How to monetize and make money with a podcast?

Making money with a podcast is complex but not impossible.

When Corti and I thought about starting to monetize our podcasts in 2019, we had never considered making money from our content. 

Corti llevaba 2 años con su podcast En.Digital y yo 1 con Planeta M. Justo en aquel momento creamos Tribucasters (el podcast que compartimos) y entre ambos teníamos unas 25.000 escuchas cada mes juntando los 3 podcasts.f

We thought it was time to start monetizing in some way, so we started listing the possible options available to us to find the ones that best suited our content and, above all, our audience. 

In this article, we'll tell you about the process we followed, the options we identified for making money with a podcast , and of course, how we monetize each of the podcasts we produce today. 

How to make money with a podcast

There are several options for making money with a podcast, depending largely on your objectives and, of course, the type of audience you have for your podcast.

Let's go through them one by one. 

How to monetize a podcast

Making money with a podcast is possible, and for that, there are two types of monetization. Let's start with indirect monetization and then we'll look at direct monetization.

Indirect monetization

In monetization , the podcast is used as a marketing channel to generate revenue through the sale of products or services external to the content itself. 

This is the most common way to monetize podcasts and can be done basically in two ways: 

Selling services/Products

In this case, we use the podcast and its content to capture the attention of those listeners who may be potential buyers of our products or services.

Some of the products and services that we have sold in our podcasts include: 

• Memberships for content, training...
• Books (don't miss Corti's book: "Hackeando el cerebro de tus compradores").
• Services of all kinds: Pol has sold his marketing consulting services, and Corti the services offered by his growth agency, Product Hackers. 
• Online and offline courses. 
• In-person events , online events, and webinars.
• ….

There is a wide range of products and services that you can sell in your podcasts because the podcast is a very powerful channel to capture and retain an audience that can later become a customer. 

Affiliate marketing

Affiliation consists of directing your listeners to other pages that are the ones that make the sale of a service or product. If this sale occurs, you are paid a commission. 

The most common one is Amazon's affiliate program, due to its simplicity to access, but there are many others. You can also reach individual agreements with companies that pay you a commission for each sale you get for them. 

In most cases, this type of monetization plays a supporting role in the monetization of your podcast since it is really difficult to generate sufficient income with affiliation alone. 

Direct monetization

The monetization is the way to make money with a podcast where you earn income thanks to the production of the podcast itself. It is less common than indirect monetization. In this case, we have several options available: 

Sponsorships

This is the most common form of direct monetization. It involves getting companies interested in reaching your listeners to pay you in exchange for mentioning their products or services in the podcast. 

You can choose to sell sponsorships for each episode, sponsorships in packages of episodes, monthly sponsorships, quarterly sponsorships, or annually. You can even mix them all.

And how do I get sponsors? You may be wondering... Well, here you have our article on how to get sponsors for a podcast. These are the conclusions we drew after talking to podcasters who have already obtained sponsors and companies that are already sponsoring podcasts.

Branded content

This is a space within your podcast where you talk about a certain brand or even let this brand participate in the content. For example, in a certain section or in an entire episode.  

Branded podcast

This is a podcast dedicated entirely to a brand. In this case, as a podcaster, what you do is generate content for a certain brand, with the aim of building an audience that could become a customer of the brand that hired you. 

Pay per listen

This case is the one that most resembles traditional radio advertising. It involves having your podcast hosted on some of the platforms that allow you to insert dynamic advertising in your content. 

Dynamic advertising are commercials like the ones you've heard on the radio all your life that play before, after, or during your episode. 

This is a very good option if you don't want to devote any effort to monetizing your podcast, but obviously, it's the option that allows you to monetize the least. 

These platforms pay you for the impacts generated, and in the best-case scenario, they can pay up to 15€ CPM (for every thousand impacts). If your podcast generates 3000 listens per month, you would receive 45€. 

Donations

This is another valid monetization option for your podcast. It involves accepting sponsorship from your audience through some of the available platforms.  

In this case, there are two drawbacks in our view: 

1. The concept of "donation" itself has connotations that don't fit us. We don't want someone to give us money; what we want is for our audience to subscribe in exchange for quality content. 
2. In donation platforms, a culture has been established to offer various incentives to sponsors (t-shirts, mugs, extra content...) and this is what they will expect you to do if you use a donation platform. We believe that the podcast itself is reward enough and that so many incentives are not necessary.

Professional networks

Joining a professional podcast network that pays you for your content is another very good option to monetize your podcast. However, few podcasters manage to work for Podium Podcast or other major production companies.

Paid podcatchers

Lately, several platforms have emerged in the market that offer audio content in exchange for a subscription. Podimo or Audible are two good examples. 

These platforms have established various ways to reward podcasters, from purchasing seasons of a particular podcast to temporary exclusivity, to profit sharing. 

However, in this case, two things happen: 

• Having a season of your podcast bought is not easy. Few achieve it. 
• Profit sharing is based on the thousands of listens you get, and in this case too, it is difficult to generate enough revenue.  

Subscription podcasts 

This is our favorite because it allows you to monetize your audience directly and generate very interesting revenue with small, highly loyal audiences. 

In this case, a small audience of 300 subscribers paying €5/month could offer you recurring revenue of €1,500 per month. This is certainly very attractive. 

Becoming a professional podcaster

Until very recently, the idea of being a professional podcaster was a dream only a few could achieve. Only a handful managed to garner the hundreds of thousands or millions of listens needed to monetize primarily through advertising. 

But now, it has changed. It has changed completely. 

Thanks to platforms like Mumbler, through which you can directly monetize your audience through podcast subscriptions, becoming an independent podcaster is within reach of thousands of people. And making money with a podcast is too.

With a small community subscribing to your podcast or podcasts, you can generate the necessary income to create your own business.. 

Furthermore, monetizing your audience directly allows you to be independent and not rely on advertisers or sponsors. It's just you and your audience. 

Our way of monetizing podcasts

Right now, we are monetizing our podcasts in different ways. Let's go into detail about each of them: 

En.Digital: 

• Indirect monetization.
• Direct monetization with annual sponsorships.
• Direct monetization with advertising slots through Redcast.

Planeta M: 

• Direct monetization with annual sponsorships..
• Direct monetization with advertising slots through Redcast.

Tribucasters

• Direct monetization with annual sponsorships.
• Direct monetization with advertising slots through Redcast.

El podcast de Mumbler

• Direct monetization through subscriptions to premium podcast.

As you can see, we have quite a varied menu 😉 

Conclusion

The moment we are experiencing as content creators is spectacular and very hopeful. Making money with a podcast is no longer impossible.

Society has understood the need to pay for good content , and people are willing to pay recurrently for quality content that aligns with their preferences. It's an increasingly favorable time to make money with a podcast.

Furthermore, these users want to pay creators directly, not big intermediary companies that don't add value. It's the so-called "passion economy" that I'm 100% sure is here to stay. 

If you also want to be independent and make a living from your content, at Mumbler, we provide the tool to make it possible. 

It has never been so easy to launch a subscription podcast. Join the movement of independent podcasters.