Costs of podcasts vary
You can spend very little on your podcast or spend thousands on your podcast. It depends on your budget and whether you outsource.
Get a decent mic for your podcast
If you have a tight budget, the most expensive item you need to purchase is your mic. Yes, you could just use the mic on your laptop or record straight to your phone. But I highly recommend that you don’t do this. When you record your voice on either of these built in mics the quality will be poor.
I suggest that you get a quality mic before you do any recording. This will give you professional sounding audio from the start.
What mic should I get for my podcast?
There are two different types of mics, the dynamic mic, and the condenser mic.
A good condenser mic is the Blue Yeti and a good dynamic mic is the Audio- Technica ATR2100X-USB. Both these mics cost less than $120 USD.
What headphones should I get for my podcast?
If you’re planning on outsourcing your editing, then a cheap set of ear buds are fine. There’s no need for expensive headphones if you’re just using them to conduct interviews.
If you’re going to edit your podcast yourself, then I recommend any of the following:
Where can I create podcast artwork?
You can simply create your own podcast artwork using Canva. There’s plenty of templates on there that you can customise. The beauty of Canva is that it’s free to use!
How much is a podcast hosting platform?
There are various podcast hosting platforms out there. You could host your podcast yourself on your own website, but if you’re not techy, I suggest using a hosting platform.
The two that I recommend are Libsyn and Buzzsprout. Plans vary depending on how many podcast episodes you want to release. But the average is $18 USD a month.
Free podcast recording software
You can use Audacity or Garageband to record your solo episodes. They’re both great options and they’re both free!
Interview recordings
You can use Zoom to record your interview episodes, which is free, as long as you keep the recordings under 40 minutes. If you want to do interviews longer than this, you will need to start paying for Zoom’s monthly subscription.
How much does it cost to start a podcast?
So, all up, if you just pay for a decent mic that’s around $120 USD and then there’s the monthly subscription to the hosting platform which is around $18 USD a month. Maybe having your own podcast isn’t as costly as you thought?!
How long will it take you to learn and do everything?
What many podcasters forget to consider, is how long it will take them to record their episodes, edit and mix each episode, write show notes, create social media graphics and captions, upload episodes to the hosting platform etc.
Time is money
Doing all of the above tasks yourself won’t cost you money, but it will cost you time. which at the end of the day, is taking away time you could be spending in your business making money.
So, where you can, if you can afford it, think about outsourcing some of these tasks to a Virtual Assistant or Podcast Manager.
Each Virtual Assistant and Podcast Manager has their own skillset and price, so you’ll need to do some research.
If you’d like to know how I can support you with the launch of your podcast and my rates, click here.