Async (formerly Podcastle) Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives

What is Async?

Async is an AI content studio for recording, editing and publishing audio and video. Until late 2025 it was known as Podcastle, a browser-based podcast tool. The platform combines a remote recording studio, an editor you can drive by chatting with AI, noise removal, text-to-speech voices, voice cloning, captions, short clips and podcast hosting.

The company launched Podcastle in 2020 and is led by CEO Arto Yeritsyan, with a large team in Armenia. In May 2025 it opened its voice models to developers as the Async API, and on 21 October 2025 it announced that the whole product was being renamed Async. The company said existing accounts, projects, billing and pricing would stay the same, and that the change reflects its move beyond podcasting into video, team tools and developer APIs.

What makes Async different is how much it bundles together. You get one workspace for recording, clean-up, voiceovers and clips, with one pool of monthly AI credits. Its chat-based editor, called Bumblebee, lets you ask for edits in plain language, which suits people who find timeline editing slow or intimidating.

Key features of Async

• Remote recording studioRecord interviews with remote guests in the browser, with separate tracks for each participant.
• Chat-based editingAsk the Bumblebee assistant to trim filler words, pauses and bad takes, add captions or build a rough cut, instead of editing on a timeline.
• Magic Dust audio enhancementRemoves background noise and evens out voices so home recordings sound clearer.
• AI voices and voice cloningGenerate voiceovers from text with a large library of multilingual voices, or clone your own voice for corrections and narration.
• Clips, reframe and subtitlesTurn long recordings into short vertical clips with automatic captions for social media.
• Podcast hosting and APIPublish episodes from the same account, and use the separate Async API to add text-to-speech to your own apps.

Who is Async best for?

• Solo podcasters who want to record, clean, edit and publish without learning a full audio workstation.
• Marketing and content teams who need branded videos, voiceovers and social clips with shared workspaces.
• Educators and trainers who turn scripts into narrated lessons using AI voices.
• Developers who need a low-latency text-to-speech and voice cloning API for voice apps.

Popular ways to use Async

• Interview podcasts: record a remote guest, clean the audio and remove filler words in one session.
• Voiceovers: type a script and generate narration with an AI voice or your own cloned voice.
• Social clips: cut a long episode into short captioned clips for TikTok, Reels and Shorts.
• Training videos: produce narrated explainer videos for staff onboarding.
• Fixing mistakes: replace a misspoken word with your cloned voice instead of re-recording.

Async pricing (October 2026)

Prices are from Async’s help center (updated April 2026); the main pricing page advertises up to 40% savings on yearly plans. AI credits reset monthly and top-up packs are available, so heavy users of AI voices or video generation should check credit costs.

Async pros and cons

How to get started with Async

1. Go to async.com and sign up for a free account (existing Podcastle logins still work).
2. Create a project and either record in the studio or upload existing audio or video.
3. Run Magic Dust to clean the audio, then ask the chat editor to remove filler words and pauses.
4. Add captions, music or an AI voiceover as needed.
5. Export the file, cut social clips or publish the episode to your podcast feed.

Tips to get better results from Async

• Ask remote guests to wear headphones.
• Check credit costs before large AI jobs.
• Record a clean, quiet sample when cloning your voice for more natural results.
• Test your workload on the free tier before buying an annual plan.

Async vs alternatives

Async’s closest rivals are Riverside and Descript. Riverside is stronger for high-quality multi-camera remote recording, webinars and live streaming, while Descript has a more mature text-based editor and screen recording. Async’s edge is its built-in AI voice library, voice cloning and chat-based editing at a lower entry price.

If you mainly need voiceovers, ElevenLabs and Murf AI offer more voice control and languages. For quick noise clean-up alone, Adobe Podcast is a simple option, and LALAL.AI is better for splitting music from speech. See all best AI audio and voice tools.

Our verdict: is Async worth it?

Async FAQs

Pricing and features change often. Details on this page were last reviewed in October 2026. Always confirm current plans on the official Async (formerly Podcastle) website.