The Economics of Podcasts

It's Friday, September twenty-fifth. There are four point four million active podcasts in the world right now, and they generated nine point two billion dollars in revenue last year. That's up from roughly a hundred million dollars a decade ago. A ninety-two-times increase. And here's the thing: almost none of that money goes to the people making the shows. The economics of podcasting are fascinating, and the short version is that a medium built on the idea that anyone with a microphone can build an audience has turned into one of the most lopsided markets in media. Let's start with the scale, because it's genuinely staggering. Six hundred seventy-two million people worldwide listen to podcasts at least once a month. In the US, fifty-five percent of the population — that's about a hundred fifty-eight million people — listens monthly. Forty percent listen every single week. Seventy-two percent of listeners finish entire episodes, which is the highest completion rate of any media format, higher than YouTube videos, higher than articles, higher than anything.

The thing that turned podcasting from a niche hobby into this was COVID. In 2019, there were two hundred seventy-four million monthly listeners globally. By the end of 2020, that number had jumped twenty-one percent to three hundred thirty-two million. A flood of new shows launched during lockdown. In 2020, podcasters published thirty-one point one million episodes, a record that still hasn't been beaten. People were stuck at home, desperate for something that felt like company. A podcast is basically a stranger talking directly into your ears for an hour. It turns out that's exactly what a lot of people needed.

The surprising thing is that the growth didn't stop when the pandemic ended. The listener base has more than doubled since 2020, from three hundred thirty-two million to six hundred seventy-two million. It's growing roughly ten percent a year. This is not a fad. Podcasts now account for twenty percent of all audio listening time in the US, up from two percent in 2014. Here's where the economics get weird. The global podcast industry was worth nine point two billion dollars in 2025. In the US alone, podcast advertising brought in two point nine billion dollars last year, up nearly eighteen percent from the year before. Host-read ads — the ones where the podcaster personally tells you about MeUndies or Athletic Greens — command CPMs, which is cost per thousand downloads, of twenty-four to twenty-six dollars. On a premium business show, that number can hit thirty dollars or more.

And at the very top? Joe Rogan signed a deal with Spotify worth up to two hundred fifty million dollars. Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy got a reported one hundred twenty-five million from SiriusXM. Spotify paid out over a hundred million dollars to its top podcasters in just the first quarter of 2025, with Rogan, Cooper, and Theo Von among the biggest checks.

But here's the number that tells you the real story: Listen Notes, which indexes basically every podcast on the planet, tracks three point eight million shows. Only four hundred ninety thousand of them — about thirteen percent — have published an episode this year. The vast majority of podcasts are abandoned after a handful of episodes. The creator records a few, sees the download numbers flatline, and quits. Of the ones that survive, most make nothing. Ad networks don't even look at shows until they're pulling tens of thousands of downloads per episode. At the standard twenty-five dollar CPM, a show doing five thousand downloads per episode makes about a hundred twenty-five dollars per ad spot. Do two ads per episode, twice a week, and you're at roughly twenty-six thousand dollars a year, before production costs, hosting fees, and equipment. That's a second job, not a living.

Meanwhile, the top one percent of podcasts capture almost all the revenue. Direct advertising, which is the biggest bucket at five point three billion dollars globally, flows overwhelmingly to the shows that don't need an introduction. The same dynamic that's taken over YouTube and streaming and basically every creator platform has arrived in podcasting: a tiny number of winners, and an enormous long tail of people doing it for free. There's one more shift happening that changes the economics entirely, and it's video. YouTube says it now reaches one billion podcast consumers every month. That sentence would have made no sense five years ago — a podcast was audio by definition — but the line between a podcast and a YouTube talk show has basically dissolved. Forty-one percent of podcast ad revenue in the US now comes from video. Eighty percent of monthly podcast listeners both watch and listen, splitting their consumption between audio apps and YouTube. Only thirteen percent listen without ever watching.

This is a fundamental change in what the product is. For the first fifteen years of podcasting, the business model was straightforward: record audio, distribute via RSS, sell host-read ads. Video adds sponsorships, YouTube ad revenue, merch integrations, and live streaming to the mix. It also changes who wins. Podcasters who are comfortable on camera now have a structural advantage over those who aren't. A pure audio show is competing for attention with shows that offer the same conversation plus a face and a set and production value. The audio-only model still works — there are plenty of people who listen while driving or doing dishes — but the growth and the money are tilting toward people who can do both. There is a version of this industry where the economics were more democratic. Podcasting was built on open standards. RSS feeds are not owned by any company. Anyone can publish. No algorithm decides what gets distributed. In theory, this is the most accessible medium ever invented, and in some ways it still is. But the money has consolidated around the top the same way it does everywhere else in media. Six hundred seventy-two million people are listening. Nine point two billion dollars are flowing. And a few hundred people are getting rich. For everyone else, it's a microphone and a hope that this episode gets more downloads than the last one. Stay informed, stay curious, and we'll see you tomorrow.