Creators start podcasts to showcase expertise, connect with an audience, and expand their reach. As the podcast grows, you can monetize to turn your podcast into a revenue stream for your creator business.
In this article, we’ll explain the podcast business model, tell you how much podcasters make, and show you nine ways to make money from your podcast.
Those rates are in line with our State of the Creator Economy Report, which found that 26% of creators reported earning at least $50,000 a year.
Further down in this guide, we break down how sponsored ads on a weekly podcast with 3,000 listeners can earn around $1,000 a month. Castos also ran calculations to estimate how a podcast with 1,000 downloads per episode could earn around $700 a month.
What kinds of podcasts can be monetized?
Just like there isn’t a standard podcast income, there’s no single way to be successful. You can monetize podcasts of all types and sizes.
Podcasts with a large audience: In general, the larger your podcast audience, the more money you can make. More listeners equals more people to sell your course, subscriptions, and products to. Podcast audience size also affects how much you earn from advertisers—sponsorship pricing uses a CPM rate, which stands for “cost per mille” (mille means thousand). As your audience grows, the CPM rate you can demand grows as well.
Podcasts with an engaged audience, even if it’s small: The sheer size of your audience isn’t everything. Engagement matters as well—if your audience is enthusiastic, you can start making money with a smaller following. It all depends on how you choose to turn a profit. For example, using your podcast to promote your freelance projects could generate project income from a small number of listeners.
Podcasts in a profitable niche or genre: Your topic and the role it plays in your listeners’ lives can affect your profits. Typically, a niche or genre is more profitable when people are willing to spend more money to solve problems. The WNYC Studios survey found that median hourly rates vary by up to $20 an hour between niches. While business podcasts earn a median of $45-$49 an hour, music podcasts are the least profitable, with a median hourly pay of $25-$29 an hour.
Median podcast profits vary by genre, with business topics having the highest hourly rate. Image via WNYC Studios.
Podcasts with diversified monetization strategies: Don’t put all your podcast eggs in one monetization basket. If you rely on a single income stream, like sponsors, you’re stuck catering to or maintaining a money source even if you want to switch it up. When you use a few different podcast revenue models—like the ones we’ll list below—you smooth out the fluctuations in income and protect yourself if one income stream falls away.
9 ways to make an income from your podcast
If you want to start making money from your podcast, your first dollar might be closer than you realize— 55% of creators start making money through their creator business in their first year.
We’ve rounded up a list of ways how podcasts make money for newbie, intermediate, or pro podcasters.
The top of the list has the easiest and quickest income streams to set up and works through to more advanced strategies at the end.
9 ways to monetize your podcast (ranked easy to advanced):
Asking for donations or setting crowdfunding goals is a great way to start pulling money from a podcast with a small audience. There’s little upfront work compared to creating a course or finding sponsors, and you can start by asking for small amounts.
With Kit’s Tips feature, you can receive tips or donations directly from your superfans without the 30-50% commission fees you lose with similar third-party platforms.
The tips go right to you, the creator your community actually wants to support.
Podcast virtual tip jar example: The Piano Parent Podcast
2. Receive organic referrals
Difficulty level: Newbie
If you’re a coach or consultant, you can use an interview-style podcast to connect with people in your industry. If all goes well, your guests could refer you to people who need your help.
Podcaster Ramli John shared how relationships play an important role in podcast monetization:
One of my first guests, after only 18 episodes, asked what I’m up to. I told him that I’ve been teaching marketing on the side along with consulting. And he referred me to a huge, well-known company in the marketing education space. It ended up being a $15k contract over several months of live training and building a pre-recorded course!
-Ramli John, host of Growth Marketing Today
The Kit Creator Network is a valuable resource if you need help finding potential podcast guests. You can find and connect with fellow creators; there are even special categories just for podcasters.
As you build your newsletter audience, you can ask them who they’d like to hear you chat with since subscribers likely know of other creators in your niche.
3. Start a newsletter for your podcast
Difficulty level: Newbie
Unlike social media algorithms that can change on a whim, email marketing is a direct line of communication with your audience, so it’s essential to start one if you haven’t already.
Creating a newsletter for your podcast won’t bring in dollars on day one, but you’ll need it for the intermediate and pro tips further down, so the earlier you start it, the better.
As you build a list of subscribers, you create a way to generate topic ideas, promote new episodes, and impress advertisers.
How to encourage podcast listeners to sign up for your newsletter
Create a freebie related to your podcast niche: A freebie, sometimes called a ‘ lead magnet,’ is a free resource subscribers get after signing up for your newsletter. Create one relevant to your audience and with episodes, like a marketing strategy template for your business development podcast. You can even use free tools like Canva to design your simple PDF or even use a Google Doc.
Build a landing page: A landing page lets listeners enter their email addresses so you can send them the freebie. Include the name of your freebie, a short description, an image, and a form to sign up.
Mention the freebie during the podcast: Once your freebie and landing page are live, it’s time to promote. Talk about it during your podcast, particularly when it ties to the topic. For example, if you host a business podcast and create a marketing strategy template, mention the free resource after you tell the story of your most recent campaign and its results.
Add the link in your podcast show notes: When you mention your freebie in the podcast episode, let listeners know a link is in the show notes. Bonus: including the description and link to your freebie in the show notes could boost SEO.
Promote it on all your platforms: Drive more sign ups to your newsletter by promoting your freebie on all your platforms, like linking it in your Instagram bio or creating a YouTube Short with the segment of your podcast where you promote the freebie.
4. Earn commissions with affiliate marketing
Difficulty level: Newbie
No products? No problem. With affiliate marketing, you earn a commission for helping another company sell its product or service.
For example, you could collaborate with a content creator to promote their course on your podcast in exchange for a cut on each sale. You can also promote the software you use to run your business.
Then, promote your affiliate link by talking about it during the show and linking it in the show notes. You want to produce valuable content for your audience, so only add mentions where it makes sense, like talking about the tools you use in your business when you describe how you set up a marketing campaign.
Podcast affiliate marketing example: The Smart Passive Income
If you’ve dreamed of creating a recurring revenue product, your podcast could be the perfect place to start. You can transform your podcast into a community by building exclusive content or bundling podcast access with other resources.
Since people won’t want to pay to listen to a podcast they’ve never heard of before, it’s best to build up a bit of an audience before launching your community (which is why we recommend building an email list early!).
Often, paid communities have different pricing tiers depending on the type and depth of content available. For example, an inexpensive base tier might offer early access to episodes, while a higher tier has members-only live podcast events. Here are some ideas on what to offer to paid podcast listeners:
Like traditional radio shows have commercial slots, you can use services to place automated ads in your podcast. These ad networks sometimes have thresholds for the number of monthly listeners or audience size you have to have, which is why we place it at the intermediate level.
Once you’ve built an audience (or signed up with a service without minimums), you can easily place spoken ads in your podcast.
What’s nice about automated ads versus sponsorships is that many platforms make it easy to monetize your old episodes without recording and editing in a custom ad.
Acast finds ads and lets podcasters choose where to place them
7. Promote your services and products to listeners
Difficulty level: Intermediate
If you don’t want to manage external ads or sponsors, you can use your podcast to promote your own offerings.
Services, like freelancing and consulting, are a great way to start making money since you don’t need to create anything upfront.
There’s also a digital product for every audience, from ebooks and courses to website themes and apps. Of course, you can also create physical products like podcast merch for your community to rep.
I have introductions for each podcast talking about the show and what’s going on in my business. During these introductions, I talk about my online offerings. I am building a following, offering free content. If people like my approach, I see them follow me on social media and then purchase an offering.
-Marissa Martino, host of Paws and Reward
Once again, this podcast monetization strategy requires an established email audience to promote to. Selling your services and product to podcast listeners doesn’t have to be intimidating, though, because email marketing automation puts promotion on autopilot.
8. Apply for podcast grants
Difficulty level: Intermediate/pro
Free money? Sort of! Grants are funds you can apply for that you don’t have to repay. While you won’t get rich with grants, these payments from associations, foundations, and funds can get you up and running.
It was completely free to listen to the first two seasons, and we were able to secure grant funding to pay for the hard costs like podcasting equipment subscriptions and paying for our assistant, editor, and producer.
-Wudan Yan, co-host of the Writer’s Co-op
Depending on the grant at hand, you may need to show some experience. Like sponsors, granters might want to see that you have a growing and engaged podcast audience before investing in your work. That means you may need to be a one-person show for a while and handle your recording and editing while you get the podcast off the ground with minimal budget and equipment.
9. Get podcast sponsorships
Difficulty level: Pro
Podcast sponsorships are like paid partnerships where you promote a company on your show for a fee. Unlike automatic ads, which might be existing ad snippets, sponsorships are presented by the podcast host (that’s you!).
While you might need a larger audience to earn more from sponsors, they can be a predictable source of podcast income.
Types of sponsored podcast ads and potential earnings
When you have a sponsor, you put an ad before, during, or at the end of an episode.
Pre-rolls are advertising spots at the beginning of your podcast as part of your introduction. Usually, podcasters would spend up to 15 seconds chatting about the products that they’re selling. You should be looking to sell these between $15 and $20 per spot.
Mid-rolls are more in-depth than the other two types. You should spend up to a minute chatting about the sponsor so you can sell these for between $20 and $25.
Post-rolls are almost identical to pre-rolls but sit toward the end of your podcast. They can be slightly longer, lasting up to 30 seconds. These also sell at $15 to $20.
Often, companies want to purchase all three advertising blocks together, and you can throw in the Post-roll for free as a bulk discount.
You don’t want to load your podcast with many different advertisers. Limiting each show to two sponsors tends to be fair to your listeners and fair to the companies doing business with you.
To do the quick math here, that means you can be looking at up to $90 per show for every thousand listeners you have. That’s based on two companies taking every one of your ad blocks.
At a good-but-achievable 3,000 listener mark, that means $270 per episode or over $1k per month for a weekly show. Not too shabby for doing something you love!
Podcast monetization success stories
You probably already listen to a few big-name podcasts that rake in cash, but there’s more to the industry than the household names. Here are a few inspiring creators who have built successful businesses.
Example #1: Wear Wag Repeat Podcast by Tori Mistick
Tori Mistick created a dog blog called Wear Wag Repeat, which has its own podcast. Tori’s podcast has over 185,000 downloads, and she uses five income sources as podcast revenue—online course sales, sponsored content, affiliate ads, guest speaking, and an ecommerce shop.
Example #2: Trapital by Dan Runcie
Dan Runcie, founder of the music, media, and culture blog Trapital, quickly realized the value of a newsletter for connecting with an audience.
Despite only having 130 email subscribers in the early days, he realized more people were reaching out from his newsletter than from landing his articles in major publications.
Now, Dan has over 30,000 subscribers and a successful podcast with revenue from consulting, ads, and speaking gigs.
Make your podcast profitable with Kit
To make money from a podcast, you need to monetize it. Kit has the tools to make that happen.
From digital tip jars to email marketing to the Creator Network, the platform is your one-stop location to help generate podcast income. Sign up today for a 14-day free trial to get started monetizing your podcast today.
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Steph Knapp is a freelance B2B + SaaS content marketer that loves educating and empowering curious humans. When she's not typing away, you'll find her volunteering at the animal shelter and obsessing over a new hobby every week. She shares marketing, freelance, and cat content on Twitter @ hellostephknapp. (Read more by Steph)
