How to Publish Your Internet Radio Station on Amazon Alexa (2026 Guide)

Amazon has sold well over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices, and radio listening is consistently one of the top three things people actually use them for. Yet most independent internet radio stations still aren't on the platform. That gap is the cheapest distribution opportunity left in internet radio — a one-time setup, no monthly fees, and a permanent spot in the Alexa Skills Store.

This guide covers the full path: what Amazon requires, how the submission process works, where stations get rejected, and what your listeners experience once the skill is live.

What an Alexa Skill Actually Does for a Radio Station

An Alexa Skill is a voice app. Where a mobile app lives on a phone, a skill lives on Echo devices and the Alexa app. For a radio station, the skill does one job extremely well: it lets a listener say "Alexa, play [Your Station]" and hear your stream within a couple of seconds.

The alternative most stations rely on is an aggregator like TuneIn. The difference matters: TuneIn buries you in a catalog of a hundred thousand stations, and when someone says a name close to yours, Alexa picks whichever entry the algorithm prefers. A dedicated skill resolves directly to you. It also gives you your own Skills Store listing — logo, description, ratings, reviews — under your brand, not TuneIn's.

• "Alexa, open [Station Name]" — starts your stream immediately
• "Alexa, play [Station Name]" — same thing, phrased the natural way
• Works across the Echo family: Dot, Echo, Show, Studio, and Fire TV devices with Alexa
• One skill covers all Alexa countries — no per-region submissions

The Four Things You Need Before Starting

1. An HTTPS stream URL

Amazon rejects any skill streaming over plain HTTP. No exceptions, no appeals — it's a hard requirement baked into certification. Your stream URL must begin with https://. If you're on Zeno.FM, Radio.co, or Live365, this is automatic. If you're on classic Shoutcast or Icecast hosting, it depends on your provider: some serve SSL on a separate port, some need a request, some don't offer it at all. Find out before anything else, because this single detail decides whether your submission can even begin.

2. A 512×512 PNG logo

Amazon requires a square logo at 512×512 pixels or larger, in PNG, on a solid background — transparent backgrounds get bounced. This logo appears in the Alexa app, on Echo Show screens, and in your Skills Store listing. A logo that looks fine on a website header often turns to mush at thumbnail size, so check it small: shrink it to about 48 pixels and see if it's still legible.

3. An invocation name that passes review

The invocation name is what listeners say to reach you. Amazon's rules: at least two words, no generic phrases like "music radio," no trademark conflicts, no single words unless they're a distinctive brand. "Caribbean Vibes Radio" passes. "Radio" does not. Pick something that sounds natural when spoken out loud — that's literally how it will be used, in kitchens, by voice, imperfect pronunciation included.

4. A station description

Between 150 and 4,000 characters describing what you play and who it's for. Write it for a listener who has never heard of you — genre, mood, region, what makes the station different. This text is what surfaces in Skills Store search, so the words a potential listener would search for belong in it.

How Submission Works, Step by Step

Building and submitting a skill happens in the Amazon Developer Console. The sequence, in order:

1. 1Create a developer account at developer.amazon.com (free)
2. 2Create a new skill and configure the interaction model with your invocation name
3. 3Set up the audio streaming endpoint pointing at your HTTPS stream URL
4. 4Handle the AudioPlayer interface — the part that actually starts and stops your stream on command
5. 5Upload the logo and fill in the store listing: name, description, example phrases, category (Music & Audio)
6. 6Add a privacy policy URL — a simple page on your website satisfies this
7. 7Submit for certification

Certification typically takes 3–5 business days. Amazon's testers play your stream during review — that detail matters more than people expect, and it's where a lot of submissions die.

Where Submissions Get Rejected

Across the skills we've launched, the rejection reasons cluster tightly around the same handful of failures:

• Stream is HTTP, not HTTPS — by far the most common, and entirely preventable
• Stream went offline during the review window — Amazon's tester tried it, it was down, rejection
• Invocation name too generic or one word
• Logo under 512×512 or transparent background
• Stream format is OGG — Alexa supports MP3, AAC, and HLS only

Notice the pattern: none of these are about the skill's code. They're about the station's inputs. Get the four prerequisites right and certification is close to a formality.

What It Costs After Launch

Nothing from Amazon. Skills run on Amazon's infrastructure at no charge to the publisher — no hosting, no per-listener fees, no renewal. The only ongoing cost in your whole stack is your streaming provider, which you pay regardless of Alexa.

This is what makes a radio Alexa Skill unusual among digital distribution channels: it's a one-time cost that keeps paying out indefinitely. Compare that to an app that needs compatibility updates over the years, or ad campaigns that stop the moment you stop paying.