0 Flares Twitter 0 Facebook 0 Reddit 0 LinkedIn 0 Email -- Filament.io 0 Flares ×

Podcasting costs a lot of money

I don’t want to scare you off! Podcasting is an awesome platform to grow your business and provide value to your audience but the one thing that none of the classes or posts out there seem to cover is that the upfront cost can shock you if you are not prepared!

Podcasting is not an overnight success tactic

People create podcasts for a variety of reasons. There are some major podcasters out there that have turned their podcasts into seven-figure businesses! When you have a chance, go listen to Entrepreneur On Fire with John Lee Dumas or The Smart Passive Income Podcast with Pat Flynn. These two (among many others) have been giving back to the podcasting space for years. It took them each almost a year before they began to see income directly from their podcasts. Personally, I feel that a podcast will make money sooner if it is used as a platform and funnel to drive traffic to a preexisting business. If you look at it like an advertising cost then it’s not as shocking compared to trying to make money directly from your show. Only to realize that you are paying monthly out of pocket for a lot of these support services but are still not bringing in any cash.

6ish Hidden Costs in Podcasting

So I’m saying 6ish because two of these should be pretty clear but some people may not realize it. So let’s start from the top and work our way through the list. So this may be a no-brainer but I want to make sure you have a good list and approximate cost for all the equipment you may need. If you had to get everything on here, you could be looking at nearly $600 as a one time, upfront cost and an additional $60-80 every month! Keep in mind that with my podcast production company, WCR Studios, my goal is to have you launch in 30 days or less. I’m not going to cover a super professional setup here. I’m going to give you the basics that will get a good quality podcast out the door and not require an upgrade for at least a year or two.

1. Hardware

A Computer! This is the most obvious thing. If you are reading this then chances are you already have one but you can start with a pretty basic laptop or desktop system. anything under $500 will be fine.

Try this Acer 15.4in Notebook with an i3 processor in it for only $349.99!

A good pair of headphones. Headphones are a must for recording and really being able to hear your tracks back without all the room noise. Also having a conversation with a guest over Skype can cause feedback and headphones will isolate that.

If you want to keep it under $100 get the Sennheiser HDR 160 Headphone for $76.96
Personally, I use the Bose QuietComfort 15 but it is discontinued. Instead, you can rock the house with the Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series II) at $349.00

A decent microphone. There are a ton of different brands out there and you will get a lot of recommendations. Just keep this one simple.

Pick up the Audio-Technica ATR2100 this is the intro podcaster staple. It’s $79.99 and well worth it!
You will also need a NEEWER Adjustable Microphone Suspension Boom Scissor Arm for $13.99
Also an Aokeo Professional Microphone Pop Filter for $5.85

2. Software

Ahh, the recording software. This is where things can get tricky. There are several free programs that are out there to record your podcast with. I will cover some of them on this site but for the purposes of this article here is the trade-off. Free apps can be harder to use in some cases. So if you are ok rolling your sleeves up, then, by all means, go for it.

I use Adobe Audition for $20.00 a month.

3. Web Hosting

One thing that all podcasts have is a website. Its a home for your content. You can talk to your audience, provide useful resources and build up your mailing list. There are many website hosting providers out there.

I personally use and recommend Bluehost There is a WordPress hosting site for $19.99 a month.

4. Podcast Hosting

Speaking of hosting… You also need a home for all that audio content to live! Just like a website, podcasts need their own place out there. There are many ways to go about hosting your audio and getting it to Apple Itunes, but if you plan on attracting advertisers in the future, you will need to know your download numbers. The best way to do that is with a Podcast host. They will make it easy to get your show analytics so you can see how things are doing.

Libsyn is one of the most well known and widely used hosts around. They have a great plan that will work for you at $20.00 a month.

5. Marketing

So now you have a show… now what? You need people to know about it and you and that doesn’t happen with magic. You need to market. This should be in the same place that your audience would hang out the most. Making a podcast for crafters? Push the show on Pinterest. Maybe they are on Facebook, it shouldn’t matter. You need to be where they are but you must not stay there! This is the most important lesson and where the cost of having a website makes sense. You need to bring your audience from the social network to your site and you need to capture their email address. This is the only reliable method of communication that you and they have control over. Facebook and other social sites are changing things all the time. I just read a story about a business that just went under because the latest Facebook change cut them off from their audience. If they had an email list, they would have had to pivot but they wouldn’t have lost everyone.

Sign up for the Free plan at MailChimp. It’s free up to the first 2000 subscribers!
Once you have that, you will need a way to capture the email but not be annoying. Get a free trial over at Leadpages Once the trial ends your looking at $25 per month.

6. Logos and Templates

Unless you are a graphic artist, chances are you will need help with this part of the process. Having a compelling and noticeable logo in the podcast directories is crucial. Same goes for the website, chances are the default look for the site won’t work for what you want to convey.

Themes for a WordPress site can range from $39-99.
99designs is a great place to get a logo and even custom website work starting at $99!

Total Cost

So as you can see there will be some upfront cost to all of this. You don’t have to spend money on all of this but if you are completely new to podcasting you are going to need a lot of this purchased.