How podcasters are making money on Substack
How podcasters are making money on Substack
New business models are flourishing, fueled by direct relationships
There’s a big difference between an ad-based podcast and one that makes its audience the main customer. That simple but profound change means the people who care most about the show are as invested in its well-being as its creators. It also makes new things possible with the show’s format and storytelling, and in bringing its community to life.
Perhaps most importantly, though, great shows based on the subscriber model are far less vulnerable to the ups and downs of the ad market. It’s not a great time today for podcasts that rely on ads, as all the recent cancellations, consolidations, closures, and layoffs have shown. But it’s always a good time to fund great shows directly through the support of the people who find them valuable.
On Substack, a new generation of audio and video shows are thriving. Of the 250 highest-revenue publications on Substack, more than half publish audio and video.
“When Dirty Sports lost our presenting sponsor of four years, we were suddenly faced with a tough question,” says
, who hosts Dirty Sports with fellow comedian . “Do we keep doing the same show but for a small fraction of what we were making, or do we just shut the whole thing down?”Substack emerged as a third option, offering a way to monetize by making their fans their partners. “This hasn’t only helped us financially,” Joe says. “It has improved our show.”
Podcasters are succeeding on Substack with a rich variety of takes on the subscription model, including brand-new podcasts that complement existing publications; big podcasts that move to Substack to unlock new tools for their community; video shows that simultaneously publish audio to a podcast feed; and shows that include premium episodes with flexible paywalls—bringing into play free teasers and bonus content.
These models are built on the same foundation that fuels all of Substack: the long-term value of a real relationship between podcasters and subscribers.
Here are three examples to get you thinking about the future of shows on Substack.
Pack Your Knives, by Kevin Arnovitz and Tom Haberstroh
Build a bigger, better home for your show through a Substack subscription business
If you’re lucky enough to have a successful podcast, chances are you’re building or stitching together a lot of tools: website creation and management, email mailing list, payments, and community discussion spaces. On Substack, all of that happens in one place, with one set of tools.
Pack Your Knives brought a successful podcast to Substack in order to make day-to-day management of a podcast empire easier. The website, newsletter, payments, and community spaces are all integrated. And now this show, dedicated to covering Bravo’s Top Chef, benefits from the power of SEO-optimized pages for each episode and the strength of the Substack growth network.
“We moved to Substack because the platform enables us to develop Pack Your Knives into more than a weekly podcast, expand our offerings beyond the episode recaps, and build a community hub for all things Top Chef,” host
says.Pack Your Knives “founding members” (subscribers who pay higher than the standard annual rate) can vote on the contestants they most want on their personal Top Chef team. The hosts used their votes to fuel a recent fantasy draft episode of the show.
See also:
and of Rich Text, the popular Substack culture podcast, have experienced the same evolution in their relationship with listeners.“Something that I love about having a newsletter and making a podcast on Substack is that our paid subscribers not only have access to our episodes, but also the ability to comment back and engage in conversations with us and each other in the comments and on Substack’s in-app chat,” Emma says. “This lets us bridge that gap with our audience and not only get feedback, but swap stories and learn from them.”
Learn more: How to switch your podcast to Substack
The Culture Study Podcast, by Anne Helen Petersen
Add a podcast to an existing Substack to connect more deeply with more subscribers
Journalist, essayist, and pop culture critic
already had a thriving Substack called Culture Study. But in November 2023 she introduced to go deeper with her subscribers and bring in new ones. Adding a podcast means increasing discovery for new audiences both within Substack and via other podcast players, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. All of this audience growth increases both free and paid subscriptions—Substacks that add a podcast grow on average nearly 2.5 times faster than those without.“One thing that I’ve tried to drive home to readers on Culture Study is that making creative content is not cheap—and if you consume something and value it and have the means, you should consider paying to make it sustainable,” Anne Helen says. “A lot of listeners understand that the totally ad-supported model for podcasts (and journalism!) is no longer sustainable, so subscriptions are a means of paying for my labor and my producer Melody Rowell’s.”
See also:
’s Burnt Toast.“Adding my podcast to Burnt Toast has been such an important way to build my community and make my work more accessible to a wider audience,” says Virginia. “Since I launched my podcast, my total list has grown by 30% and my paid subscribers have nearly doubled.”
Serious Trouble, House of Strauss, and Split Zone Duo
Customizable paywalls for both audio and video episodes put you in control of your growth
Creators on Substack are using blended paywall strategies with remarkable success.
and ’s irreverent legal podcast Serious Trouble often inserts a paywall about 60% (or more) of the way into a premium podcast episode, which means free listeners get a huge portion of the episode (often where most free listeners might drop off anyway). Dedicated fans who want the full experience can pay to continue listening.Over at sports and culture podcast House of Strauss, former ESPN reporter
shares a portion of the episode as an intro to new listeners but keeps most of the show available only to paid subscribers. He says that elevates the quality of his discussions with guests—because they’re happening in a “private” space that belongs largely to paid subscriptions.“A podcast you send out to the world can more easily get excerpted and reacted to by people who either don’t get or hate the context you operate within,” Ethan writes. “When I have [regular guest commentator] Big Wos on, I’m excited about his winning candor. I wouldn’t want that undermined because some unhappy hall monitor takes a snippet out of context and makes Wos’ company answer for it.”
Then there’s Split Zone Duo, a college football podcast from three journalists who come together to cover the sport with nuanced reporting and a wild sense of humor. Before moving to Substack, Split Zone Duo had a free podcast, a second Patreon-supported feed, a Discord chat, a newsletter for writing, and a separate website. Now it all lives in one place at SplitZoneDuo.com, their home on Substack.
Here, they publish free video episodes to reach new audiences, drop emergency episodes about shocking news, and publish insightful stories. It’s also where they start chats for subscribers to ask questions that get answered on the show, and where they host other Substack creators to talk about sports gossip and intricate defensive schemes. It’s a budding media empire.
Watch these spaces
Substack, once known primarily for hosting newsletters, is rapidly evolving to support all media types—with podcasting and video shows being among the fastest growing. The simplicity of our subscription tools plus the powerful growth engine of the Substack network (which today accounts for more than 50% of subscriptions on the platform) offers podcasters and show makers something completely new. You can dream up a show over breakfast and be making money from it by lunchtime. The cost of getting started is zero. And then every subscriber you get, you have a connection to for as long as they choose to stay on your mailing list. There’s no better way to get to know your audience.
To explore more about podcasting on Substack, check out substack.com/podcasts. It’s time to get the show started.
How podcasters are making money on Substack