Are Podcast Memberships Worth Doing?

Published in

Podcast Workflows

5 min readDec 21, 2023

When I first launched my podcast, I told myself that once I got to 100,000 downloads lifetime, I’d launch a membership — believing that was proof enough that people would support my work.

Well, lucky…and unlucky…for me, I hit that milestone in 9 months. So I got to work. And by work, I mean I “borrowed” benefits and pricing from other podcasters, and I used Patreon because that’s what everyone used at the time.

I made a negligible amount of money and reached 4 people total. So I decided to fold it. I’d eventually relaunch it, but I continue to mold it into something people actually want.

Last year was a wake-up call for me that my business relied too much on sponsorship money — something many podcasters have been wrestling with since the pandemic.

And even though I’m trying to make a membership work, the trials and tribulations of launching a membership have me wondering: are podcast memberships worth doing?

Or perhaps a more accurate question is: are small-audience podcast memberships worth doing?

I think the answer is yes, but you absolutely need to make the “small audience” distinction.

When we model our memberships off big podcasts — those from Wondery, ATP, the Relay.fm shows, etc — we put ourselves at a disadvantage because they are doing a volume play.

They have hundreds of thousands — even millions — of listeners, many of whom are engaged.

The value proposition for Wondery is almost too good to pass up if you like their shows. Less than $6 per month, you get access to their entire library — dozens of shows — ad-free, with bonus content.

Small audience memberships can’t do that. You’re creating too much content for too little money.

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How to Make a Small Audience Podcast Membership Work

To make your membership worth it with a small audience, you need to do a few things:

Offer a small number of benefits, many of which are low-effort for you and high-value for your listeners.
Make at least one of those benefits high effort and high value.
Charge way more than $5–10/month.
Be everywhere.

OK truth be told, I can’t really prescribe “be everywhere” yet. That’s my grand experiment for 2024.

But the rest…that’s experience talking.

I should also mention this is predicated on the fact that you’ve done some due diligence and know you have at least some people willing to pay for a membership from you. This is where a mailing list for your podcast really comes in handy.

The Benefits

Here’s where you don’t want to be: on the hook for creating a ton of content for 1 person.

If no one signs up, fine. You have no one expecting you to deliver. But if one person signs up at $5/mo, suddenly you’re adding a bunch of extra effort for what…50 cents an hour?

So most of your benefits should be easy to execute. Make your shows ad-free. Release the raw video. These are assets you already have, that you can slightly modify and release.

What you’re not doing is committing to a 1,000-word essay every week for 1 person.

This is also where I’m going to tell you to forget the community at first. An inactive community is a bad look. It signals to your members that either no one is there, or no one is engaged. Setting up a Discord is easy. Cultivating a community is hard.

But truth be told, we’re still looking at benefits the wrong way. Because the benefits are not about what you want to do. It’s about what is valuable to your audience.

That’s why you need, with a small audience, to make the benefits higher effort, but also higher value.

Your podcast’s mission statement will help you sort out who you help and what problems you solve. Your membership benefits should take this even further.

If you’re solving problems through conversation on your podcast, solve them with one-on-one, group, or async support in your membership.

One clear signal that I’m on the right track with my membership benefits is the click-through rate on Day 15’s email, where I gave you my automation database. I saw a 300% increase in CTR.

So answer this: what’s a high-impact benefit you can offer listeners of your podcast to turn them into members?

Pricing

Which brings me to the next thing: how do you price your membership?

If you have 1,000 listeners and there’s a conversion rate of 1%, that gives you 10 people to start. So…is $50 (or even $100) per month enough for you to deliver everything you want to deliver?

Probably not. But that’s why we’re thinking about the high-impact benefit — high impact means higher price.

My membership is undergoing big changes in 2024, largely in part due to the realizations I’ve made this year. And while I have a handful of paying members who will continue to get what they’re paying for, I’m adding a new, higher impact level.

It’s still an experiment (more on that in a bit), but it’s very much a data-backed experiment and not one based on vibes.

Starting in 2024, my members are going to get more of me through group calls and monthly “Sprints” based on certain topics.

This sort of high-impact benefit should allow me to increase the price from where my membership started in January — $5/mo — to $100/mo.

Those sprints will be based on my listeners’ biggest pain points (staying consistent, improving the process, launching a better podcast, pivoting, etc).

That increases a member’s value by 1900%. Or put a different way, to make $100/mo, I’ll only need to sell 1 membership instead of 20.

You Need to Experiment

Based on data

The truth is, you probably won’t get it right on the first try. But if you have conversations from your listeners, learn their pain points and what’s worth money to them, then implement something — even if it’s low-tech at first — and gather feedback.

The great thing about those early sign-ups is they’ll be your biggest supporters. So you can be open with that about what you’re working on. That, coupled with a locked-in lower price, and you should have some leeway to get your membership in tip-top shape.

So, going back to our original question: Are podcast memberships worth doing? I think the answer is yes, if:

The pricing is inversely proportional to your audience size (smaller audience = higher price).
You do some up-front research on what to offer.
You’re willing to experiment.
You understand that we’re playing the long game here.

I’m excited to experiment with my membership in multiple ways in 2024. And if you’re wondering…yes. My members will get a front-row seat to those experiments.