Are Podcasts Profitable? Fresh Data from 2022

Do you wonder if podcasting is profitable? In this article we present earnings of the most subscribed podcasts and estimated earnings of small and medium podcasters. We explain why podcasting is not dead and describe which are main sources of podcasters incomes. 

Podcasters who have big audience earn decent money. Most downloaded podcasts make over $100,000 a month.  Earning a lot of money from the podcast, however, is not so easy and requires many conditions to be met, one of which is diversifying sources of income of your podcast. The fact is that most of podcasters do not earn much money from their podcasts. It is due to doing that as a hobby, or because their content is not enough interesting or not enough advertised. The reason for the failure of many podcast creators is also that they give up too early and stop broadcasting before their podcast will develop enough.
Usually podcasters who do not reach 150 listens per episode do not earn even 1$ from their activity. 
According to the information collected by us, the podcast starts to earning money from the moment it reaches 1,000 listeners per episode.

IS PODCASTING DEAD?

Some people think that podcasting is getting less popular. Is that truth?
The answer is:  DEFINITELY NOT! Look at this Google Trends data from July 2022. As you can see podcasting is at the height of their popularity. It’s popularity will grow for sure also in next years. According to Musicoomph.com 32% of the US population (that is 104 millions of people) listen to podcasts at least every month. 22% of US population (71.9 millions of poeple) listen to podcasts weekly. The chart below is one of the best proofs that podcasts are still profitable.

HOW MUCH PODCASTERS EARN?

As reported by The Atlantic, popular podcasters can command from advertisers approximately $25 to $40 for every 1,000 listeners. Remember, however, the largest advertising organizations do not want to cooperate with small podcasts., so in their case, earnings from 1000 views will be much lower. Advertise Cast places the 2022 average podcast advertising rates throughout the industry at $18 CPM (cost per 1,000 listeners) for a 30-second ad, and at $25 CPM for a 60-second ad.
Premium podcasters (high-converting ones) get about $25-$100 CPM.
To be able to start working with large advertising organizations, a podcast needs at least 20,000 to 50,000 listeners for each episode. We can say that this is the number of listeners at which podcasts are profitable and start earning big money. Many podcasts are not able to handle this number.

The Joe Rogan Experience

According to Forbes, the highest earning podcaster in 2019 was Joe Rogan’s The Joe Rogan Experience, which earned $30 million having 190 million monthly downloads.

Chapo Trap House

One of the best earning podcasts is Chapo Trap House. Only from Patreon it gets $130,000 per month. We don’t know how much does Chapo Trap House earn from advertising and other sources of income, but for sure it’s much. 

Downloads per episode: 120,000 – 150,000 (Jan. 2019)

Last Podcast On The Left

Is the second-most-earning podcast on Patreon.

The Cum Boys 

is 5th the best paid podcast on Patreon

TigerBelly

is 50th best paid podcaster on Patreon. 

Among the top 50 podcasters on Patreon, almost everyone earns over $ 10,000 a month from donations alone on Patreon. As you can see that podcasts are profitable, but the necessary factor is that there is a large number of listeners. What about other podcasts?

HOW ACTUALLY PODCASTERS EARN?

The best-earning podcasters have diversified sources of income. The largest percentage of their earnings comes usually from ads, donations, and paid podcast sales and premium listeners. However, there are many more sources of income for podcasters. Here are the most important of them:

• Advertising and sponsorship – to land big advertisers you need to be part of big network. It is only possible if you have thousands of listeners per episode. According to Jordan Harbinger you need at least 50,000 of listeners for every episode to get big advertisers.  That seems not so easy. According to PodcastersParadise you need at least 20,000 listens per episode.
  Fortunately, you can also look for smaller advertisers. You can also offer advertising on your podcast to various companies and entities on your own.
• Listener donations – for example from Patreon
• Paid subscription / paid membership – allows premium subscribers to have access to premium episodes
• Offering premium content – like ebooks, guides or anything especial
• Selling branded merchandise
• Live events – podcasters sell tickets to these shows
• Signing contract with radio or any big company
• Support from foundations 

PODCAST ADVERTISING REVENUE IS RAPIDLY GROWING

According to the Oberlo data, the value of the advertising revenue podcasts will exceeded $ 1,74 billion in 2022. Revenue from pokastas is estimated to be as high as $2.74 billion in 2025. This increase will significantly contribute to the increase in advertising revenue for podcasters.

The final answer to the question if podcasts are profitable looks optimistic, when we see revenues trends. Hovewer it should be also taken under account, that to start creating podcasts you usually have to invest in a good microphone and pay for some costs, such as advertising your podcast.

The big positive of podcasts is that there are still many niches where there is not much competition. Therefore, there are still many opportunities and places for new talents.
If podcasting is a hobby for you then the chance that it will be profitable after some time is high and worth a try. Not everyone will be able to earn thousands of dollars a month, but you will have at least some extra money and earnings will be enough to pay for costs of traveling or small investitions.
If you are considering podcasting as a means of earning money, it is better to recommend other more profitable ventures (such as vlogging or blogging about topics in niches in where there is very low competition).

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