One of the most difficult parts of selling podcast subscriptions & memberships is determining the right price. Sure, you want to make a profit with your premium podcast subscription, but if you charge too much, it will be difficult to gain (and retain) subscribers if they feel like they are over paying for your podcast content.
By considering a few key factors, you can generate an approximate cost to inform your pricing strategy. For instance, you’ll need to think about market conditions, listener value, and the number of pricing tiers you’ll offer.
In this post, we’ll take a look at five considerations for pricing your podcast subscriptions. Let’s jump in!
How to Price Your Premium Podcast Subscription (5 Considerations)
Podcast subscriptions are a great way to monetize your content, especially compared to alternatives like podcast ads. You don’t have to make creative compromises.
Meanwhile, the opportunity to collect recurring revenue provides a degree of stability.
So, let’s take a look at five ways to price your premium podcast subscriptions.
1. Balance Extra Costs
The first way to generate a price for your subscriptions is to consider the costs of producing your podcast and/or extra content.
Naturally, this will depend on the perks and benefits included in your podcast memberships, such as:
- Early access to episodes
- Behind-the-scenes content
- Special episodes/series
- Ad-free listening
- Live episodes
- Community access
- Discounts on merchandise
Once you’ve determined the benefits you want to offer, you can calculate the additional costs you’ll incur.
This might mean factoring in essential podcast equipment, services, software, or hosting. Of course, you’ll also need to think about the extra time you’ll spend creating premium content.
2. Gauge Earning Potential
Next, it’s useful to consider how many listeners are likely to sign up to your premium podcast subscription plans. This helps you gauge your earning potential, which might impact how much you’ll charge.
You can get a clear idea about this by setting up a membership page on your podcast website, list all your membership plans and see how many visitors interact with that page. If you don’t have a website yet, it’s easy to create one using Beamly:
With this podcast website builder, you can create pages using stunning pre-designed templates. You’ll also get access to essential podcast features like an audio player and automatic episode imports.
On top of this, Beamly offers built-in membership options, so you don’t have to rely on third-party integrations. This enables you to paywall entire episodes, blog posts, pages, and videos, as well as individual pieces of content.
You can also present all your plans in a neat comparison table, so visitors can clearly see which one suits them best:
On your landing page, you might like to include details about the subscriptions you plan to offer. Then, you can add a simple opt-in form where listeners can register their interest.
If you’re in the early stages, you can always keep an eye on key podcast metrics. Looking at your weekly episode downloads and average listening time can help you understand how popular your subscriptions could be.
Let’s say you discover that 100 listeners are prepared to pay a monthly fee in exchange for premium content. If monthly production will cost $1000, you’ll need to charge at least $10 per month to break even.
3. Assess Market Averages
It’s also important to take a look at the market averages when it comes to pricing your podcast subscriptions.
If you have a quick look around, you’ll find that most podcast subscriptions cost between $3 and $20 per month. Naturally, this will based on the benefits you plan to offer.
You can also search for similar podcasts and see how much they charge, or browse sites like Patreon to find how much people are charging for their shows.
Typically, you’ll find that established creators with a highly engaged audience have more bargaining power.
4. Understand Listener Value
When contemplating a purchasing decision, most people weigh up the cost against the benefit they’ll gain from using the product. So, to price your premium podcast subscription accurately, you have to define the listener value.
Again, this will be easier if you’ve already established a loyal following. The same goes for niche podcasts with audiences that are highly engaged with the topics and subjects you discuss.
But the next thing to consider is what you’re actually providing. If you’re only going to offer a single bonus episode each month, it wouldn’t be fair to charge listeners a high premium.
That said, your membership plans might grant numerous perks. Or, you could provide especially lucrative benefits (like live content). In these instances, you’re in a better position to set high rates.
5. Construct Pricing Tiers
The final factor to take into account is the number of pricing tiers you’re going to sell.
We recommend making some content freely accessible so that you don’t restrict your audience base. Or, at the very least, you should offer a free trial to demonstrate the value of your subscriptions.
After that, you might provide a single premium membership that differentiates itself from your free plan in just one or two ways (e.g. a bonus episode, ad-free listening). What can be more effective is splitting your premium subscription into multiple tiers.
For example, you could offer:
- A free/budget plan that grants ad-free episodes.
- A mid-level plan that grants ad-free episodes and premium episodes.
- A top-tier plan that offers ad-free episodes, premium content, and access to additional benefits like live streams, 1-on-1 sessions or more types of content.
This way, you can appeal to a wider range of people.
This will impact your pricing strategy since your packages will work in relation to one another. For example, Now Playing offers a free plan and three premium options that range between $5 and $25 per month:
Another consideration is whether you want to provide an annual subscription price as well as a monthly membership fee. This enables you to cater to listeners who don’t want to make regular ongoing payments.
Conclusion – Pricing your Premium Podcast Subscription
Premium subscriptions are a great way to set up a steady revenue stream and strengthen your podcast community. However, if you don’t set the right price, it’ll be difficult to make a profit, and you could struggle to motivate listeners to sign up.
To recap, here are five considerations for pricing your premium podcast subscription:
- Balance extra costs.
- Gauge earning potential.
- Assess market averages.
- Understand listener value.
- Construct pricing tiers.
The simplest way to sell podcast subscriptions is to set up your own website. At Beamly, you’ll get access to ready-made templates, a customizable audio player, and built-in memberships. Get started for free today!
