Outsource Podcast Production Costs: What Can I Afford?

You can create or record your raw content merely with a mic and computer. But in the later stage, you need a high level of skills and experiences to deliver content worth listening to. Your content and your podcasts must stand out from others, making the audience love to listen to your channel.

So, to render a podcast on a professional level, you need to mix audios, write show notes or script, and other such stuff. But it becomes tough for a beginner to do such kinds of things all on their own; thus, outsourcing podcast production can be a viable option, which saves time while delivering better output.

So, let us study how much outsourcing podcast production costs in real life.

Interesting Statistics

However, before proceeding on to outsourcing costs of podcast production, let’s know a few statistical data about podcasting.

According to the February reports, in 2021, it is declared that 155 million of the US population have listened to podcasts, and among them, 51% were men, and the rest, 49% were women. However, there are other interesting facts that you must know.

• According to Podcast Insights, 2020, there are 850,000 active podcasts and more than 30 million podcast episodes, and the numbers are still growing.
• According to the reports from Edison Research, 2019, 65% of the US population listen to podcasts through mobile phones or tablets.
• Research also found out that comedy is the most widespread podcasting genre, which is followed by education and news.
• 49% is the total percentage of podcast listeners who are from home, whereas 22% hear podcasts while driving or in transit.
• Statistics have also dug out that 54% of podcast listeners are more susceptible to purchasing a product from a brand after hearing its advertisement on the podcast.
• In 2018, $479 million is the total amount spent by marketers on podcast ads, which is expected to double up by 2021.
• 4% of podcast listeners have tuned into the podcast for more than seven hours a week. And 22.4% of podcast listeners spend more than 3 hours a day, which is about 22 hours a week.

Average Cost of Graphic Design and Podcast Editing

Well, many podcasters have a better knowledge of the content than on how to edit it and make it graphically enticing for others to get attracted. Thus, it becomes more mandatory to hire a professional in that field, as the podcast is for a vast array of audiences.

The graphic design of a podcast comprises of everything from podcast cover art to promotional images that are needed for posting on social media platforms. Hence, using powerful graphics will make it easier for you to attract new kinds of listeners and involve the current ones. There are several graphics designing companies for podcasting that you can search online to hire. Usually, hiring them will cost around $50-$150 but may vary depending on a particular person’s skill.

Now, if you are an expert in graphics designing, then you have to spend a minimum of $30 per month, just only for one piece of software. You will have to buy other software too, which will increase the price more. You will also have to put extra labor into it to design the graphics creatively.

Coming on to podcast editing, several other factors determine the editing costs, like episode lengths, types of specialization and format you require, and the added service charge of your editor. Tackling the editing part is truly an arduous thing for people who are a novice. The output should be clutter-free and full of perfection.

Outsourcing will surely be a value for your bucks, as professionals have all types of the necessary software to deliver the utmost perfect result. The pricing is $40-$100+ per episode if you want high-quality output. You can thus save your time in thinking about other content to publish.

But when you buy numerous software of your own legitimately, they are going to cost you more bucks, excluding the editing part as you have to do that manually. Using a reckoned software will cost you more than $70 per month. Then, think how much it will cost if you opt to buy more than one software?

Average Cost of Show Notes Writing

You need to create proper show notes, as they are an integral part of podcasts as well. They heavily influence the SEO score of your podcast and increase its accessibility. They thus felicitate the listeners to a huge extent. This helps the podcast listeners to instantly search and listen to the podcast and gain in-depth knowledge about the topic.

Without correct show notes, your podcast site will remain invisible to Google’s search algorithm. Thus, you can tie up with any freelancers from the internet to write your show notes. The pricing starts from $20-$140.

Or if you are tight on your budget, then you need to give manual labor and work your brain to write well enough.

Average Cost of Social Media and Website Management

In 2021, handling social media accounts is an important task, as it can help in audience growth and create more followers. A social media manager will post your content on social pages, tagging valuable guests and making audiograms. They will allure the listeners with an attractive image, settling a posting schedule, to frequently enhancing your posts.

So, you can hire a social media marketing expert to post the relevant content on social media platforms whose prices start from $199 to $1000 and more depending on the complexity and size of a project.

You can surely save some bucks by doing it on your own, but remember, a professional knows a better way to attract the consumers, and even they save your time.

Just like a social media expert, you may need someone to manage your website to update your content, show notes and transcriptions frequently. Outsourcing helps you in meeting people who can legitimately redesign your whole website.

Likewise, website management can be hard work as you have to constantly upload your new content, shows notes, transcriptions, and designs to your website.

Therefore, due to shortage of time, most consider outsourcing this task. The charges are nominals as they start from $30-$70 per hour. However, you can tie with someone who can do both to make some wise cost cuttings.

Average Cost of Script Writing

Creating a plan of what you are going to say in the podcast is a great way to trap the audience’s interest. It can be a difficult task for many who aren’t that creative or isn’t much comfortable in speaking English.

Now, to discard this, there are dedicated writing services that provide well sought-out scripts while ensuring quality content for the show. This outline of the show helps in measuring the speaking rate in words per minute, which will give you a fair bit of idea of how many words to fit in a 15–20 minute podcast. The cost for tying up with a service provider would cost you around $35-$150 per episode script writing.

Undoubtedly, you can hire cheaper freelancers, but their work output won’t be much productive and sometimes a waste of money & time.

Average Cost of Guest Management

In many cases, podcasts are interview-based podcasts in which there is a lengthy list of guests that appear in every episode. It will be heavily time-consuming for you to specifically find out guests, reach out to them and schedule timing with each of them for an interview.

Thus, there are booking agents that offer such types of services and assistance so that you can concentrate on other works. They will charge around $60-$150 for each project.

Average Cost of Transcription

If you want to make your traffic grow organically, then generating transcripts is a crucial thing, as it will help your website be visible and rank high on Google. They also help in the monetization of podcasts, as when people find your transcript in Google, they will automatically land on your website to listen to your podcast and learn about your ads.

If you care about transcribing each episode word to word, it will be mandatory to work with a professional transcription service company. The service is charged by the number of minutes spent transcribing.

Such experts offer services that are machine-generated transcripts to be transcribed by human professionals. The transcription services charge would start from $5 per minute. But if you have adequate time, you can do transcription on your own by following a few easy steps from the internet.

Average Cost of Technical Solutions

Getting technical solutions are best for those kinds of people who have less budget and only want a helping hand in some specific part of the podcasting process. It is the best solution for those who are doing most things on their own while producing a podcast but want to share some of the duties with others.

Having technical solutions will help in proper podcast editing, making show notes, transcription, and promoting items for weekly episodes of the podcast. It is more like a blend of technical things, but before hiring an individual or agency, you must properly describe your needs, as in some cases, they make things with their preferences. Outsourcing of technical solutions usually costs between $200-$1000 monthly.

Average Cost of Recording Production

Outsourcing the entire recording process can also help you in saving time and money. Also, it will save you from the hassle of finding the best podcast equipment. Outsourced companies will set up the whole studio and mic in the most efficient way so that the mic picks up the utmost vocals.

Outsourcing agency also soundproofs the recording studio so that it renders a nice and quiet environment. It would generally cost $1700-$2500 monthly to hire a recording agency.

Average Cost of Research

If your podcast is dense with facts, you can always outsource the research part of your podcast. Good research agencies offer experienced teams having great statisticians and analysts who dwell through 20-30 websites to dig out information or data so that your podcast stays filled with adequate information.

The research team also provides a marketing overview for in-depth custom reports. They can also do research from social media platforms so that you can keep your podcast updated as per the trend. Apart from all of these, they perform data crunching and find a correlation and relevance in your data samples. You can hire them on an hourly basis starting from $20 an hour or $1900 monthly.

Average Cost of Podcast Marketing

If you need to market your podcast to gain a considerable amount of listenership, hiring a marketing team will be wise. They will make sure that your snippets and images are sharable so that people can share.

The marketing team can help in using rich media, videos, or teasers for promoting your podcast. They will correctly target the guest so that your website can gain good ROI. It also raises the scope of outsourcing pins prepared from the Pinterest board. Usually, they cost around $300-$1000 per month but it may vary depending on hiring a person from Asian countries.

Average Cost of Monetization

You can make a lot of money through your podcasts. However, that can be done when proper efforts are made with podcast sponsors and develop attractive ads. Monetization agencies do this kind of works smoother and faster, helping you to earn more money on each of your podcasts. They will also partner with a podcast network so that you get ads on your show. Usually, these types of monetization agencies charge from $300-$450 per month.

Average Cost of Full Podcast Production

The ultimate remedy for those podcasters who want to skip the hassle of assigning each subtask of podcasting to distinct persons is to assign the whole thing to a particular company. Based on the concept of your podcast, the companies can offer full-service solutions for delivering the utmost perfect podcast.

Full service here means providing a complete package of everything from concept to branding, podcast production, and even promotion of your podcast. The charges are taken based on episodes, which may range from $1,000 to $15,000+. However, the fees also vary on the type of podcast you want the company to make for you. For instance, it can be interview-based, story drive, or even an amalgamation of both. Agencies and their workforce which function and provides service in this sector are filled with skillful people with many years of experience.

Conclusion

Now, it ranges down to your own needs, budget, and time. If you’ve got an ample amount of time and in-depth knowledge in podcasting, then you can save your money and do it all on your own. Otherwise, spend money and engage more listeners by outsourcing podcast production tasks.