Wowzaradio FAQ

Wowzaradio is a cloud radio hosting platform for launching and running online radio stations. It provides 24/7 AutoDJ automation, live broadcasting, AI DJ voices, news and weather breaks, daypart scheduling, listener analytics, music licensing logs, advertising, podcast hosting and creator monetization from one browser dashboard — no on-premise server or encoder required.

Wowzaradio serves independent internet radio hosts, DJs, podcasters, community and student stations, church and nonprofit broadcasters, and businesses that need licensed in-store radio. Listeners use it as a free directory of live stations they can play in a browser.

No. Wowzaradio is fully cloud-hosted: streaming, storage, automation and analytics run on the platform. Advanced operators can optionally self-host Wowzaradio on their own VPS, and hosts can stream from their own encoder such as OBS, BUTT, RTMP, SRT or WHIP when they want live input.

Most stations go live in under 5 minutes. The guided setup wizard collects a station name and genre, loads a genre starter pack of broadcast-safe music, builds a 24-hour daypart clock, and starts the AutoDJ stream automatically.

Yes. Wowzaradio has a free tier for starting a station with AutoDJ playback and a public directory listing. Paid plans raise listener and storage allowances and unlock automation, live shows, recording, AI voice features, licensing tools and monetization.

The Wowzaradio DJ Record Pool is $19.99 per month as an add-on to any plan. It includes unlimited downloads, BPM and musical-key tags on every record, and one-click delivery into a station's media library and AutoDJ rotation. Add-on revenue is reinvested into licensing new releases and keeping the crates broadcast-legal.

Wowza+ is the listener pass. It removes sponsor spots across every Wowzaradio station, unlocks episode replays, doubles loyalty reward points and offers a higher-bitrate stream where available. It starts with a 7-day free trial.

Wowzaradio accepts card payments, PayPal, Wise bank transfer and Bitcoin/Lightning via BTCPay Server. Discount codes apply at checkout for both subscriptions and shop orders.

Yes. Wowzaradio memberships can be cancelled at any time from Account & Billing in the host dashboard, with no email, phone call or retention process. The station keeps broadcasting until the end of the period already paid for, then the account drops to the free tier and nothing renews. A scheduled cancellation can be undone before that date.

Wowzaradio offers a 7-day satisfaction guarantee on membership plans: a refund can be requested within 7 days of any membership charge, including renewals. The refund equals the amount paid minus a 30% cancellation fee. Refund requests are recorded as a claim on the account, and the Wowzaradio team returns the money through the original payment method manually, normally within 5 business days — refunds are not issued automatically. Delivered advertising impressions, tips, Super Chats, crypto payments and digital store downloads are non-refundable.

The Wowzaradio cancellation fee is 30% of the refunded membership charge, covering payment processing plus the AI generation, storage and streaming already delivered. Worked example: a $29.00 Creator plan charge refunded inside the 7-day guarantee window keeps an $8.70 cancellation fee and returns $20.30. The exact figures for a specific account are shown before confirming a cancellation on the Account & Billing page.

Cancelling a Wowzaradio plan stops future billing only. The station stays on air until the paid period ends, then moves to free-tier limits; uploaded music, recordings, podcast episodes, playlists and schedules remain in the media library and can be downloaded or reactivated by resubscribing. Content is only deleted when the account itself is closed from Settings, or after the 90-day dormancy policy applies to an unused free account.

Playback negotiates a ladder: WebRTC/WHEP at roughly 400 milliseconds, low-latency HLS at 2 to 4 seconds, then standard Icecast as the universal fallback. Each listener automatically lands on the lowest-latency tier their browser and network support.

Yes. Hosts can go live with one click from the browser, or connect an external encoder over Icecast, Shoutcast, RTMP, SRT or WHIP. When a live source disconnects, the AutoDJ watchdog resumes automated programming within seconds so the stream never goes silent.

Auto Station is Wowzaradio's unattended programming engine. It runs clock-based daypart rotations, enforces artist and track repeat protection, inserts station IDs, jingles, sponsor spots, AI news, weather and local desk reports, and self-heals through a watchdog that restarts stalled playback.

Yes. Wowzaradio generates AI DJ voice links, station IDs, newscasts, weather segments and podcast scripts, and can generate music beds. Stations use platform-provided AI or bring their own provider keys for Gemini, OpenAI or OpenRouter.

Wowzaradio supplies the tooling — automatic play logs, cue sheets, rights-holder records, royalty split tracking and exportable reporting — but licensing obligations remain with the station host. Hosts still need the performance licenses required in their own territory.

Wowzaradio hosts source music from the DJ Record Pool, direct label and artist agreements, rights-holder-approved royalty-free and Creative Commons catalogs, and their own licensed uploads. Every download stores its license terms and attribution so a station can export an acknowledgements file.

Yes. Artists and labels submit tracks through the licensing submission form, where they declare ownership, territories and royalty splits. Approved submissions become available to network stations with rights data attached.

Stations earn from network advertising revenue share, self-serve sponsor spots and banner campaigns, listener tips and Super Chat, Fan Club memberships, a digital store for their own goods, and podcast ad revenue share. Earnings accrue in a wallet and pay out on a monthly or quarterly schedule.

Network advertisers buy audio spots and banners targeted by station and daypart. Impressions and completed plays are metered per station, and each host's share of that revenue accrues automatically to their wallet with a per-campaign breakdown.

Yes. Advertising is self-serve: upload an audio spot or banner creative, target stations and dayparts, set a budget, and campaigns run once approved. Reporting shows impressions, completed plays and spend across the network.

Yes. Wowzaradio hosts podcasts with unlimited episode storage, AI-assisted episode production, music beds, automatic transcripts and SEO metadata, plus standard RSS and Atom feeds for Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other directories.

Yes. Stations can record live shows to their own cloud storage and publish them as episodes with per-station podcast feeds, so listeners replay a show after it airs.

Custom Business Radio is a managed in-store radio service. Wowzaradio builds a private station per location with industry-matched music, branded promo and safety messages, daypart scheduling and a plug-and-play player, keeping the channel out of the public directory.

Wowzaradio provisions business channels from broadcast-cleared sources and supplies play reporting for each location; venue-level public performance licensing requirements still depend on the merchant's territory.