Want to learn how to make money podcasting?
Podcasts have become a crucial form of media that are just as crucial as the type of media they’re replacing: talk shows, broadcast or radio.
Thousands of podcasts exist in the world with millions of listeners tuning in.
If you want to know how to start earning revenue from your own podcast, check out a few of the podcast monetization strategies we recommend below.
Most are beginner friendly while some are best for larger podcasts with more resources or larger audiences.
13 ways to make money podcasting
The podcast monetization strategies featured in this article:
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsorships
- Video podcasts
- Subscriptions
- Memberships
- Selling online courses
- Selling products
- Services
- Coaching
- Donations
- Crowdfunding
- Website or blog
- Live events
1. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is an early monetization strategy podcasters use to start a successful podcast.
Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting another company’s product or service on your show by promoting what’s known as an affiliate link.
An affiliate link leads to the product page for the product or service you’re promoting.
When one of your listeners completes a purchase by using the link, you receive a percentage of what they pay at no additional cost to your listener. This is called an affiliate commission.
The affiliate link you’re assigned is unique to you, so the company or network you’re affiliated with knows to credit you for the commission.
How to get started with affiliate marketing
Do a bit of research on your audience to see what kind of products they buy.
You should also do research on your niche and be on the lookout for products and services that are either for your niche or related to it. They may have affiliate programs you can join.
Some affiliate programs allow anyone to join. Others have requirements you must meet, such as a certain number of podcast listeners or downloads per episode.
When your affiliate link is ready to go, create a shortened version of it so it’s easier for you to speak and easier for your listeners to understand. You can do this with Pretty Links in WordPress, but there are several other URL shorteners as well.
Add a dedicated time slot in your show for podcast ads. This is known as an ad read, affiliate spot or sponsor spot in the podcasting world.
Here’s an example of a sponsor spot from the podcast Sacred Symbols.
Podcast host Colin Moriarty states, “Sacred Symbols is sponsored by BetterHelp, online therapy that can help you right now exactly where you are.”
He goes on to explain the importance of looking after your mental health before reiterating the benefit of the show’s sponsor BetterHelp.
The most important part is this: “Visit betterhelp.com slash symbols today. That’s B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash S-Y-M-B-O-L-S to get 10% off your first month of therapy sessions.”
This is the part of the sponsor spot where he directs the podcast’s listeners to BetterHelp, specifically their own affiliate page for the service.
While this is a sponsor promotion rather than an affiliate promotion, it all fits under the umbrella of podcast advertising.
2. Sponsorships
Sponsorship deals, as you can probably tell, are similar to affiliate marketing in that a company pays you to promote their products.
It’s how that payment occurs that separates sponsorship deals from affiliate marketing.
Typically, a company that sponsors you pays you directly to appear in your show.
Sometimes, like in the case of the Sacred Symbols example above, the company also assigns an affiliate coupon to you so you can offer your listeners a discount and receive an affiliate commission either on top of your sponsorship deal or in place of one.
Sponsorship deals are a much more lucrative monetization strategy than affiliate marketing, so your show should work toward acquiring them as soon as you’re able to.
Like affiliate marketing, the best sponsors are companies who sell products and services your audience are most likely to buy.
There’s no set number of listeners or subscribers your podcast needs before sponsors are willing to work with you, so it doesn’t hurt to keep trying every now and again.
It may help to have a media kit ready when you do. This is a simple PDF document that contains the following details:
- Blurb describing what your podcast is about.
- How many episodes you publish per week or month.
- How many listeners you receive per episode.
- The number of downloads you receive per episode.
- Podcast audience demographics.
- Social media follower counts for each platform you post to.
- Average engagements per post on social media.
- Social media follower demographics.
- Metrics from affiliate marketing or previous sponsorship deals.
Including your social media metrics is important because you can charge more for sponsorship deals by including social media posts in your promotion strategy.
You can also try joining a podcast advertising network instead of reaching out to sponsors directly.
Podcast advertising networks connect you to potential sponsors directly while your network handles like cost per mile (how much you’re paid per 1,000 episode downloads/listeners) and payouts.
3. Video podcasts
Affiliate marketing and sponsorships offer reliable ways to earn a fairly sizeable amount of revenue from your podcast on a regular basis.
However, it doesn’t hurt to have additional sources of revenue. That’s what this monetization strategy is for.
The way it works is simple. You record video while you record the audio portion of your podcast, then upload the video format to YouTube.
You can then break that YouTube video down into clips and upload those clips as shorter YouTube videos, YouTube shorts, TikToks, Instagram reels and Facebook reels.
This is primarily a promotion strategy that helps you spread brand awareness across multiple social media platforms.
However, what it also does is help you earn ad revenue from your podcasts, primarily from YouTube.
Use one of three methods to record video for your podcast:
- Use a video conferencing app to record podcasts as sessions. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts are great options for this.
- Use your phone, webcam or camera to record your face while you record the podcast. Have your fellow hosts and guests do the same.
- Set up a dedicated space for your podcast, and record video with it using a proper camera.
This also gives you more places to promote affiliate links, such as YouTube video descriptions, social media posts and link-in-bio pages.
4. Subscriptions
Like we said, sponsorships and affiliate marketing offer some of the most reliable sources of revenue for podcasts.
However, they’re heavily reliant on things you can’t control. These include the affiliate programs you’re a part of to stay active, the company you’re affiliated with or sponsored by to continue selling the product/service you’re promoting, and trusting that same company to maintain a positive reputation among general consumers.
If any of these falter, your primary source of revenue goes down with them.
That’s why many podcasts rely on subscriptions from listeners as secondary sources of revenue or even main sources of revenue.
They typically host these subscriptions on Patreon, YouTube and Twitch, or all three.
Some even use OnlyFans, though because OnlyFans is primarily used as a platform for adult content, understand that most listeners will assume you also produce adult content if you promote an OnlyFans subscription on your show.
With Patreon, specifically, you can charge multiple pricing tiers with different benefits available for each, such as premium content, ad-free podcast episodes, bonus clips for each episode, exclusive Patreon posts, patron-only livestreams and more.
The number one Patreon creator is a podcast. It’s a popular podcast called Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. They have over 113,000 members and charge between $1 and $50 for subscriptions.
In fact, some of the most successful podcasts in the world have made up nine of the top 20 Patreon creators over the last year.
In short, Patreon is a great way for podcasts to charge subscriptions. Internet-savvy consumers are familiar with it, and it’s incredibly simple to manage from a technical standpoint.
Anyone can start a Patreon. All you need to do is sign up, fill out payment and tax information, create your page, set your prices and perks, and launch.
It’s just a matter of promoting the page to your audience after that.
Note: Patreon isn’t the only option for subscriptions. Learn more in our post on Patreon alternatives.
5. Memberships
If you have a website for your podcast, you may benefit from selling memberships directly from it.
This allows you to offer things like forum access, premium blog content, online courses and more.
This is much more technical to set up than a Patreon page, so it’s really only worth it if you have something to offer that you can offer on a website but not Patreon.
If you have a WordPress site, you can use a membership plugin, such as MemberPress and Restrict Content Pro.
Squarespace, Wix and Ghost also have ways for you to set up memberships.
You can also hire a developer to create a custom solution for your site, but this may be more expensive than it’s worth.
6. Selling online courses
Let’s talk about one membership perk we discussed in the previous strategy: online courses.
If your podcast is in a niche that can be taught, you might want to consider selling online courses.
An online course is a special form of instruction you can create to teach your listeners something or guide them through a specific process. They can be text based, but most course instructors create video courses.
It offers an opportunity for you to go in depth on a topic that’s crucial to your niche in a way that allows you to also offer study materials, group discussions, and one-on-one coaching.
Plus, you can earn revenue on courses on a per-course basis or, as we said earlier, offer them as part of a monthly membership.
WordPress has plenty of course plugins you can use to host courses on your own site. They’re called learning management system plugins or LMS plugins.
There are also course platforms that make it really easy to create and sell courses.
We usually recommend Thinkific. It’s affordable and allows you to teach an unlimited number of courses for an unlimited number of students.
Follow these steps to get started with selling online courses:
- Research your audience’s pain points. Go through your comments, direct messages and email inbox. They may shed light on the biggest problems your audience faces.
- Identify the biggest problem that has a clear solution. This is your course idea.
- Jot down each primary step that will lead your audience to that solution.
- Write a script demonstrating each step, then record video for it.
- Plan bonus content, such as a worksheet for your audience to complete.
- Upload your course to your chosen course platform, set a price, and launch.
Here’s an example of a photography masterclass on Udemy:
It has 31 hours of lessons, 44 downloadable resources, 66 articles and assignments.
7. Selling products
You can also create and sell your own products or at least get into dropshipping through a reputable source.
Dropshipping is a form of ecommerce that involves selling a manufacturer’s products as your own. The dropshipping source you use also handles order processing, shipping and returns.
Many consumers are becoming aware of dropshipping and have mixed feelings about the practice. It’s best to keep your profit margins small and only dropship high-quality products for this reason.
If you work in a digital niche, you can sell digital products, such as images, stock video, icon libraries, patterns for crocheting and knitting, and more.
If you have the budget for it, you might also consider developing your own products to sell. You can even crowdfund this type of project. More on that later.
If you have a sizable audience for your niche, consider getting in touch with a brand related to your niche to see if they’d be interested in a collaboration, such as what energy drink company G Fuel does by creating unique flavors under different streamers’ branding.
One of the easiest ways to start selling products as a podcast is to create merchandise.
You can do this directly with a clothing brand or designer and ship the products yourself or use a dropshipping company that will print and ship products with your branding on it on your behalf.
8. Services
If you work in a service-based niche, you might consider selling your services and using your podcast as your primary form of marketing.
For example, a photographer may consider creating a podcast discussing the stories behind famous photos and the photographers that took them and how they were shot.
They could then sell freelance or agency-based photography services on the side.
Consider if your niche is in the position to offer personal or professional services, and market them to your audience.
Make sure the type of service you offer matches the broader audience you’ll be attracting with your content.
For example, if that same photography podcast focused on camera gear and tips instead, they likely wouldn’t receive too many service requests as their target audience would be made up of photographers who already know how to take photos and have the gear to do so.
If you’re going to offer services as a podcast, be sure to set up a Services page on your website. List the benefits of your service as well as the specific services you offer.
Don’t include your prices. Include a quote form instead so you can take on clients one at a time after you’ve quoted them. Your form should have fields for details you need to know about your client in order to do the job.
9. Coaching
This podcast monetization strategy is directly related to the previous strategy.
Coaching is a service you can offer to your audience. It’s a fantastic service to offer for niches that can be taught.
Instead of creating an online course for your audience to consume on their own time, you can work with them one-on-one, helping them transform themselves or their lives depending on what niche you’re in.
Like with online courses, dig deep into research on your audience to determine their biggest struggles, and see if there are any you can work on them with in a personal environment.
Coaching is usually done one on one, but you can also teach classes or meetings in a group setting.
The most important part of coaching is having a specific goal or milestone for your clients to meet. Create additional milestones if you want to keep them on as clients once they’ve reached their first milestone.
10. Donations
Donations are a form of listener support. They are one-time transactions podcasters request from their audience.
It’s like a digital tip jar. Podcasts are often available entirely for free, so some listeners prefer to give small donations to the podcasts they listen to rather than buy products or merch.
Patreon is technically a donation service, but because each membership tier comes with a different set of perks, many creators treat Patreon as a subscription service.
Donations are different. Your audience gives you a one-time fund with no expectation of receiving access to exclusive content or a product.
Ko-fi is a popular service for this purpose as is Buy Me a Coffee. You can also set up donations through PayPal.
Add the link to your donation page on your website, link-in-bio page and YouTube video descriptions.
Use simple calls to action like “Donate,” “Tip Jar” or “Buy Me a Coffee.”
You can also add a quick blurb about the page to the intro and outro to your show. Use a link shortener to create a shortlink similar to what we suggested in the affiliate marketing section.
Say something simple along the lines of “If you enjoy the show, consider buying us coffees at shortlink.com/short to say thanks.”
11. Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is another form of funding you can receive directly from your audience, but it’s quite different from donations.
It’s used to fund large projects rather than ongoing operations.
For example, if you currently film your podcast from webcams and Zoom meetings in your bedroom, you can launch a crowdfunding campaign to ask your audience to help fund a full-fledged studio space with proper camera equipment and audio setup.
If you want to develop your own product, you can launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund research and development of the product.
Here’s an example from a simple crowdfunding project. LoveCast used Kickstarter to fund a trip to Thailand in which the hosts would create podcast content and conduct interviews on location.
The campaign was funded 114% of its original funding goal and was supported by 56 backers.
Another thing that separates donations from crowdfunding campaigns are the perks that come along with crowdfunding.
Like Patreon, backers pledge their support to crowdfunding campaigns by paying for a specific tier. Each tier has a different perk or reward that will be honored some time after the campaign wraps up.
Here were LoveCast’s rewards:
- Your name on a “thank you” slide featured on all trip content.
- The opportunity to submit an episode idea for Season 3 of the podcast.
- Unedited trip footage.
- Exclusive guest polaroid.
- Online meet and greet with hosts.
- Help plan an interview in Thailand.
- Tell-all livestream.
- Host an episode with LoveCast.
- Exclusive merch item.
- Help plan activities in Thailand.
- Signed exclusive polaroid.
12. Website or blog
Having a website or blog set up for your podcast is important and something you should set up before or soon after you publish your first podcast episode.
As important as it is, the reason it’s so far down this list is because it’s not as great or immediate of a monetization strategy as most of the other options on this list.
You likely host your podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
However, you can earn revenue from a website or blog in a few different ways, including display ads, affiliate links, online courses, ecommerce shops and membership programs.
All of these monetization strategies are independent from the platforms you use to host your podcast on, which means they’re less likely to be disrupted by platform or algorithm changes.
Your website should have a way for you to publish each episode of your podcast at the very least.
There are podcast plugins you can use if your show is audio only. Otherwise, embed the YouTube version of your show on the show page.
Each episode page should include a section called “Show Notes.” This section should be filled with the host’s links, the guest’s links, affiliate links, a link to your product/services and any details mentioned in the episode.
You should also consider starting a proper blog for your podcast, one that targets keywords in your niche with in-depth, well-written content.
A blog gives you additional sources of revenue and traffic to rely on, including organic traffic from Google.
More importantly, it gives you a place to host your podcast on your own domain. Again, this saves your podcast from algorithm changes and community strikes.
13. Live events
Finally, let’s talk about live events.
These come in many different formats in the podcast world. They include live shows, conferences, meetups and public speaking events.
The first three types are difficult and expensive to organize, so you may want to start with public speaking gigs.
Event organizers need industry experts to fill time slots at conferences and professional events. They’re willing to pay top dollar, especially if your podcast receives many listeners and your social media following is large enough to give their own website a boost in traffic.
If you’re interested in offering public speeches as a service, make sure you make this known on your website and link-in-bio page.
Let potential customers know how to get in touch with you for this type of service, the qualifications you have in your niche and any requirements you have.
Other than public speaking events, many podcasts go on tour and host podcast episodes live.
It’s similar to when a comedian goes on tour and can actually be a fairly lucrative way to earn revenue on the side.
Plus, it helps solidify the relationship you have with your audience as it gives you opportunities to meet your listeners face to face.
Final thoughts
That wraps up our tips on making money podcasting.
Podcasting is an audio experience for the most important, so you can’t rely on display ads, affiliate link clicks and post roll ads as you can on your own website or platforms like YouTube.
You can still upload a video version of your podcast to YouTube and create a website or blog for your show, but many listeners are still going to prefer to listen to your show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
This is why other podcast monetization strategies and clever monetization strategies are necessary.
These include the use of shortlinks that are easy to understand and type into a browser as well as short yet captivating ad reads that accurately describe the products you promote.
Check out our latest collection of statistics on podcasting if you want to learn more about the industry.
