Podcast Activity Monitor (own Podcast Index key + RSS)

Bring your own Podcast Index API key. You enter your own key for your own run; it is never stored, logged or shown.

Find podcasts by keyword or paste RSS feeds and see which shows are actually alive: last episode date, episodes in the last 90 days, publishing cadence, average episode length and an active / slowing / dormant status. Monitor mode flags shows that start or stop publishing. Built for guest-booking agencies, podcast sponsors and marketers who waste time pitching dead shows.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Podcast Index or any podcast host. Apple Podcasts is an Apple Inc. trademark, mentioned only to describe the iTunes ID field.

What does this podcast activity checker do?

• Search terms / feed IDs use the open Podcast Index API with your own free key.
• RSS URLs are read directly from the public feed, with no key, honoring robots.txt and at most one request per host per second.
• For every show it analyzes recent episodes (default 20) and returns activityStatus, lastEpisodeAt, daysSinceLastEpisode, episodesLast90Days, medianDaysBetweenEpisodes and avgEpisodeMinutes, plus title, language, categories, website, artwork and the iTunes ID.

Your Podcast Index key and secret: used only for your run

• You get a free key and secret yourself at api.podcastindex.org.
• They are used only for your run and are sent only to api.podcastindex.org: the secret itself is never transmitted, only Podcast Index's signed hash header.
• They are never stored, logged or shown: they are not written to the dataset, the key-value store, monitor memory, logs, status messages or error messages; anything echoed back is masked. Apify keeps the fields encrypted as secrets.

No personal data

Owner names, owner emails and host/guest "persons" lists from Podcast Index or the RSS feed are never collected. The author credit is also left out, because it is often a host's personal name. The output contains no author, owner, host or person fields.

Example output

title	activityStatus	lastEpisodeAt	episodesLast90Days	medianDaysBetweenEpisodes	avgEpisodeMinutes
Planet Money	active	2026-10-31	27	2.7	27.3
This Week in Tech	active	2026-11-02	13	7.0	178.3

Pricing

Users on the free Apify plan get up to 100 results per run (then the run stops with a clear status message).

Pay per event: $0.01 per show delivered, $0.001 per unchanged monitor check. Errors are free. Example: a weekly monitor of 500 shows costs $5.00 the first time, then about 50 changes x $0.01 + 450 x $0.001 = $0.95 a week. Free Apify plan users get up to 100 shows per run.

FAQ

Do I need a key? Only for keyword search and feed IDs. RSS URLs need nothing. What counts as active? A new episode within 30 days or twice the show's usual gap; slowing is up to 180 days; dormant beyond that. Does it download audio? No, only the feed metadata. Does it build a copy of Podcast Index? No. It is an activity analysis for the shows you ask about, run with your own credentials.

Is it legal?

It uses the official Podcast Index API under its terms with your own credentials, and public RSS feeds that publishers syndicate for exactly this kind of reading, respecting robots.txt. It collects no personal contact data. You remain responsible for your use of the results and of your Podcast Index account. This isn't legal advice.

Example input / example output

Example input (RSS, no key)

{
  "rssUrls": ["https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"],
  "monitorMode": false
}

Example output (one show)

{
  "title": "Planet Money",
  "activityStatus": "active",
  "lastEpisodeAt": "2026-10-31",
  "episodesLast90Days": 27,
  "medianDaysBetweenEpisodes": 2.7,
  "avgEpisodeMinutes": 27.3
}

Use it with Make, Zapier, n8n, or AI agents (Apify MCP)

• Make: In Make, add the Apify module, connect your Apify account, then run this Actor (or an Actor task) and map dataset items into your scenario. See Make integration.
• Zapier: In Zapier, use Apify as a trigger (finished Actor/task run) or action (Run Actor / Run Task / Fetch dataset items). See Zapier integration.
• n8n: Install the Apify node, authenticate, then use Run an Actor or Run an Actor and get dataset. See n8n integration.
• AI agents (Apify MCP): Connect your MCP client to https://mcp.apify.com, then use search-actors, fetch-actor-details, and call-actor. Pull results with get-dataset-items. See Apify MCP server.

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Disclaimer

Provided as is; stats depend on what publishers put in their feeds. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Podcast Index.