How Much Money Do Podcasters Make?

0:01
Every now and then you’ll see a headline about some celebrity who’s making millions of dollars with their podcast, which sounds incredible. I mean, who wouldn’t want to make lots of money recording in your garage while still wearing your pajamas? But is that what’s really happening here? Does podcasting really turned rags into riches? And if not riches, can you at least earn an income that allows you to quit your day job? Today we’ll learn the truth when it comes to the amount of money podcasters actually make. Take it away, Mr. radio man. Podcast Your Business.

0:43
Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Podcast Your Business. I’m Sunny Gault. I’m a podcast coach and mentor and I’ve been podcasting for over 17 years. During that time, I’ve done a lot of things in the podcasting space. But right now I run a company. I’m the CEO of a company called Independent Podcast Network. And you can find us at https://independentpodcast.network. We help podcasts in a million different ways. But one of the things we do is produce a ton of free content for people out there that are just getting started with podcasting. And this podcast is part of that. Now podcast, your business is all about helping you create podcasts for your business. But that doesn’t mean that people who are just creating podcasts for other reasons can’t benefit from the content. Regardless, I am here to help you create amazing podcasts that you’re going to love that your audience is going to love. And we do this by mastering the five P’s of podcasting. The five P’s of podcasting is what I believe all podcasters need, in order to have a successful show, there are five different pieces you have to master prep, plan, produce, promote, and profit. So prepping for your show is deciding whether or not you should really even start a podcast, believe it or not, there’s a lot of people that start one. And they don’t get very far. And it’s because they haven’t asked themselves certain questions, right. So we need to get at the heart of that. And then you have plan, which is the look and feel for your podcast. And just kind of creating everything that’s going to happen in your show the produce part of it, that’s our third P is creating the actual content, promote is telling everybody about it. Because that’s how you grow your audience. And profit obviously has to do with making money. So Mr. radio man, which of those five P’s are we talking about today? Profit.

2:44
Money, money, money, money, money, they should really turn that into a song, it’s got a catchy beat. Okay, so hopefully, if you’re listening to this episode, you are early on in your podcasting career, because this message is super important. If I could sit down any future podcaster and play this episode for them? I would, because we’re talking about money, and you need to know what you’re getting into when it comes to podcast. My advice in general, and this is, yes, this has to do with podcast, but this is anything in life is that you should never do anything for the money. If that is the main goal, or one of the main goals, it’s probably not going to work, because you do not have the right intention behind it. Because money, believe it or not, never made anybody happy. In fact, a lot of times, it makes them not so happy. Right? Having said that, I do believe that you need to know what you’re getting into with podcasting. Because like I said in the intro, we hear these like grandiose stories that make the headlines of people making all this money in podcasting. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. But for your average podcaster that is not what most people are experiencing. So we need to kind of bring it back to reality a little bit because you can have a full time job in podcasting and love what you do. That’s my story. Okay, I’m not necessarily like, you know, not like moneybags city over here. But at the same time, I’ve been able to make it work because I got creative with it. It’s just like anything, right? It’s like musicians can make, you know, their lifestyle work. It may not be the most glamorous, you know, you hear about all the glamorous musicians, but most people are not, you know, bringing in tons and tons of cash. So it’s very similar with podcasting. And I just kind of want to bring it down a little bit today and tell you what is going on in the industry. And I really think you need this for planning purposes, right? Especially if you have this tied into your business because I do believe your podcast needs to impact your business and usually that means The bottom line. So let’s review what we’re going to talk about today, we’re going to answer four basic questions. First, how do podcasters typically make money? When do podcasters? Start making money? How much money do podcasters make, which is what most of you are here to learn more about? So I’ll give you some stats and, you know, give you some actual numbers of what people are making. And then finally, how can you maximize your podcast profits? So if you’re not raking in the bucks, what are some things that you can do to make as much money as possible? So you can keep doing this thing you love called podcasting? Right? We will get started on all of that right after this quick break.

5:46
One of the things that I learned early on in podcasting, and I think this is kind of the same mentality when you’re a freelancer in general is that it is better to have forms of income coming in from multiple sources. And that is what I have found works well in podcasting, as well. So I never rely on one way to make money with my podcast, there are a bunch of different ways you can make money. And that’s what we’re going to kick off our conversation today talking about how do podcasters typically make money. And I always tell my clients, the best way for you to make money is to sell your own products and services. It just makes sense. People are tuning into your podcast, probably because they like you. If they don’t like you, they’re not going to listen to your podcast, I’m sorry, if you’re the host, doesn’t matter what you’re saying. If they don’t like you forget it, there’s a million other podcasts they can listen to. So it’s not that difficult to say, Hey, you’re already listening to my show. And I have these other products and services I would love to tell you about maybe we can work together. This is how you pick up clients right for your business. And there’s different ways that you can do that. But I’ve actually, I did a whole course. And I think, actually, we did an episode on this for podcast, your business on how to promote your business within your podcast. So if you haven’t heard that episode before, go back and listen to that, because I have a lot of good nuggets of information on how to do this within your show. But just to give you an idea of some of the things you can promote, do you do consulting work? Right? Can you meet with people? Can you coach them? Do you have physical products, or maybe not physical products that could be digital products that you can sell people. So the big one I feel like everyone’s doing is online courses. But you could do webinars, you may have like an e book or something like that, that people can purchase. You can do public speaking gigs. And if you’re lucky, you get paid to do public speaking gigs. But telling people about your own products and services is the number one way to make money with your podcast, assuming your podcast is connected to your expertise, right. So if it’s associated with your business, that is perfect, you can start making money on day one with this. And that’s the main thing that I tell new podcasters you got a podcast connected to your business, start promoting your own products and services, you don’t have something, get something. Okay, it’s not that difficult to create, especially with all the tools available online. So that is the main way that most podcasters are making money is by selling their own products and services.

8:38
The next way, and I know the second way it gets hyped up the most, but it’s working with advertisers. Now, I have experienced doing both I have experienced doing a podcast like this, where I’m essentially telling you about how I can work with you as a podcast, right? I’m demonstrating my expertise in podcasting. So that’s kind of selling my own products and services. But my other set of shows that I do that I’ve told you guys about have to do with parenting? Well, I am not a parenting expert. I am a parent. I’ve got four crazy kids. So I’ve got a lot of experience. But with those shows, I work with advertisers, I don’t make my own products for those shows. I can’t not really we’ve tried to do some different things. And we’ll probably bring that up in the course of today’s conversation. But I don’t I don’t make something that I can sell. So for those shows those shows make money through advertising primarily. Now if you’re working with advertisers, it is a whole new ballgame. Because it’s not just your product or your service that obviously you support, because it’s you but sometimes you have to make tough choices with advertisers sometimes you you know, you have told an advertiser Sure, come on board and you know we’ll do this his campaign and then you end up not really liking the product that much. And then you’ve got a real pickle on your hands, right? Because you’ve already agreed to do the advertising campaign. So there’s all these things to consider. And that’s assuming you even get to the point where advertisers want to work with you, which we’ll talk about download numbers and everything in just a little bit. But working with advertisers, there’s a few different ways you can do that. You can do that through something called direct sales, ad campaigns. And that’s when you’re working directly. I mean, you may have a third party person helping you like in an ad sales team. But you’re the advertiser is acknowledging that they are working specifically with your podcast, and you come up with something together. And a price for whatever that is together that is considered direct sales, ad campaigns, you are going to make the most amount of money through your direct sales ad campaigns, you can also work with advertisers on a smaller level, I guess, I would say through something called programmatic ads. Now, you guys have probably joined podcast host providers in the past are like, oh, yeah, we’ve gone out, we’ve sold all these ads, and just go ahead and click this button. And you can automatically run these ads on your show. These are not ads, you would voice they are usually pre produced. Sometimes they’re taken from like a radio spot, hopefully not. Hopefully, someone at least converted it to make it sound more podcast friendly. But sometimes you just don’t know what you’re going to get. So those ads are called programmatic ads. And usually, usually, you have the ability to least say, you know, I don’t want to work with certain advertising categories, but you don’t have the ability to say, Oh, yes, I would prefer to work with this insurance provider and not that insurance provider, okay, programmatic ads. And then the third option is affiliate ads. The nice thing about affiliate ads is you believe in the product, because technically, you’re promoting the product without any guarantee of payment, so you better like the product. And you probably have some really good stories and things like that, that can go along with the ad to really sell it. So I have a couple of affiliate relationships with the parenting shows that I do. And these are products that my kids absolutely love. So it’s really easy for me to talk about those products on the show. Obviously, the downside is no one’s paying you upfront. So you better do a good job with your ad, and hope that your audience is listening. And they are, you know, they feel like they are in need of that type of product. So you can at least earn some revenue from affiliate ads. So that’s our second group, right. That’s our second grouping of how you can make money. We talked about selling your own products and services that was first group and then working with advertisers.

12:47
Next, a big chunk is relying on your community somehow, your listeners, your viewers, if you have a video podcast, and you can do this a couple of different ways, you can create some sort of community, or some sort of membership program if you want. Sometimes people just ask for donations I’ve seen that work on shows where it is there are no ads, nothing like that. There’s just a host that says, hey, you know, we’re making this podcast free of charge. But we’re kind of doing this out of the goodness of our hearts, if you could please donate, here’s the link that you can go to, I’ve seen that work, believe it or not, if you’re going to do some sort of community, right, where you create a community, and then there’s interaction there, there are a few things that usually podcasters do to help incentivize that. So you can offer premium content that could be additional episodes that you do, or perhaps you record, a little bit more of an interview that you’ve already done. And so that’s like additional content, something like that, you can have ad free episodes. And that’s just available to the people who are members of your community. You could release episodes early to that community. And that may not sound like a lot. But if you have a group that really really loves your content, that could work. I’ve seen it work. So that’s when I’m limping into our third category of community slash donations, hey, somehow your community is supporting you.

14:22
And then there’s a fourth category that not very many podcasters get to. I have not gotten to this level. But it’s out there. So I’m gonna mention it. And that is that your podcast got to a level where you’ve got a lot of fans, and you start doing events. So in person events, not just meetups and stuff like that, but like hold shows, or and I actually just talked to a guy the other day whose podcast network helps podcasts do this. But when your podcast is superduper popular sometimes they want to take that and Make it into other forms of media so they could pitch your show to television networks and places like that. And maybe Netflix. And, you know, we’ve seen this happen multiple times with multiple podcasts. So you have to be at a certain level for that. Not very many of us reach that level. But you don’t really the first two, well, under the first three that I talked about selling your own products and services, working with advertisers and community and donations, by far that that’s what most podcasters are doing. That’s how most podcasters are making their money.

15:35
When are they starting to make their money? Now, I searched for some stats on this. And I was kind of bummed out, because I couldn’t find any stats. And I was thinking about I was like, I don’t know if you guys know this, but podcasters have a tendency to be very, very private. Usually, when it comes to making money with their show, they don’t want to say what things cost, they don’t want to tell you when they started making money, because it’s it’s kind of like this big illusion, because numbers really vary in podcasting. And, you know, you know, the IAB is working on that and trying to make sure, okay, this is a download, and we need to make sure our download is a download a stream is a stream, but there’s still this wild west mentality of podcasting. And I feel like that’s one of the reasons that people don’t like to talk about their, you know, their downloads and how much they’re charging and stuff like that. So I’m not really surprised that there’s no stats that tell us when people start making money, because everyone wants to think that it’s day one, okay? Which can happen. In fact, I had that happen with my parenting shows now, hang on, hang on there, okay, because it wasn’t a lot of money. But the way I structured my parenting shows from the very beginning, is that we did have a membership club, and the club slash community gave out special things. And so I had to split the revenue 50/50, with my podcast host provider at the time, this was many, many years ago, not with the same provider. So I wasn’t making a ton of money. But I think within the first three months of launching my podcast, I was making like $50. And again, that was a 50/50 revenue share with the podcast company. So the podcast was making money, I think, one month, I never made a ton of money this way. By the way, I think one month, I got up to like $250. And this is, you know, within the first year of launching my parenting shows. And keep in mind, this was a long time ago, those shows launched in 2012. So this is a completely different space for that. Usually, if you want to make serious money out of the gate, you need to already have some sort of audience. So you need to have some sort of audience on social media, or you already have a community, you have an email list. It’s better if you’re a celebrity. And I say that kind of tongue in cheek, because the podcasting space has experienced this influx of celebrities coming into the space like B rated celebrities, something like that some A’s, obviously, but people coming into the space and being like, Oh, I couldn’t make it on TV or radio or whatever is that we’re gonna go into podcasting. So it is a little bit of a sore spot in podcasting, at least in my mind, it’s a little bit of a sore spot. So I’m not really being serious when I say you need to be a celebrity, but those type of shows I mean, think about it, look what’s being promoted and Apple podcasts and Google podcasts and Spotify. Most of them, you already know the person. It’s not like they really need the promotion. But that’s kind of what we’re seeing now in the industry.

18:48
So if you already have a built in audience somehow- not saying you got to be a super big celebrity- but if your business, let’s just say you’re doing this for your business, already has a bunch of people that are part of your community, however you outreach to them, then your podcast in theory is going to pick up faster. But with my parenting shows, I was starting from scratch, absolutely scratch. I you know, I had no audience. And again, I was able to build that up, you know, $50 within the first few months, and then I actually got my first what I consider my first real advertiser about 18 months into doing my shows. Again, keep in mind, this was many years ago, okay, 2012-2013 timeframe. I don’t think we were in 2014 yet. So this was a while ago, but it did take me that long to build up my library of content. So people knew that I was serious about podcasting. I had consistency across all of my episodes. And I was able to launch my first advertising campaign I’ll call it and really all All it was was a short interview with the advertiser, it was a baby carrier. And we happen to be doing an episode on baby carrier. So I made it work with the content of the episode. And I just did a like five minute interview with the owner for this baby carrier. And it ran on the show, and they paid me $500. That was my first advertising campaign. And that was it was it was one episode, and it was done. And so trust me, you remember your first advertiser, and I really appreciate that. And I sold a couple more of those packages after that. And then I got a little bit more creative. And I would, you know, create, like, I guess I’ll just call them package like advertising packages, right. So it will combine multiple things. And you know, getting people involved in the content of your show was kind of my specialty. All in all, for New Mommy Media, which again, is the company that produces those those parenting shows. They launched the episodes launched podcast launched in 2012. And ever since I would say, a few years into producing so let’s call it 2015, those shows had been making anywhere between $15,000 to $30,000 per year. And that’s not even releasing new content all the time, I believe I did an episode for Podcast Your Business that talked about re-releasing content. If you haven’t heard me talk about the importance of re-releasing content just to stay on a podcast schedule, please go back. Listen to that, because that’s really important. That was crucial to me, keeping my audience now keep in mind, these parenting shows, like I’ve got a podcast about pregnancy, you’re not going to listen to a podcast about pregnancy, unless you’re really into pregnancy, you must be pregnant or planning to become pregnant or in that field somehow, to want to listen to that show. And I’m not going to say the audience didn’t ebb and flow because it did. And my audience got decimated right after COVID. I mean, it got cut in half, because parents were focused on many other things besides listening to my podcast. But still, overall, I was able to make it work. Now I will say one of the challenging things with working with advertisers, besides just making sure you like the product is that they’re not super consistent with when they pay you doesn’t matter what you put on the invoice. I have an advertiser now that we ran ads in January, and it’s now the middle of August, and we received one payment for them. But the second payment, they still haven’t paid us. So some months, you know, when I gave the like, you know, 15 to $30,000 per year, some months, I would bring in $7,000. In some months, it would be $700 or even less. So that’s something to consider too, when you’re just focused on advertisers. Sometimes the money doesn’t come in when you want it. And that’s unfortunate, but that’s where we’re at right now.

21:21
Now, how much money do podcasters actually make? I gave you some of my figures, but I, you know, yes, I’m in this space. And I coach podcasters and I do everything I can to help podcasters. But I don’t have super big podcasts. And that’s okay with me, because I know the podcasts serve a purpose. And they’re helping people. And that’s why I’m in this space. But let’s look at some of the top shows because it’s fun to daydream, right? These are the headlines that I was talking to you guys about earlier, right? We we see these crazy headlines, we’re like, oh, we can be a podcaster and make all this money. So let’s let’s just review some of this because it’s kind of fun to the first name that everyone thinks about is Joe Rogan. Okay. And we believe he is the highest paid podcaster but if you were the highest paid podcaster would you tell everyone I don’t know. Right now, he supposedly I’ve seen different numbers online, but $30 million a year and his podcast and they different. They didn’t differentiate between his YouTube videos and his podcast, but 190 million downloads a month, guys. But he is not an overnight success. Okay, he was working at this for over a decade before he really blew up. Okay, he’s been in the entertainment space for a really really long time. But something he did caught on, and now he’s supposedly one of the highest paid podcasters Okay, the Ramsey shows you guys heard of Dave Ramsey and all his financial advice. My husband loves to listen to him. Well, he and for his podcast gets more than $10 million annually and has about 13 million listeners per month. And another gosh, I see this podcast promoted constantly. I’m like, could you give someone else a little bit more time in the spotlight, please. Dax Shepard, the eye After. So he’s got a podcast called armchair experts. And I’m sure it’s a great show. But come on guys, we could promote something else. That show gets $9 million a year, and has about 20 million monthly listeners. So you can see the numbers are kind of all over the place. And that’s just kind of where the space is, right? We don’t really know why. And honestly, like, how accurate are these numbers? I, when doing research on this, I saw multiple numbers that I just kind of did an average because I’m like, Wow, no one really knows what’s going on. But it gives you an idea. And it doesn’t make sense, because these are really popular podcast, if you want to be making money with your show, okay, there are you need to have like one of the following. You either need to have a larger audience, I won’t say a large audience, but a good sized audience. And I would say aim for 1000 downloads per episode, if you’re looking at things according to episodes, or 5000, monthly downloads. So that would be an aggregate of all of your downloads for the entire month across all of your episodes. So look for one of those, if you have that you can start making money with your podcast, you have to get a little creative, but you can make it work. So you need to have a larger audience, that’s your first option or, and or a committed audience that listens to you. When you say, This is my recommendation for this, they listen, they act on whatever it is you’re saying. Now, this is something that I think like the podcasts that deal with celebrities kind of miss out on. Because there are some people that will just listen to Dax Shepard regardless, right, and whatever he promotes, they will, you know, go ahead and purchase. But for most of us, we have to have more of a relationship, if you will, even if it’s just like a podcast listener relationship with the hosts, we have to trust the host. So you need at least one of those a larger audience, which I have defined to 1000 downloads per episode or 5000, monthly downloads, and or a committed audience if you can get both fantastic. But there are smaller podcasts out there that are more niche, they just have a great relationship with their audience. And when they recommend something, the listeners know, oh, my gosh, this must be a great product and they act on it. Because that’s ultimately what the advertiser wants. If you have someone else helping you with the sale of your podcast advertising, then you have probably heard the term CPM, which stands for cost per mille, it is a cost per 1000. So how much money are you going to make per 1000 downloads, and there is a wide range of what you can make. But most people most podcasters are making anywhere between 15 to I would say 30 might be on the high end, dollars per 1000 downloads, I saw some numbers online people making upwards of $100. You know, I’m sure people are even making more than that. But you best be like, really niche and like a hot commodity. Because if you have a general kind of interview show and your content is more for a general audience, you’re getting more of the 20 to $25. CPM. So that gives you an idea of where you’re at, okay, and how much money you can make. But there’s nothing that says that that has to be the cap that it’s just what ads are going for right now. You could combine your ads with other things, your products, your services, get creative and make a heck of a lot more money. So let’s focus in on that a little bit.

28:54
How can we maximize our podcast profits? Because I know, in talking about CPM, everyone’s like, where’s room? You know, it’s like, oh, great, I’m gonna put all this effort into doing a podcast episode. And then finally, when I get 1000 downloads per episode, then I’m gonna make 20 bucks. Like, that doesn’t sound like that sounds like a really difficult thing to do and really frustrating. And yes, you’re right. But I want to encourage you, because, as I mentioned before, it’s not just about the money, I want you to think about other ways you’re benefiting from your podcast, at least initially. I know. We can’t just run on gumdrops and rainbows forever. But there has to be other reasons you’re doing your show. Is your business. If you’re doing this for your business, is your business benefiting from this in some way? Are you getting other clients? Are you being connected with other thought leaders that could lead to other potential opportunities down the road? Maybe you’re just improving your speaking abilities. so that when you have conversations with clients moving forward, you feel more confident, because you soloed a podcast and had to listen to your voice every time you record an episode, and you’re just more comfortable talking, find those little nuggets, find those little nuggets that’s really going to help you in the beginning, I remember working on my my parenting shows, like I said, it was 18 months before I really saw that first $500 paycheck from an advertiser. So I had to rely on little things like this, and well wishes from the audience. And oh, thank you for doing this podcast. This helped me in so many different ways. Find those little nuggets, okay, when it comes to the actual production of your show, I’m a big fan of distributing your podcast in as many places as possible, we just did an episode on this right distribution of your show, and all the sites that you need to be on. So make sure you’re everywhere where people are going to access podcasts, don’t just be like, Oh, I’m only going to be on Spotify, because that’s my demographic, you never know where your audience is going to come from. Next, really focus in on your content. Pretend maybe you have to pretend that you have a large audience already. Don’t think, Oh, this is small show, no one’s really watching. So I don’t have to put that much effort into it. Or it’s okay, if I skip a week or whatever, don’t do that you need to publish great episodes, and you need to publish those episodes consistently. Like I said, it took me 18 months. And, you know, before I got my first real advertiser, and part of that was just building up the show. So people knew that this was a real thing. And they could look back in the RSS feed and see every week I was publishing an episode, I was serious about this. So that went a long way in the trust that they had in me. So make sure you’re publishing great episodes really focus in on that content and do it consistently. Like you have a huge audience already. And the last thing is when you get to a point, when you’re starting to think about advertising and you know, promoting things in your show, I talk about this a lot. But you really need to look into dynamic ad insertion, I have a whole course that is available for free on independent podcast network that talks about the importance of this, and how I literally 10x my podcast revenue, practically overnight guys, by switching from baked in ads to dynamic ad insertion. So dynamic ad insertion uses technology to insert the ads into your show. And it gives you a lot more flexibility on what you can do with those ads, as opposed to just saying the ad live in your show. And then you know, it’s always in your show until you edit it out. That is not the best way to do ads. So I’m not going to get into all of that today. Because like I said, I have a ton more content that’s focused on that. But one thing I will say is, you know, when it comes to making money through ads in your show, a big mistake I see a lot of podcasters make is not having enough places where you can put ads, you can have one ad per 15 minutes of content. That’s kind of the general rule of thumb. So if you have a one hour podcast, you can have up to four ads in your show, use that space. I know a lot of podcasters. It’s a little unnerving in the beginning, especially if you’ve never run ads on your show before and you think you’re gonna lose your audience. I’ve been through this a million times with podcasters. And it’s understandable. I felt the same way too, when I first started doing ads. But the truth is our audiences are very savvy, and they’re used to ads on television on radio. So you need to create good ads. And I wouldn’t put too many ads in your show. But if you stick to that formula, one ad per 15 minutes of content, you’re good. And that gives you more places where ads can run and you can make more money and you can really maximize your podcast profits. Okay, hope that was helpful for you guys. I’ve got more information and a freebie on the other side of this quick commercial break.

34:17
When it comes to maximizing your podcast profits, I talked about dynamic ad insertion. So if you haven’t heard of that before, or you’re a little unsure what in the world is that? How do I get into that? I have a free handout for you. It’s called Why dynamic ad insertion is better for podcasters and advertisers. And it is available on our website for Independent Podcast Network. You don’t even have to give me your email address for this. All you have to do is go to the link. I’ll include it in the description for today’s episode. And hey, while you’re on the website, guys, check out all the other free content we have. We have new blog posts being released each week. More great podcast episodes like this one, videos, more free handouts. And in fact I have entire courses that are available for free that teach you how to podcast that teach you how to run ads on your show all of that good stuff. Check it out, Independent Podcast Network. Until next week, remember, podcasts are awesome!