Yes, the free version doesn’t let you organize podcasts into folders for example. The paid version has a browser accessible version(so one can access from PC) , some gigs(10 GB?) of cloud storage and some extra theme able icons.
It used to be a one time purchase back in the day. Then they moved to a yearly subscription model. I think I used their paid variant for one year or so.
I recently moved to AntennaPod, which is available on F Droid. It is more or less at feature parity with the free version of Pocketcasts. It technically has gPodder integration to sync your podcasts online but honestly that service breaks down a lot and is unreliable multiple times.