40-min episode)	Your time	Break-even price	At the $36 human floor
A · Client supplies bullets and times	60 min	$50	−$14 per episode
B1 · You extract from a transcript with real time codes, using the kit prompt	100 min	$83.33	−$47 per episode
B2 · You listen and write from audio (or a transcript without time codes)	160 min	$133.33	−$97 per episode
Unpaid before the first dollar	12.25 h	≈$612 of time	20 outreach drafts plus three free pilots

Swipe the table sideways to see every column →

From a transcript with real time codes the break-even is $83.33 per episode at $50 an hour, so you need at least $84 to clear it and $99 to leave a margin, which is 2.3 to 2.8 times the cheapest human. Matching the $36 human loses money in every case. For hosts who accept AI the floor is free to about $19 a month (free tiers at Descript, Podsqueeze and Swell; EpisodeOps Starter $19, or $15 billed annually). Prices to test: with real time codes, $99 or $149 per episode, or $349 or $399 a month for four; without them, $149 per episode, or $549 or $599 a month for four. $79 per episode and $249 a month are below the transcript break-even and make sense only in case A, where the client supplies the bullets, timestamps and quotes. Monthly floors for four episodes: 4 x $83.33 = $333.32, so at least $334 a month with real time codes; 4 x $133.33 = $533.32, so at least $534 without them; case A is 4 x $50 = $200. Pilots and pass line: three free pilot episodes, nobody pays, so the line is stated willingness to pay. Pass line: at least one host says, after hearing the free and cheaper alternatives, that they would pay at least $84 per episode, preferably $99+, for a pack made from a transcript with real time codes (at least $134, preferably $149+, without real time codes); $79 is not a pass. Caveat: $84 breaks even only if the 5% outreach-conversion assumption holds; at 2% conversion the with-time-codes break-even is about $115. Payment fees and tax are not modelled. Stop if hosts will only pay $36–$49 or will only use a free or $15–19/mo AI tool.

Assumptions behind these numbers

"Your time" is the production minutes plus 10 minutes of client messages and 30 minutes of selling per episode. The $36 price is for audio up to 30 minutes; a 40-minute episode needs the seller's 60-minute upgrade, whose price is not shown, and the seller discounts bulk orders of five or more. The 100-minute case assumes the transcript has real time codes; without them the prompt writes TIME UNKNOWN and the chapter times must be found by seeking through the audio, which moves the job toward the 160-minute, $133.33 case. The acquisition share assumes about one paying client per 20 messages (roughly 5%); at 2% the transcript break-even rises to about $115. The 35-minute verify step is spot-checking each chapter in the audio, not a full listen; checking every claim means the audio-only case. Whether any host pays a human operator more is exactly what the three pilots test. All assumptions →

Run this business with AI

The formatting is automated and tested; the extraction needs your AI assistant and your checking; the service is a person.

Automated · testedFormatting the four files, reading timestamp formats, shortening posts, flagging unreadable times and quotes missing from a transcript. The tool contains no AI. The kit's tests pass.
Your AI assistant · you verifyThe kit includes a prompt that turns a transcript into bullets, verbatim quotes, timestamps, and guest details. You run it in your own LLM account, which sends the client's text to that provider, so get the client's OK. Long episodes need to be split; the guide says how. Model quality is not tested here.
A personClient consent, spot-checking quotes and timestamps against the audio, delivery, and invoicing. Prerequisites: a transcript or the audio, and 1 to 2 hours per episode until you have measured your own.
Not claimedAudio transcription, automatic posting, email sending, integrations, scheduled jobs.

Read the AI operator guide and prompt →

Inside the kit

Version 0.1.0 · nonexclusive reuse under LICENSE.txt. The cover and "real work" images are original graphics made from code (no image model); the other three are real captures of the demo, with fictional sample data.