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GuestDesk: podcast guest management software for indie shows
Take a guest from pitch to published without digging through your DMs.
GuestDesk is podcast guest management software for independent hosts who book a handful of guests a month. GuestDesk moves each guest from pitch to published in one pipeline, with intake forms, prep questions, and the promo assets you always chase afterwards.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does GuestDesk solve?
A guest says yes in a DM on a Tuesday. The scheduling link goes out by email. The release form is a PDF you attached once and cannot find again. Their bio and headshot arrive in a third place, usually as a squashed image inside a message thread. By recording day you are searching three apps for the pronunciation of their surname. The other half of the mess arrives after you stop recording. You promised them the episode link, an audiogram, and a quote card. They asked when it goes live, and you said next month, which was true when you said it. Two weeks later the episode publishes and nobody tells the guest, so the one person most likely to share it never does. Meanwhile the pitch from a publicist you meant to answer sits four screens up in an inbox, and turning it down late is worse than turning it down at all.
Guest prep sheet
One sheet per guest with your standard sections, their answers, and what you plan to use on the recording.
| Section | Question | Guest's answer | Use in show |
|---|---|---|---|
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would GuestDesk do?
GuestDesk would give every guest one card that moves along a pipeline: pitched, confirmed, recorded, published. Opening the card shows the whole relationship, including how they reached you, the intake form they filled in, the release they signed, and the assets they sent. The intake form asks once, in their words, for the bio, the headshot, the pronunciation, the links they want credited, and the topics they would rather avoid. A prep questionnaire built from your standard sections goes out ahead of the recording, and their answers print onto the sheet you read from. When an episode publishes, the guest gets the link and their promo assets, because the card knows which episode they belong to and what you promised them.
How would it work?
- 1Add a guest as a card and move it from pitched to confirmed, recorded, and published.
- 2Send one intake form for the bio, headshot, pronunciation, links, and off-limits topics.
- 3Generate a prep questionnaire from your usual sections and print their answers for the recording.
- 4Publish the episode and send each guest their link and promo assets from the same card.
Who is it for?
- A solo host booking four guests a month between a day job and the edit.
- A co-hosted show where one person books and the other writes the questions.
- A producer running two shows who keeps guest pipelines in two different spreadsheets.
How do you build a podcast guest CRM in a spreadsheet before you have software?
One sheet, one row per guest, and four stages is enough for a year. The stages that matter are pitched, confirmed, recorded, and published, because each one has a different next action. Pitched means you owe them an answer. Confirmed means you owe them a date and a form. Recorded means you owe them a publish window. Published means you owe them a link and something to post. Color the row by stage so you can see, in one glance on a Sunday, who is waiting on you. Add columns you will actually fill: name, how they reached you, the topic in six words, date recorded, episode number, publish date, and a link column for their bio, headshot, and audio. Do not build a column you will not maintain, because a half-filled tracker gets abandoned faster than no tracker at all. Make the intake a form, not an email. Ask for the name as they say it, a pronunciation spelled out, a bio they want used, a headshot, the two links they want credited, and anything they would rather not be asked. Send that one link to every guest, and the answers land in the same sheet instead of five threads. Then write your prep questionnaire once and reuse it. Four sections work: a short origin, the specific thing only they can explain, the disagreement they have with their own field, and a question you promise to ask at the end. Send it a few days ahead, read the answers before you hit record, and arrive with three follow-ups you would not have thought of otherwise. A guest who has seen the shape of the conversation gives you better tape.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| A spreadsheet and a calendar link | Free, quick to set up, and enough to see who is confirmed for next month. | Forms, files, and follow-ups still live elsewhere, and nothing nudges you to send a guest their episode. |
| A general CRM or a project board | Stages, custom fields, and automations that can be bent into a booking pipeline. | Shaped for deals or tasks, so intake, release forms, and promo assets are scaffolding you build yourself. |
| Guest booking marketplaces | Introduce hosts to people who want to be interviewed, which solves the finding problem. | They handle the match, not the dozen small promises between a yes and publishing day. |
| Your inbox with labels | Everything about a guest genuinely is in there somewhere, and it costs nothing extra. | A label is not a pipeline, and the guest you never answered looks exactly like the one you did. |
What would it cost?
Free
$0
- Three guests a month
- Guest pipeline and intake form
- Printable prep sheet
Host
$12/mo
- Unlimited guests on one show
- Prep questionnaires and release forms
- Link and promo assets sent on publish day
- Asset checklist per episode
Network
$39/mo
- Everything in Host
- Up to five shows with a shared team
- Booking reports per show
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build GuestDesk.
Questions people ask
What is podcast guest management software?
Podcast guest management software tracks each guest from the first pitch to the day their episode goes out, holding the intake details, the release form, the prep questions, and the promo assets in one record. GuestDesk would do that for shows booking a few guests a month rather than a few a day.
Does GuestDesk record or edit the episode?
No. Recording, editing, and hosting are well served already, and GuestDesk would not compete with them. The card holds a link to wherever the audio lives, so the booking side and the production side stay joined without either pretending to be the other.
Can I send a release form through it?
That is the plan. You upload your own wording, the guest signs as part of the intake step, and the signed copy stays on their card. GuestDesk would not write the form for you, and what your show needs from a release is a question for a lawyer.
What goes in a podcast guest prep questionnaire?
Ask what only that guest can answer. A short origin, the specific claim or story you want on tape, something they disagree with in their own field, and a question they would like to be asked. Keep it under six questions, because a long form comes back empty.
How does the promo asset checklist work?
Each episode carries a list of what you promised: the link, an audiogram, a quote card, a credit. Publishing ticks the list and sends the guest their files. Anything still unticked stays on screen, so a forgotten promise is visible rather than vaguely remembered.
I book two guests a month. Is this too much machinery?
Possibly, and the free plan exists for that. Two guests a month is still two dozen relationships a year, each with a form, a date, and a follow-up. The spreadsheet in the guide above may be all you ever need, and that is a fine outcome.
When will GuestDesk launch?
There is no date. GuestDesk would be built only if enough independent hosts join this waitlist and say they would pay for it. Nobody is charged for joining, and the guest prep sheet above stays free whatever happens.
Where does this stand?
GuestDesk is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.