Business plan: AfterAir 0.1.0 beta
Beta / Working prototype · demand unproven.
One-liner
A starter kit for a small done-for-you show-notes service: a free offline tool that formats a host's bullets, quotes and timestamps into four draft files, plus the operator playbook (intake, LLM prompts for the hard part, verification checklist, pilot, outreach, honest economics). It is not a better show-notes generator than the free ones below.
Customer
- Kit operator: a freelancer, VA or tiny studio who wants to sell show-notes packs to podcast hosts.
- End customer: independent US hosts (weekly, 20–60 min episodes) who skip or delay show notes, chapters and promo posts. Not networks; not video-first shows already living inside Descript.
Honest comparison (read 2026-10-03; sources in RESEARCH.md)
| Alternative | Cost | Does the same job? | What AfterAir does differently |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zinn Hub: human-written show notes | $36 for audio up to 30 min (60 and 90 min tiers exist); 24 h, 1 revision; 4.9 stars from 11 reviews (read on page) | More: a person writes the summary, segment timestamps and links | The cheapest human we verified. AfterAir does not beat it on price; only a verified, consistent service can justify costing 2 to 3 times as much. |
| episodepack.com | First episode free; Starter $297 a month for 2 episodes, Growth $497 for 4 (about $124 per episode, including a blog post and social posts), Pro $797 for "8+ episodes per month" that its own page also calls "Unlimited episodes" (page text as captured by a search tool on 2026-10-03) | More: a done-for-you service for show notes, an SEO blog post and social posts in 24 hours | A live done-for-you competitor with a similar-sounding name and an operator's likely comparison; not affiliated with this kit. A direct fetch of the page returned HTTP 500 on 2026-10-03; the wording above is the page text as captured by a web-search tool the same day, not a browser read, so re-check before relying on it. |
| Descript | Free plan transcribes 60 minutes a month; paid plans for more (read on page) | More: transcript with time codes and speaker labels from your audio, and AI actions for show notes and chapters | It does the hard part (audio to transcript) for free. AfterAir only formats. |
| Swell AI | A free plan (1 upload a month) and pay as you go at $8.99 an hour (read on page) | More: AI show notes, transcripts and social posts from uploaded media | Same: it writes the notes; AfterAir will not. |
| EpisodeOps | Free trial then 1 free episode; Starter $19/mo ($15/mo billed annually) for 10 episodes; Pro $49/mo unlimited; Studio $199/mo ($159/mo annual) with white-label pages and client review links (prices as stated on EpisodeOps's own blog and comparison pages, found 2026-10-03; its pricing page showed the plan contents but its dollar amounts are not shown) | More: AI transcript, show notes, chapters, social posts, blog/newsletter; Studio is built for agencies | AfterAir writes nothing. For hosts who accept AI the floor is free to about $19 a month. Studio white-label (~$159–$199/mo) is the closest paid substitute for the operator model this kit sells. |
| Podsqueeze | Free plan (about 50 minutes a month); paid plans about $9 a month on aggregator listings (search excerpt only); its own pricing page shows no prices, and its show-notes page reports $12 a month for 160 minutes (see RESEARCH.md) | More: AI show notes, transcript and clips from uploaded audio, sold by the minute | AfterAir writes nothing. Re-check the price before quoting it. |
| Let's Make a Podcast show-notes generator | Free, no sign-up, no AI (read on page) | Nearly: same "type it in, get text, nothing stored" model, plus YouTube-chapter and Apple/YouTube length checks AfterAir lacks | AfterAir adds social posts and a guest thank-you in the same pass, and clean client-ready files. It has no length validators. |
| The Toolbox | Free, no account, in-browser (read on page) | Similar outputs; its own page says its timestamps are evenly spaced placeholders | AfterAir never outputs placeholder times as if they were real (it marks [TIME NEEDED]). |
| Buzzsprout Cohost AI | +$5/mo on the $19/mo plan (+$10 / +$20 on higher plans); needs Buzzsprout hosting (read on page) | More: works from your uploaded audio and transcribes it | AfterAir is host-independent, offline and has no monthly fee, but needs you to supply the content. |
| Castmagic | From $19/mo billed annually; month-to-month costs more (read on page) | More: audio in, many outputs out | Not comparable on features; AfterAir is a free formatter plus a service playbook. |
| Freelancers (rate guide) | $50–$150 per episode; a basic package is about 1 hour (rate guide, read on page) | They listen to the audio, which is the hard part | An operator using this kit is that freelancer; the kit only speeds up the formatting. |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column →
What is actually different (and what is not)
- Not different: the formatting. Free tools already cover it, several with real AI, and a human costs as little as $36.
- Different, small: (1) four files in one pass including a guest thank-you; (2) it refuses to invent timestamps and names unreadable lines; (3) a transcript check that flags quotes not found word for word; (4) the files carry no tool branding, so an operator can hand them over as their own; (5) works offline from a single HTML file with a reuse licence.
- The real product is the playbook: the LLM prompt that turns a transcript into bullets, quotes and timestamps (the hard work), the verification checklist, a pilot script, the economics with listening time included, and kill tests. If you only want notes for your own show, use a free tool above.
Name your service yourself
Do not sell under "AfterAir". Use your own studio name, clearly different from episodepack.com (an existing done-for-you show-notes service) and from AfterAir, and check it for conflicts first. No trademark search has been done for AfterAir (see BRAND.md).
Revenue mechanism
Per-episode or monthly retainer charged by the operator to hosts. BotMyBiz distributes the kit free (beta). No checkout on this kit.
Pricing, honestly
ECONOMICS.md models three cases against a $36 human floor. Short version: at $50 an hour of your time, a pack from a transcript breaks even at $83.33 and leaves a margin at $99; from audio only it breaks even at $133.33; if the client supplies the content it breaks even at $50 but is barely a business. Matching $36 loses money in every case. 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. These are hypotheses to test, not forecasts.
Kill tests
- Three free pilots (see
PILOT.md): can you produce a pack the host accepts within 48 hours and record your real minutes? If real minutes exceed the B1 model by more than 50%, stop or reprice. - Pay line (three free pilot episodes; the pilots are free, so this is stated willingness to pay, not a payment). 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. If not, retire or reposition.
- If hosts only want audio-to-notes with zero effort, Descript, EpisodeOps (including its $15–19/mo Starter), Swell and Buzzsprout win; If agencies want white-label AI delivery, EpisodeOps Studio is the substitute to beat — not this kit alone.
- If 20 personalised outreach drafts produce zero pilot accepts, rewrite the offer before inventing demand.
Largest uncertainty
Why a host would pay a human operator $84 to $149 when a $36 writer, free AI tools, a $15–19/month AI full-pack (EpisodeOps Starter) and $5 a month host add-ons exist. For hosts who accept AI the floor is free to about $19 a month (free tiers at Descript, Podsqueeze and Swell; EpisodeOps Starter at $19, or $15 billed annually). The only defensible answers for a human operator are time saved, consistency and a person who spot-checks quotes and timestamps against the audio. None is proven. Agency white-label AI (EpisodeOps Studio at about $159–$199/mo) is the largest substitute risk for the operator model.