Account and credit
Signing in
An account is an email address. Make one on the website with an address and a password, or with Google or Apple, and sign in the same way afterwards. Signing in from the Mac app happens in your browser and hands back to the app. Your library, your credit and your settings belong to the account, not to the Mac.
You can sign in with more than one of them. Google and Apple attach themselves to the account that already has that address, so the same library is behind all of them. Apple's Hide My Email is the exception: it gives out an address of its own, which nothing can match, so it makes a separate account.
Both the address and the password change under Account, in the Account panel, in the app or on the website. A new address takes effect once you confirm the links sent to both the old address and the new one. A new password may ask for a code first, sent to your address, when you have not signed in recently; an account that signs in with Google or Apple alone can set a password there too, and then sign in either way.
Forgotten your password? Forgotten your password? on the sign-in page sends a link to your address, and the link opens a screen where you choose a new one. The link works once and expires after an hour. There is no separate username to forget: your email address is the whole of it. An account made with Google or Apple has no password at all, and those buttons are the way in.
Your name
The hosts greet you at the start of an episode, and your name goes on the study notes and the practice questions. It comes from however you signed in, and you can change it under Account, in the You panel, in the app or on the website. Leave it empty and they will not use one. It belongs to the account, so it is the same wherever you sign in.
Invites
Podcaster is in development and invite only, so a new account needs an invite. If you have not got
one and would like to use it and tell us what is wrong with it, write to hello@podcaster.study.
An invite is a code that looks like PODC-4K7P-9WQM, or a link with one in it. The app asks for it
once after you first sign in; a link fills it in for you. Some invites carry credit to try
Podcaster with as well. If an invite link has already been used when you get to it, you are not
turned away: we are asked to let you in by hand, and you get an email as soon as you are.
Credit
Making an episode uses credit, which sits on your account and shows in the app under Account, in the Credit panel. Credit comes from a code, or from a top-up. The preview sheet shows the figure before you start, and pressing Make the podcast (Make it in the browser) is where you agree to it: from that moment the figure is set aside on your account, so it cannot be spent twice.
The finished episode waits at the top of your library with a Collect button, which shows the figure again. Pressing it puts the episode in your library, opens its files, and is when the credit leaves your balance. An episode left for seven days is collected for you, at the same figure.
Prices are in euro. What an episode costs you depends on its length and on what it reads; the
study material is part of that. A series is charged per episode. The sheet works the figure out
for the reading you actually dropped in, so a paper and a book are not quoted the same, and while
it is still reading your file it marks the figure with a ≈ and settles on the exact one once it
knows. That figure is the one you are charged. When an ad fits the reading, the sheet also offers
the same episode with a sponsor's short pieces in it, for less; you choose which to make.
A top-up is paid through Stripe, with iDEAL or a card. Choose an amount in the Credit panel, and Pay charges exactly the amount on its label.
When the credit on an account runs low, Podcaster sends a mail saying so: top up under Account, in either app, or add a credit code there. When the credit is spent, the app says so and stops making episodes until there is credit again. Topping up and entering a credit code still work on an empty balance; they are what an empty balance needs. An episode that fails costs you nothing; trying again reuses the work done where it can.
Every payment you have made is listed in the Credit panel: the day, what you paid with, the amount, and whether it was refunded.
Credit codes
A credit code looks like PODC-4K7P-9WQM, the same as an invite. Enter it under Account, in the
Credit panel, and its value is added to your account. Each code can be used once by you; a code
that has been used up or has run out says so.
Leaving
Delete account is under Account, in the Account panel (Settings in the Mac app). Everything of yours goes: your library, every episode and its study material, on your Mac and on Podcaster's server. Nothing is removed for fourteen days, so signing in during that time and choosing to keep the account puts it back exactly as it was. At the end of those days any reading still being made is stopped, and everything goes. After that it cannot be undone. What you were charged for your episodes stays in Podcaster's books, with no name on it, for as long as the tax rules ask. See the privacy policy.
Privacy of the account
The account holds your email, your library and your ledger of charges. Podcaster does not sell or share any of it. See Your files and privacy for what happens to the documents you drop in, the privacy policy for everything that is kept, and the terms of use for what you agree to.