Build a podcast highlights newsletter with the Automate API
Every week, podcasters and media teams sit down and manually pull quotes, timestamps, and clips for their newsletters. It works, but it doesn't scale — and the best moments often get missed because no one had time to listen through the full episode.
The Podbite Automate API lets you build that pipeline programmatically. This guide covers two patterns depending on your newsletter format.
What you'll need
- A Podbite Automate plan and an API key (find yours at podbite.link/my/account)
- Timestamps for the moments you want to clip — from your own notes, a transcript tool, or a chapter list
- An email platform with an API (Loops, Resend, Mailchimp — the pattern is the same)
Pattern A — Single episode digest
If your newsletter covers highlights from one episode per issue, you only need to create bites. Podbite automatically aggregates all bites for an episode into a shareable episode page.
New episode published
→ Resolve episode URL → get episode_short_id and podcast_short_id
→ For each highlight timestamp → POST /v1/bites
→ Embed episode player in newsletter → send
Step 1 — Resolve the episode
GET /v1/episodes/resolve?url=https://podcasts.apple.com/...
Returns episode_short_id and podcast_short_id. Resolve once per episode —
not once per bite.
The first time Podbite sees an episode it fetches metadata from the podcast provider, which takes 1–3 seconds. Subsequent calls return instantly from cache.
Step 2 — Create bites for each highlight
Submit all bites in one batch request:
POST /v1/bites
{
"bites": [
{ "episode_short_id": "abc123", "caption": "Why consistency beats intensity every time", "start_time": 842, "end_time": 917 },
{ "episode_short_id": "abc123", "caption": "The moment everything clicked", "start_time": 1203, "end_time": 1251 }
]
}
Up to 25 bites per request.
Step 3 — Embed or share
The episode page at
https://podbite.link/@yourhandle/podcasts/:podcast_short_id/episodes/:episode_short_id
automatically shows all bites as a player. Embed it in your newsletter:
https://podbite.link/@yourhandle/podcasts/:podcast_short_id/episodes/:episode_short_id/embed
Individual bite social cards are available to download from the Podbite UI for use in your newsletter or social posts.
Pattern B — Multi-episode or themed digest
For digests that span multiple episodes, or where you want to curate a specific ordered selection rather than all bites from an episode, create a playlist.
For each episode in this issue
→ Resolve episode URL → get episode_short_id
→ For each highlight → POST /v1/bites
→ POST /v1/playlists (with all bite short IDs)
→ Embed playlist player in newsletter → send
Step 1 — Resolve and create bites (per episode)
Same as Pattern A steps 1–2, repeated for each episode.
Step 2 — Create a playlist for the digest
Pass all bite short IDs in the creation call:
POST /v1/playlists
{
"name": "Week 24 — best of The Founders Show, Acquired, and Lenny's Podcast",
"description": "Five moments worth your time from this week across podcasting.",
"bites": ["bite1", "bite2", "bite3", "bite4", "bite5"]
}
Step 3 — Embed or share
The playlist is publicly shareable at:
https://podbite.link/@yourhandle/playlists/:short_id
Embed a player directly in your newsletter:
https://podbite.link/@yourhandle/playlists/:short_id/embed
Playlist and bite social cards are available to download from the Podbite UI for use in your newsletter or social posts.
Variations
Automated from transcript: pipe your transcript through a highlight extraction model, get back timestamps and suggested captions, create bites via the batch endpoint.
Persistent archive: episode and playlist URLs are stable for the life of your account. Link to them in your newsletter footer as a running archive readers can return to.
Quota
Each bite and playlist created via the API counts against your monthly quota (500 combined). At four issues per month:
- Pattern A — 5 bites × 4 issues = 20 bites/month
- Pattern B — (5 bites + 1 playlist) × 4 issues = 24 items/month
Episode resolves have a separate cap of 10 provider lookups per day. For a weekly newsletter covering one episode per issue, that's 1 resolve per week — well within the limit. Multi-show digests covering several new episodes per issue may approach it; episodes already known to Podbite resolve from cache and don't count.
Check your current usage at GET /v1/quota.