Podcasts make money in multiple ways, through sponsorships, listener donations, premium content, and even consulting or digital products. If you’re wondering how do podcasts make money, the answer lies in choosing the right monetization strategy for your audience size and niche. This guide breaks down direct methods like ads and premium content, and indirect methods like coaching, affiliate marketing, and workshops plus when and how to start monetizing for sustainable income in 2025.
Most podcasters start their podcasts as a hobby. Many podfade aka stop creating podcasts, but some stick to it and create episodes consistently. And consistency pays off. As they see a loyal audience base forming and more and more people tuning in daily, it’s no surprise that many creators now ask: how do podcasts make money?
If you are still researching how to start a podcast for free, have already launched one, or have a podcast with a loyal audience, keep on reading to understand how do podcasts make money.
Can You Really Make Money Podcasting?
Yes, you can make money and in fact many podcasters do make money through their podcast. But before making money, you need a strong foundation for your podcast.
To build a strong foundation for your podcast, you need to ensure clarity on the following things:
- What is your niche?
- Who are the people who will tune into your podcast?
- Is your podcast setup ideal for creating high quality episodes consistently?
- Is your podcast available on as many platforms as possible?
- Is your podcast hosting platform able to support you in all the phases of your podcasting journey?
Making money through your podcast isn’t just about placing ads. It’s about knowing what your listeners value and how you can turn that into revenue. Revenue doesn’t always come in the form of ad money, it can come through various other ways.
What is a Podcast? (And Why It Matters for Monetization)
Before we answer how do podcasts make money, let’s briefly define podcast.
A podcast is a digital audio or video show made with the intent of entertainment, education or inspiration. Podcasts are available on platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Unlike your typical videos, podcasts (both audio and video) have a high emphasis on the content being spoken compared to the visuals, and can be consumed passively during commutes, workouts, or chores.
If you’re still exploring your format, check out some of the best podcasts of 2025 on any of the major podcasting platform charts. From narrative series to expert interviews, every podcast has the potential to make money and it is these creators’ deep understanding of their audience that allows them to monetize their podcast.
When Should You Monetize Your Podcast?
A common mistake budding creators make is monetizing their podcast too early. What harm can it do for you? Not only will you not make money, it can lead to your audience mistrusting you which can take a long time to rebuild.
As a budding creator, focus first on creating high-quality content that is different from others in your niche, growing a loyal audience, and distributing it widely.
Once you can quantitatively see a steady month-on-month increase in your listens and downloads and have a feedback loop established with your listeners, where you can see that they find value in your content and want more of it, you can start monetizing your show.
But, is there a metric you can look at to get an idea about when to start making money from your podcast? Yes and no.
Downloads is seen as the metric that most podcasters chase to gauge their success. A download (or stream) is when a listener listens to your episode for more than 60 seconds and this is a standard set by IAB.
While downloads as a metric is great to assess the performance, it also comes with a bias. Some niches get more downloads than others. For example, the true crime niche will see more downloads than a finance niche. This would suggest that a true crime podcast has more monetization capability than a finance podcast.
But that isn’t always the case. As I’ve mentioned before, with valuable content and engaged listeners, you can make money.
However, if you still want a benchmark to assess, according to Buzzsprout’s insight, top 50% podcasts get 30 downloads in the first week of their release. That is not a huge number and seems achievable. Here’s a table that shows the number of downloads you need in the first week of episode release to be considered in the top podcasts.
| Top Podcasts | Episode Downloads (first week) |
| Top 1% | 4988 |
| Top 5% | 1120 |
| Top 10% | 480 |
| Top 25% | 120 |
| Top 50% | 31 |
How Do Podcasts Make Money? [Direct Methods]
Here’s a breakdown of the most direct and common ways that answers how do podcasts make money:
1. Sponsorships & Advertisements
Sponsorships and advertisements are the most well-known way to make money from your podcast. You must have seen many creators on Instagram, YouTube, and even podcasters mention products in their content.
Brands usually pay creators podcasters to mention them during episodes. Usually brands approach creators in their niche to promote their products, and that’s why defining your niche is so important. As a podcaster, you can mention the brand in the:
- Pre-roll (before the episode)
- Mid-roll (during the episode)
- Post-roll (after the episode)
Usually pre-roll placement means more money since the number of listeners listening to the ad is higher. Mid-roll would get less money than pre-roll ads but more money than post-roll ads and post-rolls ads get the least amount of money.
The rate is often based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Although, brands look for podcasters with a significant amount of downloads, as I mentioned, if you have very engaged listeners, you can make money via sponsorships and ads.
A podcast hosting platform like Hubhopper allows you to place these ads within your episode with Dynamic Audio Insertion (DAI). DAI allows you to place the audio across your episodes (even the past ones) and track the impressions it is getting. Once you reach the desired impressions, you can remove the audio too.
2. Listener Donations
Maybe you’re not seeing the desired results from ads and sponsorships. You can always diversify your revenue by other monetization strategies. One such strategy is listener donations.
Platforms like Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee allow your fans to pay you directly. YouTube’s memberships feature works similarly. If your audience is small but highly engaged, this model works well.
This is one of the reasons why you should be focusing on creating great content for your audience. This monetization strategy can work wonders if your content is highly educational or very entertaining.
You can earn more money as your podcast grows and has a larger engaged audience.
3. Premium Content
Premium content or a private podcast is another great way to make money directly from your audience. Instead of just asking your audience to support you directly, you can offer premium content in return.
Premium content can include bonus episodes only accessible to members, early access to episodes before you release it to the public, and ad-free listening where the episode doesn’t have ads.
You can use Hubhopper to create a private podcast and deliver the content to your audience.
Indirect Ways to Make Money From Podcasting
Apart from the direct ways, there are other indirect ways to make money from your podcast. These ways can help turn your podcast into a business, where the podcast acts as a marketing channel. They’re often more sustainable in the long run since you hold complete control over them.
Some of these strategies might not align with your niche, so when you’re picking some ways, keep in mind that they should suit your niche and your audience.Here are 10 creative ways:
- Consulting or Coaching – If your podcast is delivering education, you can offer expert advice in your niche on a 1:1 setting where the listeners can directly ask you questions and you can give personalized guidance.
- Speaking Engagements – Many corporate events or community events invite podcasters for speaking engagement. You can ask for money to speak at such events.
- Book Deals – If your podcast is in a more entertainment or personal niche, you can turn your stories and research into books. You can approach publishers to publish your book and make money through royalties.
- Online Courses – You can also create an online course in your niche and charge money for it. Understanding what your audience wants and any burning questions they might have, to turn it into a paid course can help you generate revenue. Use your podcast then to market your course.
- Workshops & Seminars – If you don’t have a course worth insights, you can also have workshops and seminars. You can do these online or offline depending on where your audience lives. If your audience is local and close to where you live, offline workshops are a great way to share your knowledge. You can charge a baseline amount for the workshop and more for a meet and greet. If your audience is widespread, you can host an online event, and make it feasible for everyone to join.
- Merchandise – Perhaps, the above methods don’t fit your niche. You can always create merchandise and sell that. Create your podcast’s branded t-shirts, mugs, notebooks, posters etc. and promote it on your podcast as a means to support your podcast.
- Affiliate Marketing – Affiliate marketing is where you promote other people’s product in your niche and get a commission on each sale via your podcast. Just keep in mind that you promote relevant products with referral links.
- Digital Products – You can also create templates, guides, or ebooks as digital products and sell them online. Since they’re online, it gives you flexibility and the ability to capture a wider audience.
- Software or Tools – If your niche has a problem that can be solved by a software, you can launch a niche tool for your audience.
- Subscription Newsletters – Especially great for the educational niche or commentary niche. You can create a frequent newsletter that you can sell a subscription for in exchange for access.
How to Start a Podcast and Make Money
Starting a podcast the right way, with a solid understanding of your niche and audience is key to making money. You can check out how to start a podcast blog that also has a free checklist too.
Here’s a brief overview to start your podcast:
- Choose a profitable niche – Where demand, passion, and monetization intersect.
- Understand your ICP – Get into the details of your ideal customer persona aka your audience and understand what they would like to hear and what you can offer them that others are not offering currently.
- Invest in the right podcast setup – Even budget mics can sound professional, but as a podcast your audio should be top-notch. If there are still budget constraints, you can use wired earphones’ mic to record audio and use software to clean up the audio.
- Publish consistently – Build a habit for listeners and optimize your content for discovery.
- Submit to all platforms – Distribute your podcast every podcast listening app like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Castbox, and more. A tool like Hubhopper helps you distribute your podcast to global podcasting platforms with just one click.
- Optimize for SEO – Use keywords in your episode titles, description and podcast website. For example, if your podcast is about podcasts keywords like what is a podcast, podcast on Spotify, or how to make money from podcast in your titles, descriptions, and website can help you appear in search when your audience searches for these terms. It increases the reach and discoverability of your podcast.
- Build a community – Use social media, email newsletters, and even Discord or Telegram. Creating a community is crucial because it helps you gather feedback for your podcast and once you do want to experiment with different monetization strategies like exclusive content, paid memberships, etc, your community plays a pivotal role.
- Test monetization – Try different strategies and assess what is working. Scale what works and always have multiple streams of revenue so you’re not dependent on only one way of making money from your podcast.
How Do You Get Paid for a Podcast?
Depending on your monetization route, here are a few ways podcasters receive income:
- Sponsorship payments via agencies or direct brand deals.
- Platform payouts (e.g., Apple Podcast Subscriptions, Patreon).
- Affiliate income via commission payouts.
- Product/service sales via your own website or Shopify.
- Ad network earnings via CPM rates.
Can I Make Money Podcasting with a Small Show?
Yes, you can make money podcasting with a small show. You just need to experiment with different podcast monetization strategies and pick the one that works for you. Focus on:
- Niche depth over broad appeal.
- Engagement metrics over raw downloads.
- Service-based monetization like consulting or coaching.
Final Thoughts: No One-Size-Fits-All in Podcast Monetization
How do podcasts make money doesn’t have a single answer. The best way to answer how do podcasts make money will always depends on each podcaster’s niche, audience size, and goals.
You first need to create great content and have a loyal listener base. Creating a community of your listener is key, so create it early in your creator journey.
Whether you want to earn $100/month or build a full-time career, podcasting in 2025 offers more earning opportunities than ever before.
Frequent Asked Questions (FAQs)
How to make money from podcast?
To make money from your podcast you need to have a strong foundation. Create great content that your audience loves. Then you can opt for direct methods like ads, sponsorship, listener support, or premium content. There are several indirect ways too, like digital products, online courses, merchandize, affiliate marketing, newsletters, and more to make from your podcast.
