How much does it cost to make a podcast?
It’s free to listen to podcasts but what about making one?
How much do I need to budget if I want to produce a weekly podcast?
It all obviously depends on what tools you use to make your podcast and whether you do it all yourself or hire help.
You could make a podcast with no monetary cost, or you could spend hundreds of dollars a year.
In this blog I’m going to breakdown the different elements to a podcast, what they might cost you and a budget alternative.
All prices are in USD unless otherwise specified.
Podcast host
To get your podcast into a listener’s ears you need to host it somewhere.
Some hosts offer to distribute to other directories, some you have to connect yourself (but once connected all your episodes will get distributed automatically).
Note that the hosts that charge do have a free subscription too but these typically have limitations on the number of uploads or hours per month.
Free: Spotify For Podcasters, Acast
Paid: Buzzsprout (from $12 monthly), Podbean (from $14 monthly), Libsyn (from $5 a month)
My current host: Spotify For Podcasters
Recording solo and guests
There are several platforms at your fingertips to record your podcast, and hosting a solo podcast (one where the only person who speaks is you) offers more options.
Some of the free recording platforms also have paid plans, the free plans have time limits.
Free: The voice recorder app on your phone, Zoom, Streamyard, Riverside
Paid: Zoom ($150 a year, meetings over 40 minutes), Streamyard ($20 a month), Riverside ($15 a month), Squadcast
My choice: Zoom
Podcast editing
You’ve recorded your podcast but you want to make some edits to it, such as taking out ums and uhs, or audio that you don’t want in your final podcast.
Editing is where you can spend a lot of time and money on it, or next to nothing at all.
Editing is also what some people call the process of piecing their podcast together, you can do this in Spotify For Podcasters.
Free: Audacity/Garageband, Riverside
Paid: Descript ($150 a year)
My choice: I use Descript to clean up my audio and to get the transcript, I use Audacity to piece together.
Calendar
If you are booking guests an online scheduling system will save you and your guest plenty of time.
You can find free systems but to get the features that will give you the most help (such as workflows) you will need to pay.
Budget around US$120 a year.
My choice: I use Calendly. I use this for the workflows, emails are sent out automatically to remind the guest (and myself) that we have a meeting.
Outsourcing
Podcast managers can take care of everything related to your podcast outside of the episode recording.
They can edit, write show notes, transcription, upload the episode for you, create promotional graphics and videos and even look after guest management.
You can find someone on Fiverr to do one or all of these.
Prices start from $15 for 10 minutes editing through to $1000 or more for a month (four episodes, editing, shownotes, graphics etc).
In conclusion, there are a lot of costs to podcasting, but you can get by on a budget too. It all depends on what you want to get out of your podcast.
Is it purely for a hobby? Or is it to complement your business and bring in customers?
Whatever you choose to do you can always upgrade or downgrade according to your need and budget.
One thing to note, however, is if you know that you are going to pay for something try and pay the annual price as that typically gives you a couple of months free.
Got a podcasting question? Send it in to alison@alisonfraser.co
