This article answers the question, “how do podcasts make money.” We present 9 money making methods and provide pros and cons for each.

If you’re a podcaster, you probably know just how hard it can be to make money. Sure the biggest podcasts in the world can make upwards of 800k per episode, but did you know you can monetize a podcast with as little as 20 listeners? 

In this article we’ll talk about all the different ways a podcaster can make money, whether you have a huge audience or a committed few. It’s nearly impossible to do all of these methods at once, we recommend you try to keep your revenue streams as diverse as possible by pursuing as many as you can.

Let’s get started.

Want to grow your podcast, respond to audience reviews, sell merchandise, and more? Claim your podcast on Podchaser to personalize your podcast page today.

Table of Contents

• Advertisements
• Affiliate Marketing
• Live Shows
• Crowdfunding
• Merchandise
• Selling Courses
• Apple Podcast Subscriptions
• Public Speaking
• Create Assets for Other Podcasts

How Do Podcasts Make Money?

1) Advertisements

Advertisements are a ubiquitous revenue stream for podcasts, and for good reason. Even podcasts with small audiences of around 5,000 listeners can get sponsored, because there are hundreds of companies of all sizes who are excited to advertise on podcasts.  In fact, a small dedicated audience can be even more valuable. As the old saying goes, “there’s riches in niches”.

The price of podcast advertisements depends on your audience size and where the ad is placed within the episode. We’ve written a detailed article about podcast ad rates, but the average range is between $10 and $30 CPM (cost per thousand listeners during the first month of publishing) .

If you don’t know where to start when finding advertisers for your podcast, there are several companies that will find advertisers for you. Midroll is a popular podcast advertising company that finds and manages advertisers for podcasters. Evergreen‘s Audience Accelerator provides targeted banner advertising around the web, designed to grow your audience and be more attractive to advertisers for your show.

In addition, some podcast networks like Wondery, manage and sell advertisements for podcasts on their network. Lastly, some podcast hosting providers, including Redcircle, Spreaker, and Anchor, will automatically add ads to your episodes and if you agree to pay a percent of the profit.

Pros: 

• Make money with each new episode.
• The more popular you get the more you can earn.
• You can make money by being super niche.

Cons:

• Not ideal for small shows in crowded categories.
• If you don’t have a network, you’ll do a lot of manual outreach and selling

2) Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a more circuitous form of corporate sponsorship. Instead of a company paying you to advertise their products, you get paid from affiliate marketing only after your listener has purchased something. The top two affiliate marketing companies for podcasters are Amazon and Audible.

Amazon’s affiliate program is simple. If your listeners buy an Amazon product directly from your affiliate link, you receive 1%-10% commission of the purchase price. Because Amazon’s affiliate links are long complicated URLs, you won’t be able to effectively share them on air, so you’ll need a visual platform to share your affiliate links with your listeners. A common way to do this is via show notes, social media, or personal website. For example, Harrison Baron, host of the Brutally Honest Podcast, features Amazon affiliate links on his blog post about podcasting equipment.

Audible’s Creator Program is designed for podcasters. When a listener signs up for a free trial of Audible using your (easy to remember) custom URL, you receive $15. This is a win-win opportunity, because you are getting paid to give your listeners free access to Audible.

Pros:

• Easy to get started, often no minimum listeners
• The payouts can be pretty significant

Cons:

• High barrier to get paid (someone has to actually purchase)

3) Live Shows

Once you’ve grown your audience enough, live shows are a potentially lucrative method to make money podcasting. Instead of thousands of people listening for free online, hundreds of people pay to come see you in person. Listeners love live shows, as they are excited to put a face to your name and to mingle with other passionate fans. Welcome to Nightvale has been performing live shows for nearly a decade, and are even going on a world tour in 2022.

Live shows also create an incredible opportunity to sell merchandise. As we’ve seen from decades of concerts, fans are more likely to buy merch while they are excited and in person than online at home. We’ll talk more about merchandising your podcast a bit later on in this article.

You don’t need a huge audience to get started performing live shows. Partner with a local bar or coffee shop that needs entertainment. Then do whatever you can to attract an audience, including promoting your show online and inviting your friends and family to attend. 

Once you’ve proven that you can draw a crowd, then you can start to charge an entrance fee and make money podcasting.

Pros:

• Make a connection with fans that turns them into evangelists
• Opportunity to make a lot of money
• Grow your audience at the same time
• Create content for your podcast

Cons:

• Requires a strong audience
• Requires having a dedicated audience nearby
• You and your cohorts must live near each other
• Can be tough to get places to give you a chance
• Requires A/V equipment, signage, tables, etc.

4) Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a great avenue for podcasts with a small but dedicated audience. If you have 2,000 listeners and only 20 of them donate $5 every month, you’re suddenly getting paid $100 a month. This may seem like small potatoes, but that’s only with 2,000 listeners. On the higher end, political comedy podcast Chapo Trap House earns over $164,000 every month from their 37,000 subscribers.

Patreon is the most popular crowdfunding platform for podcasters (including Chapo Trap House), because you can create different tiers of donation and provide unique bonuses at each tier. The two most popular Patreon bonuses are ad free episodes and exclusive episodes via a private RSS feed. Some Patreon alternatives include Supporting Cast, Glow.fm, and Supercast. 

Pros:

• You stay beholden to your fans
• Builds a strong connection with fans
• Provides recurring, consistent funding

Cons:

• Can take time to set up and get it right
• Requires extra work to fulfill subscriber bonuses

5) Merchandise

Merchandise is one of the most popular ways to make money podcasting. As an example, the McElroy brothers release new merch every month related to their recent episodes. Another example is the true crime podcast, Last Podcast on The Left. They’ve translated their spooky aesthetic and subject matter into a lifestyle brand, featuring products like t-shirts, playing cards, and even a bicycle.

To sell merchandise, we recommend TeePublic. On their site you can create an entire line of merchandise including clothes, phone cases, posters, magnets, pillows, and more. The best part about TeePublic is you don’t even need to design the merchandise yourself. Instead you can pull in designs from their artist community that you think will appeal to your fans. For example, if you host a pop culture podcast, you can create a shop with the coolest pop culture designs in 5 minutes.

If you claim your podcast on Podchaser, you can even add your TeePublic store to your Podcacher podcast page, Two Chatty Broads has added their Tee Public store to their Podchaser page, broadening their potential customer base to all Podchaser users. 

Pros:

• Easy to use Podchaser/Teepublic integration
• Forms a bond with fans
• Free advertising for your show

Cons:

• Potentially takes a long time to be profitable

6) Selling Courses

The worldwide e-learning market is forecast to surpass 243 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2022, which is a much larger market than podcasting. So if you have a small dedicated audience who trusts you, you can sell them courses to teach them about your area of expertise. In addition, you can market your podcast on your online courses to grow your listenership.

There are many companies that provide everything you need to sell courses online, including Podia, Teachable, Kajabi.

Pros:

• You can make a lot of money.
• Further solidifies you as an expert

Cons:

• Will take a lot of effort to create a course

7)  Apple Podcast Subscriptions

Apple Podcasts is the most popular place to listen to podcasts, which means that many of your listeners use the platform. Apple Podcast Subscriptions allows listeners to pay for some additional benefits, including exclusive episodes, ad free content, and early access to new episodes. As the podcaster, you receive 70% of the revenue from your subscriptons.

Many large companies use Apple Podcast Subscriptions, like Malcolm Gladwell‘s podcast network, Pushkin. Another example is the subscription only podcast network Luminary, which uses Apple Podcast Subscriptions to power their 35 shows

Pros:

• Easy to use tools

Cons:

• Not all listeners are on Apple devices or use the app
• Creating a subscription can take a while

8) Public Speaking

Public speaking is different from performing a live show, as you aren’t performing your podcast. Instead, you are speaking either about your area of expertise or about your experience as a podcaster to an audience largely unfamiliar with your work.

If you’re looking for places to perform, many podcast conferences have open calls for public speakers. To find podcast conferences to apply to, we’ve written an article about every podcast conference coming up this year. Other venues looking for speakers include businesses, colleges, and non-podcast conferences.

When pitching the organization to host your talk, use your Podchaser creator page as your podcasting resume. That way, potential employers can easily read your biography and see all of your podcast credits.

Pros:

• You can make a lot of money
• Gets you out in the community and can grow your audience
• Can lead to more gigs
• Podchaser creator profile makes it easy

Cons:

• Takes a lot of effort to get a gig
• Might need to travel

9) Create Assets for Other Podcasts

Beyond making money with your own podcast, you can sell your skills as a freelancer – whether that be music, writing, editing, or even creating podcast cover art.

There are dozens of job boards for freelancers, but we recommend starting with Fiverr and Envato. Fiverr is a standard online job board where podcasters post various tasks they’d like to hire you for. Envato is a little different, as they provide a library of creative assets for creators to license. You can make money from Envato by selling your creative assets to be used in their library.

Similar to public speaking, freelancers need a resume to showcase their previous podcast work. Add all your credits to your Podchaser creator page so employers can see everything you’ve done in one place.

Pros:

• Passive income
• No contracts, you’re your own boss

Cons:

• You need to promote yourself
• Not specifically tied to your podcast
• Pay can be fairly low

Conclusion

There are many ways to make money podcasting, but in order to be successful with any strategy, you need to have an audience.

Shows with smaller audiences can find success through crowdfunding, advertisements, Apple Podcast subscriptions, freelancing, affiliate marketing, and merchandise. Once you’ve grown your audience and are regarded as an expert in your field, you can expand into public speaking, selling courses, and performing live shows.

If you’re looking to go to the next level with your podcast income, and you need help growing your podcast audience, we’ve written a whole article about using Podchaser to grow your show.

And no matter your show size, claiming your podcast on Podchaser is the first step to many of these methods. You’ll need to claim your podcast in order to sell merchandise on Podchaser and to create your podcasting resume for live shows, freelancing, and public speaking.

Read More Tips About Podcasting

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