How it works
From episode to publish-ready, one pass at a time
EpisodeBrief turns a finished episode into a transcript and a set of drafts you edit before anything is published. Here is the whole path, in order, with what you actually see at each step.
The six steps
Every step runs on the server and records its own state, so closing the tab never loses your place.
Choose an option and create your account
EpisodeBrief is paid before it processes anything. You pick a subscription or a single Episode Pass, create your account, and the selection follows you through sign-up. Nothing is uploaded, fetched or queued before that payment is verified.
What you see Your workspace, with the allowances the option you chose includes.
Add the episode
Upload an audio file directly, or paste a link: a direct MP3 or M4A URL, an RSS feed, or a public episode page. For YouTube, EpisodeBrief requests native captions first and a provider-generated transcript only after the provider confirms they are absent; it never downloads the audio or video. Uploaded files are scanned for malware and probed to confirm they really are the media they claim to be.
What you see The episode in your library, with its source and its validation state.
Transcribe with speaker labels
Transcription returns speaker-labelled segments with timings. Those segments are the single source for the clean transcript, the verbatim transcript and the SRT and VTT caption files. If the audio carries no usable speech, the run stops there rather than guessing.
What you see Live processing state, and the transcript as soon as the stage completes.
Draft the bundle
Show notes, chapters, titles and highlights are drafted against your transcript and validated for grounding before they are stored. A draft that does not hold up against the episode is rejected and retried instead of saved. Title options are scored against search data within your account's allowance.
What you see A full draft bundle attached to the episode, with per-stage warnings where there are any.
Review and edit
Everything arrives as a draft. You edit it in the browser, and each edit is kept as a revision you can read back later. Nothing you have not looked at goes anywhere.
What you see The editor, with revision history for every field you change.
Export or publish
Export the bundle as files: transcript, notes, chapters, titles and platform descriptions shaped for the places you post them. A show or episode page becomes public only after you approve that publication, and you can take it down again.
What you see Your export files, and a public page only where you asked for one.
What you get
One episode run produces all of this, in your workspace, as files you can take away.
A clean transcript and a verbatim transcript, both speaker-labelled.
SRT and VTT caption files, built from the same timed segments.
Show notes drafted against the transcript, not a summary of a summary.
Chapters with timecodes you can paste straight into your host.
Title options, scored against search data within your allowance.
Highlight moments, each with its place in the episode.
Platform descriptions in the export bundle, shaped per destination.
What we do not do
The limits are part of the product, so they are written down here rather than discovered after you pay.
There is no free plan, free trial, coupon or zero-price checkout. Processing starts after a verified payment, and only then.
YouTube stays transcript-only: native captions first, then a provider-generated transcript only after the provider confirms native captions are absent. EpisodeBrief never downloads YouTube audio or video.
There is no anonymous preview. You cannot drop a file in without an account, because nothing is processed before paid admission.
Nothing is published on your behalf. A public page exists only where you approved it, and it comes down when you say so.
There are no social posts. The export bundle carries platform descriptions for podcast destinations, which is not the same thing.
See what an episode run produces
The sample is a complete, fully synthetic bundle in the same shape your own episodes come back in. Pricing is on one page, with the allowances each option includes.