The short version: No, you do not need headphones to start a podcast, and plenty of shows with six-figure download counts were recorded without them for the first ten or twenty episodes. What you do need is a decent microphone and a quiet room, because those two things affect your sound far more than whether you’re wearing cans while you talk. Buy headphones the moment you start editing or recording with a second person, but don’t let their absence stop you launching this week.
Why this question comes up so much
Every “how to start a podcast” guide on page one of Google has a checklist that reads like a shopping list from a proper recording studio: XLR mic, audio interface, closed-back headphones, pop filter, acoustic foam. I’ve read a dozen of these lists and most of them were written by people who never had to record an episode on a kitchen table with a toddler asleep upstairs and forty minutes before the school run. I have. Twice.
The honest answer is that headphones solve a specific problem: they let you hear what your microphone is picking up while you’re picking it up, in real time. If you’re recording solo, talking into a decent mic in a quiet room, that problem barely exists. If you’re recording a two-person interview over Zoom or Riverside, or you’ve got any background hum you can’t identify, headphones start to matter a lot more. It’s situational, not compulsory.
What I did when I started my own podcast
When I recorded my first few podcast episodes, I used the wired EarPods that came free with an old iPhone. No proper mic, no headphones designed for audio work, just a phone, a laptop, and a spare bedroom with the curtains shut because closed curtains soak up a surprising amount of echo. Episode three had a hum I couldn’t place until my daughter told me it was the fridge two rooms away, picked up because I’d recorded near a shared wall. I fixed it by moving to a different room, not by buying kit.
Those early episodes sound rougher than the ones I do now. Nobody has ever told me that’s why they stopped listening. The people who dropped off did so because an episode ran long and rambled, or because the guest was flat, not because there was a faint hum on episode three. That’s the uncomfortable bit nobody selling podcasting courses wants to say out loud: your audience will forgive mediocre audio far more readily than they’ll forgive being bored. Content carries a podcast. Gear polishes one that’s already working.
What headphones do for you
Let’s be specific, because vague reassurance isn’t useful and neither is vague fear-mongering. Headphones during recording let you catch three things while they’re still fixable:
- Clipping and distortion, which happens when you talk too loudly or too close to the mic and the audio spikes into a crackly mess you can’t fully repair afterwards
- Echo and room reflection, that hollow “talking in a bathroom” sound that comes from recording in a room with hard, bare surfaces
- Background noise you’ve stopped consciously hearing, like a fridge, a fan, traffic, or your own laptop fan whirring
Without headphones, you find out about all three of those problems after you’ve recorded, when you open the file to edit and your heart sinks. That’s the real cost of skipping headphones. It’s not that your podcast will sound worse in a way listeners consciously notice on episode one, it’s that you’ll waste time re-recording sections you’d have caught live if you’d been listening through your ears rather than the room.
When you can skip them
Skip headphones with reasonable confidence if all of the following are true:
- You’re recording alone, not on a call with a guest
- Your room is small, soft-furnished, and quiet, think bedroom with curtains and a rug, not a tiled kitchen
- You’re using a USB microphone with a built-in headphone jack you’re choosing not to use, rather than a laptop’s internal mic
- You’re willing to listen back to the full recording before you call it finished, not just skim it
If two or more of those aren’t true, headphones move from “nice to have” to “will save you real editing time.” A two-person interview over video call without headphones is the classic mistake, because the guest’s audio comes through your laptop speakers, gets picked up again by your own microphone, and creates a faint doubled echo that’s a nightmare to remove afterwards. That one is worth avoiding, and a £20 pair of wired headphones fixes it completely.
The gear order that matters
If you’re starting from nothing and have, say, £150 to spend before your first episode, here’s the order I’d spend it in, based on what changes the sound of a recording versus what just changes your comfort while making it.
- First, £70 to £100: a USB microphone. The Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB and the Samson Q2U are both around £70 to £90 in the UK and both plug straight into a laptop, no interface needed. This single purchase does more for your sound than anything else on this list.
- Second, £0: a quiet room with soft surfaces. A wardrobe full of clothes, a duvet hung on a door, a small carpeted room, all of these absorb echo for free. This is the step people skip because it doesn’t feel like “real” equipment, and it’s the one that makes the biggest audible difference after the mic itself.
- Third, £20 to £40: a basic pair of wired headphones. Not noise-cancelling Bluetooth ones, which add lag and compression, but a simple wired pair. Sony’s MDR7506 is the industry standard at around £70 to £90 if you want to spend more later, but a £20 pair does the job for checking levels while you learn.
- Fourth, £0 to £30: a pop filter or a foam windscreen for the mic, which stops the harsh popping sound on words starting with P and B.
Notice headphones sit third, not first. That’s the order that reflects what changes your listener’s experience versus what changes your own recording experience.
Where to host and publish once you’ve recorded something
Recording is only half the job. You’ll also need somewhere to publish the episode so it lands on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and the hosting platform you pick affects your analytics, your monetisation options later, and how much editing help you get built in. I’ve written a full breakdown of the top podcast hosting tools in 2026 if you want a proper comparison before you commit, because switching hosts later means redirecting your RSS feed, which is a fiddly job best avoided by choosing sensibly the first time.
What to do with the time you’re not spending on gear
Here’s something worth thinking about while your podcast is still small and not paying you anything. Most new podcasters have a gap of three to twelve months between launching and earning meaningful money from sponsorship or ads, because you generally need a consistent few thousand downloads per episode before brands take you seriously. That gap is real, and it’s worth filling with something that uses skills adjacent to podcasting rather than something unrelated.
Transcription work fits that gap oddly well, because you’ll already be listening back to audio carefully to check for the echoes and mistakes we talked about earlier, which is most of the skill transcription requires. If you’re curious what that looks like as actual paid work, I’ve covered what freelance transcription work really involves day to day, and a separate piece on how to get started with remote transcription work for extra income if you want the practical first steps. There’s also a straightforward guide on what qualifications you need for a from-home transcription job, which is fewer than most people assume. It’s not glamorous, but it pays while your podcast audience builds, and the listening skills transfer directly back into tighter editing on your own show.
The uncomfortable truth about equipment lists in general
I’ll say the bit most gear guides avoid. A long equipment list is a brilliant procrastination tool. It feels like progress, ticking off purchases, reading reviews, comparing specs, and it delays the far scarier step of recording your voice and putting it out into the world where people might not like it. I’ve watched people spend three months “researching podcast equipment” and never publish an episode. I’ve also watched people record episode one on a phone in a wardrobe and have forty episodes out before the first group finished comparing microphones on forums.
Buy the microphone. Skip the headphones for now if money’s tight. Publish something. You can upgrade every piece of kit later once you know whether you enjoy doing this every week, which, honestly, some people don’t find out until episode eight or nine, long after the gear decisions were made.
A simple five-step launch if you’re starting today
- Buy or borrow a USB microphone, budget around £70 to £90
- Find the quietest, most soft-furnished room in your home and test a thirty-second recording in it
- Record your first episode without headphones if you’re recording solo, then listen back on your phone in a quiet room before deciding it’s final
- Pick a hosting platform and upload the file, ideally within a week of recording so you don’t lose momentum
- Buy a £20 pair of wired headphones for episode two onwards, especially if episode two involves a guest
Frequently asked questions
Can I record a podcast using just my phone and no other equipment?
Yes, plenty of first episodes are recorded on a phone using a free voice memo app or the built-in microphone, and it’s a reasonable way to test whether you enjoy podcasting before spending money. The sound quality is noticeably worse than a dedicated USB microphone, but it’s a real starting point, not something to be ashamed of.
Do I need headphones if I’m interviewing a guest over Zoom?
This is the one situation where headphones matter most, because without them your microphone can pick up the guest’s voice coming through your laptop speakers, creating a doubled echo effect that’s very difficult to remove in editing. A cheap £15 to £20 pair of wired headphones solves this completely.
What’s more important, the microphone or the headphones?
The microphone, by a wide margin. It determines the actual sound quality your listener hears, while headphones only help you monitor and catch problems during recording. If you can only afford one thing before launching, buy the microphone.
Will my podcast sound unprofessional without headphones?
Not necessarily. If you’re recording solo in a quiet, soft-furnished room with a decent USB microphone, the difference headphones make is mostly about catching mistakes early, not about the final sound your listener hears. Plenty of well-loved podcasts started without them.
