How Do Podcasts Make Money (+ how mine breaks the rules)

How to Make Money from Your Podcast

After you have everything you need to make money from your podcast, you need to focus on actually making the money. Fortunately, with podcasts, making money from them is pretty straightforward. There are really only a handful of ways to monetize. You just need to pick the strategy that works best for you. Let’s take a look at a few approaches.

1. Programmatic Ads

If you’re wanting a more streamlined and automated way to monetize your podcast, programmatic ads are a decent option. These ads are basically automatically added to your podcast based on an algorithm. When listeners hear the ad, you’ll be compensated for giving the company access to your listeners. The downside to this approach is that your revenue can fluctuate greatly so it’s not the best option for podcasters. 

2. Affiliate Marketing

Many podcasters like taking the Affiliate marketing approach when monetizing their podcast. This just means that they sell another company’s product, and when listeners purchase said product through the podcasts affiliate link, the podcast gets a cut of the sale. This approach is popular for a reason–it works really well. The only issue with this approach is that you need a significant amount of listeners if you want to make a substantial income. 

3. Sponsorships

Every day, more and more companies are jumping on the sponsorship bandwagon. So, if you have a dedicated listener base, it can definitely be a reliable money maker. But even though this is a tried and true model to monetize your podcast, there is a downside. To attract sponsorship from major companies, you’ll need a substantial number of downloads. So if you’re just getting started or haven’t really found your stride, you’re likely not in a position to start reaching out to companies to sponsor your podcast. 

4. Sell Physical Products

Are you even a real podcast if you don’t have merch? Many podcasts offer physical items to their listeners like tshirts, mugs, hats, etc. So if you have the type of podcast that would lend itself well to physical products (which is most of them), then this could be a good option for you to monetize. Just keep in mind that, like most of these other options, you need a good listener base for it to make a difference in your wallet. 

5. Sell Courses

This is my favorite way to monetize and is actually the way I monetize my own podcast. And the reason why I love courses so much is because you’re able to monetize your podcast immediately, even if you have less than 100 listeners. That’s because courses solve problems. And if your podcast is something that solves problems for listeners, it only makes sense to create a course that goes into more detail on the solution. My course Earnable actually teaches you how to build out this type of system so you can start monetizing your podcast the smart way. 

Should you monetize your podcast?

The answer to this question is straightforward. If you have everything in place to monetize your podcast, it’s worth exploring. The real question is which strategy to choose. There’s no right or wrong answer, as long as it aligns with your podcast’s theme. In my opinion, selling courses is the best option to start with. It has worked well for me, and if you need help getting started, my course Earnable will show you step by step how to set up a system for selling your own courses.