How much money do podcasters make? And how do they make money?
You may have heard about how a certain successful podcast was able to sign not one but two deals with popular podcast platform Spotify, but how else do podcasts make money?
In this post, we discuss common ways podcast creators generate revenue and mention a few real-world numbers on how much podcast creators of different sizes make from different sources of revenue.
How much money do podcasters make? An overview
- The global podcasting market will reach $130.63 billion by 2030.
- Podcasting advertising revenue will reach $2 billion in the United States in 2024.
- The Diary of a CEO was able to generate $1.2 million in one year after increasing production costs dramatically.
- Entrepreneur On Fire still earns over $1 million per year even after podcasting for more than 12 years.
- Successful podcasts generate the majority of their income from sponsors.
- There are over 16,000 podcast creators on Patreon with at least one paying subscriber.
- Patreon pays out a collective +$3.4 million to podcast creators on the platform monthly.
- The highest-earning podcast on Patreon generates between $240,000 and $604,000 in revenue from subscriptions on the platform.
- Joe Rogan’s podcast has penned two exclusivity deals with Spotify valued at $200 million and $250 million.
How do influencers make money podcasting?
According to Grand View Research, the global podcasting market was valued at $18.52 billion in 2022 and is estimated to grow to as much as $130.63 billion by 2030.
Clearly, podcasting is a lucrative industry that contributes quite a bit to the global economy, but how exactly do podcasters make money?
They use a few revenue streams since many podcast platforms do not pay podcasters directly.
Here are a few common revenue streams podcasters use:
- Sponsorships – Special deals companies make with popular podcasts to have their products and services mentioned in one or multiple episodes in exchange for pre-negotiated sums of money. Most successful podcasts generate most of their income from sponsorships. There are even podcast advertising networks that can connect podcast hosts with advertisers.
- Affiliate Marketing – Companies set up affiliate programs podcasters can join for free, often without prerequisites like how many listeners you have. The podcaster is given a special affiliate link to advertise a company’s product and receives a commission every time a consumer makes a purchase after visiting the link.
- Subscriptions – Monthly fees podcasts charge listeners in exchange for exclusive benefits, such as premium content, ad-free episodes, subscriber-only livestreams, special input on episode ideas/content, and more. Most podcasts use Patreon. However, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Twitch all have subscription functionalities.
- Online Courses – Video and text-based lessons that are taught in an online course application such as Thinkific or Podia. This is a great revenue stream for niches that can be taught. Lessons can be taught live in exchange for ticket fees or be made available on-demand for a one-time fee or recurring monthly membership fee.
- Books – Printed books and ebooks allow podcasters to tell their stories or write long and constructive guides. Many self publish, but it’s also possible for a podcaster to get an agent and have a publishing house publish them.
- Memberships – This is a subscription service a podcaster charges on their own website. They offer subscribers ad-free episodes, exclusive content like episodes and articles, forum access, and access to online courses.
- Summits – One-time shows podcasters charge ticket fees for. This could be an online webinar, exclusive livestream or an in-person event.
- Merch – Short for “merchandise,” merch is one of the most common ways influencers of all types generate revenue. The best way to do this is by creating new designs regularly and retiring old ones soon after. This creates a sense of urgency among podcast listeners.
- Products – Some podcasts create products related to their niche and use their podcasts as their primary source of marketing. Some also create special versions of a common product, such as drinkware that’s in a fancy shape or a clothing item that’s of higher quality than most dropshipping services offer.
Podcasts have become as much of a staple as television and online videos have become in entertainment. This means it’s gained a lot of attention from advertisers.
In fact, IAB predicts US-based podcast advertising revenue to reach $2 billion in 2024.
This is why Spotify also allows some podcasters to join programs like the Spotify Audience Network and Megaphone, which allows podcasters to earn ad revenue by setting up ad spots in their shows (even past shows) and choosing which advertisers appear in each spot.
How much do podcasters make?
How much podcasters make, according to income reports
Let’s take a look at three podcasts of varying audience sizes to determine how much money podcasters make.
They are:
- The Diary of a CEO – An interview-style podcast that features insights from the brightest and most influential minds of our generation. This podcast generated $1.2 million in one year.
- Entrepreneur On Fire – Features interviews with entrepreneurs of all sizes and levels of business. This podcast generated more than $447,000 in gross income in the first three months of 2024.
- Web Designer Academy – Features marketing and general business tips for freelance web designers. This podcast generated more than $38,000 in revenue in two months in 2024.
The Diary of a CEO – +$1.2 million in 1 year
The Diary of a CEO is an interview podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett. In each episode, Steven sits down with an influential person or industry expert to uncover “untold truths, unlearned lessons and important insights” that will bring more success to his listeners’ lives.
Steven used the podcast as a hobby for a while, only publishing an episode when he felt the motivation to do so.
However, once he started putting more effort and money into the project, he was able to increase his revenue by more than $1.2 million.
He did this through sponsorship deals he requested directly from the CEOs of the companies he was requesting sponsorships from.
His number one goal was to remain authentic throughout the rebranding of his podcast, so he only chose brands he believed in and used in his daily life and business: Huel, Fiverr and Myenergi.
He sat down with the CEOs of each of these companies in multiple phone calls and video chats and had real conversations about how each product benefited his life. He initiated these chats by pitching himself to the email addresses of these CEOs and including a two-slide presentation deck that highlighted his podcast audience and stats.
The results were sponsorship deals that amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. He did have other sponsors throughout the year, but these were his top three.
As for how he made improvements to his podcast, he spent around £40,000 on podcast equipment and a team to help him produce higher-quality shows.
He also started publishing one podcast per week consistently and started a YouTube channel so he could publish video podcasts for the first time.
He and his team then took those videos and broke them down into smaller clips so he could promote them across various social media platforms.
He covers all of this in Episode 94 of The Diary of a CEO.
Entrepreneur On Fire – +$447,000 in 3 months
Entrepreneur On Fire, often abbreviated as EOF, is a finance podcast hosted by John Lee Dumas.
It launched in 2012 and consists of interviews John conducts with fellow entrepreneurs in which they share inspiring stories about their journeys toward starting their own businesses and earning passive income.
According to John’s own stats, the podcast has published more than 4,100 episodes since it launched and has received over 156 million total listeners across all podcast episodes.
In January, February and March of 2024, Entrepreneur On Fire generated $447,092 in gross income and $402,327 in net income.
Here’s how much the podcast earned each month:
- January 2024 – EOF earned $146,283 in gross income
- February 2024 – $138,464
- March 2024 – $162,345
And here are the podcast’s primary sources of income:
- Sponsorships – This source made up 86% of EOF’s income in the first three months of 2024
- Online courses – 6%
- Affiliate marketing – 5%
- Books EOF has published – 3%
Sponsorships made up $126,550 of EOF’s income in January, $117,943 in February and $149,772 in March.
A few of the show’s recurring sponsors include HubSpot, Airbnb, Shopify, ZipRecruiter and Yahoo Finance.
Entrepreneur On Fire also sells its own products, including a membership program that costs $697/year or $1,497/year depending on which plan you choose.
Benefits of the program include access to video tutorials on podcasting, community discussions, resources and templates guiding you through the process of creating better shows, and more.
EOF also sells three physical and digital journals that help you accomplish goals, become more focused, and launch your first podcast episode.
Since it launched in 2012, Entrepreneur On Fire has generated $26,648,035 in gross income and $20,844,017 in net income.
This means the podcast’s expenses have totaled $5,804,018 in over 11 years.
Web Designer Academy – +$38,000 in 2 months
Web Designer Academy is a podcast hosted by Shannon Mattern. Each episode contains innovative and authentic marketing tips designed for freelance web designers.
This case study is an example of a smaller podcast who uses their own products and services to earn income rather than sponsorships.
It proves that if you don’t have the numbers to negotiate for larger sponsorship deals, you can still earn enough revenue to podcast full time by using it as a marketing stream for your own products and services.
In February and March of 2024, Web Designer Academy generated $38,659.26 in revenue. This is the breakdown of what the podcast earned in each month:
- February 2024 – $8,070.26
- March 2024 – $30,589
Web Designer Academy’s income report reveals that the majority of the podcast’s revenue in February originated from recurring monthly membership plans from the podcast’s on-demand online courses and 12-month personalized group coaching program.
It also revealed that $24,637 of March’s revenue originated from ticket sales from an upcoming summit.
As large as these numbers are for a smaller podcast, Web Designer Academy’s expenses amounted to $13,408 in February and $18,305.51 in March, leading to net incomes of -$5,337.74 in February and $12,284.29 in March.
The income report goes on to explain that as long as the business averages a minimum of $15,000/month for six months out of the year, it makes up for months where the business’ expenses are larger than its revenue.
How much podcasters make from Patreon
Some podcasts receive large chunks of their income from recurring monthly membership fees they earn from Patreon.
Here are a few podcast-specific Patreon stats collected by Graphtreon:
- Number of podcast creators with at least 1 paying member – 16,080
- Number of paid memberships – 2,226,858 (excluding hidden memberships)
- Estimated monthly payouts to all podcast creators – $3,426,904 (excluding hidden earnings)
The number one creator on Patreon is a podcast, specifically Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast.
They have over 88,700 paying members and receive anywhere from $240,000 to $604,000 in monthly recurring revenue from Patreon subscriptions alone.
This estimated range is based on the pricing tiers the podcast has set for their Patreon page, which ranges from as low as $1/month to as high as $50/month.
The podcast has over 113,900 members total, so only about 25,000 of them are free members.
Here are some of the highest-earning podcasts on Patreon and their potential earnings from the last year:
- If Books Could Kill – $114,000 to $288,000 per month from +42,200 paying members
- Chapo Trap House – +$172,000 per month from +40,900 paying members
- Dungeons and Daddies – $100,000 to $250,000 from +36,700 paying members
- the yard – +$222,300 from +33,800 paying members
How much podcasters make from exclusivity deals
Very successful podcasts are able to strike exclusivity deals with major podcasting platforms.
An exclusivity deal is a contract a podcaster makes with a podcast platform in which the podcaster agrees to only publish episodes to that platform or publish episodes to that platform before they’re published to other platforms in exchange for a pre-negotiated amount of money.
The biggest example of this type of deal is the one Joe Rogan made with Spotify in 2020.
He agreed to only publish episodes of his popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience to Spotify in exchange for a three-year deal worth an estimated $200 million.
Joe extended this deal in 2024 for an estimated $250 million. This new deal also allows him to publish the podcast to other platforms, which means The Joe Rogan Experience has now returned to Apple Podcasts.
According to Variety’s report on the deal, “Spotify will handle distribution and ad sales for the podcast. Rogan will receive a guaranteed minimum fee from Spotify as well as a cut of advertising revenue.”
In 2021, Spotify also made a deal with podcast host Alex Cooper, who hosts Call Her Daddy.
The deal lasted for three years, and although it was never renewed, Spotify still paid over $60 million to have all episodes of Call Her Daddy available exclusively on Spotify.
Final thoughts
Podcasts are not a new form of media, but they have become quite popular over the last few years. They’re now as lucrative as YouTube channels and social media are for content creators.
Podcast monetization strategies like sponsorship deals, affiliate marketing and subscription services are among the most influential for podcasts.
Websites can also be quite lucrative. They allow you to create written content (blog posts) and manage your own membership service.
If you want to host your own podcast episodes on your website, be sure to check out our guide on podcast plugins for WordPress.
