To start a Patreon for your podcast or not? We dive into this exact topic in this episode.
In today’s episode, we are chatting about if you should start a Patreon for your podcast or not.
If you’ve never heard of Patreon before, it is a monthly membership model that you can use for your podcast listeners to give them exclusive bonuses like additional audio content, discounts on your products/services/merch, etc.
Listeners who decide to upgrade to a premium membership will pay a monthly amount specified by you. You can have just one tier or multiple depending on what you feel comfortable with.
The way Patreon works is that it’s a free platform to use but a percentage of your monthly income will be taken from your account depending on the tier that you’re in.
On the Lite plan, they’ll take 5% of the monthly income you earn on Patreon + payment processing.
On the Lite plan, you’ll get some additional perks but it seems like to actually benefit from Patreon you’ll be better off using their Pro plan which takes 8% of your monthly income earned on Patreon + payment processing but you get access to Membership tiers, analytics and insights, app integrations and more.
The Premium plan is their third tier and it’s 12% of your monthly income + processing fees and you’ll get everything in the pro + a dedicated partner manager, merch for membership, and access to team accounts.
So depending on how much you’re making from Patreon, you could have a significant amount of money taken each month so that’s something to keep in mind before you decide to go all-in on the platform.
So personally, I don’t think most business owners with a podcast should explore Patreon especially not early on in their podcasting journey because there are much better ways to monetize your podcast when you’re first starting out like affiliate marketing or self-hosted ad segments.
If you have a bigger audience that is highly engaged prior to starting your podcast, then Patreon might be a decent option for you but it’s certainly not the first step I would recommend taking to monetize your podcast.
So the final verdict – Patreon probably isn’t a good fit for most entrepreneur podcasters because the ROI isn’t really there unless you have a big, highly engaged audience.
I wanna know, are you using Patreon for your show or something similar? Send me a DM on Insta at savvypodcastagency – I’d love to hear from you.
Related Episodes:
Ep. 197 | Should I Monetize My Podcast with Affiliate Marketing?
Ep. 185 | 5 Ways to Monetize Your Podcast
Ep. 184 | What to Do Before You Start Monetizing Your Podcast