You Will Never Make Money From Podcasts.
So: you start a podcast. Of course, there are already 750,000 of them, but you will have 750,001. You choose the subject area. Rope into a friend. Give it a catchy name. You say that you will give him a year to see if he picks up success because you read that commitment is key .
After a year of regular episodes of pet cats riding golf carts on America’s best public courses, you’re sure to have an audience big enough to start attracting big-name advertisers, right? You will be able to quit your day-to-day job and embark on a Birdie Watching promotion tour with a series of live streams.
Not so fast, audio lovers. The chances that you will make at least some money from this side fuss are negligible.
Jack Riesider, who writes about the podcast industry on Lime Link, estimates that 99% of all podcasts earn $ 0 .
It’s dark, but not out of touch with reality.
“If you did a podcast with the intention of making money, the chances of you just going through [seven] episodes are slim because you see how difficult it is and how you don’t get what you expected from it. , writes Risider. “So it’s very rare to break through all of this and make a show that makes money.”
It is true that most of the 2,000 to 3,000 new shows that start each month, according to hosting service Blubrry, are “touched up” or quietly closed after a while. This usually happens before the show even attracts advertisers.
Why isn’t money starting to come in sooner rather than later when podcasting is so popular?
The podcast advertising industry is not working in your favor
There is still a high threshold for companies looking to work with independent podcasters and pay big bucks for it. Risider explains that podcasts can typically charge between $ 15 and $ 30 for 1,000 downloads they receive per release, which is called a CPM rate.
According to hosting service Libsyn, only 7.1% of podcasts receive 5,000 downloads per release. “So if your show got 5,000 downloads per release and you were charging $ 20 CPM, you would have made $ 100 for that ad,” Riesider writes.
Making $ 100 for pop music is a good start, but it’s probably not enough to cover much more than just the cost of creating your show.
Andreessen Horowitz did the calculations for 1% of the most popular podcasts, that is, those with at least 35,000 downloads per episode. At a higher CPM of 25–5 cents (to reflect their size and impact), selling two ads per episode could make a podcast $ 4,000 per episode.
If a podcast that makes that much per release produces 52 episodes a year and sells out its ad space, it could make over $ 200,000. But this is the best scenario in which more than one or two people will not be paid a significant salary.
The same Andreessen Horowitz report on the podcast advertising ecosystem explains that podcast revenue is a fraction of total US ad spending, monetizing one penny per listener hour. In comparison, an hour of traditional radio generates 11 cents in revenue.
Money is a terrible motivation for creating a podcast
Unless you are a member of a well-known podcasting network, it is up to you as the creator to keep in touch with potential advertising clients. And if your numbers are not impressive, or you have a specific, desired niche audience (for example, a cat in a golf cart), the company that makes advertising in podcasts, probably do not want to deal with the details of the purchase ads from you.
While there are other models for generating income, none are quick fixes. Risider notes that there are over 9,700 podcast creators working on Patreon , a creative fundraising platform, and estimates that 55% of them make less than $ 30 a month.
The antidote, then, is to rethink why your podcast even exists, or why you want to take the time to create one. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a hobby as a hobby , and in our bustle-centered world, it is pleasant to pursue a hobby without worrying about how it will pay your bills.
Making a podcast can be rewarding, even if you don’t hope to make a hit show that allows you to quit your day-to-day job. You can research topics that interest you and share your knowledge. You can challenge yourself to stay on top of industry news (this is something that continues to support me after more than five years of podcasting). You can solve one or two riddles. You can make people laugh. Or just make yourself laugh!
But if you’re waiting for payday, it’s time to look elsewhere.