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> Regardless, if they're doing multiple episodes per week, each receiving 50k downloads at minimum, and each with multiple sponsors, I'd guess they're making a much more comfortable living than their Patreon numbers suggest.

So, what do you think? Their Patreon subscribers are only ~$60,000. Are we talking $500k total with ad sponsorships? $1M? More than that?

Do the sponsors pay you cash, or free product?

Did you actively reach out to them, or did they contact you when you got big enough?

Cash, and I reached out at first.

How did you reach out to them? Like, did you reach out to their marketing department? Hoew did you get their contact info?

Yep, marketing departments. No one trick to finding the right person: research, asking around, very polite cold emails, etc. I also made it clear in my newsletter and on my website website that I was looking for advertisers.

I've written about various parts of the process in a few of my month-in-review posts here: https://www.indiehackers.com/blog

Thanks. I'm confused why you don't take sponsorships/payments now.. you mentioned Stripe - what does that have to do with it?

Any chance of this going up on Spotify? Apple doesn’t seem to want me to get via iTunes Store, infinite loop of asking for TouchID

It happened to me too, restarting the phone helped.

Thanks, no such luck here unfortunately, direct podcast link worked however, for anyone in the same boat: https://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/indie-hackers-podcast-ho...

I've heard that the process for getting a podcast onto Spotify is terrible and difficult - i.e. literally email an individual at the company and then they might send you a SurveyMonkey form if you ask enough times.

> in March and made about $1000 from sponsors. That's one sponsor per episode at ~$200 each.

I've heard that sponsors pay more for podcasts than they do for youtube videos. Any idea why?

My guess - captive audience. People listening to podcasts are likely to be driving or exercising, which means they're not able to do anything BUT listen and are far less likely to even be able to pull out their phone and start skipping forwards.

Plus, hosts usually read the ad copy, which psychologically connects people to the sponsors in a way that has only really been done in very early TV and radio.

By way of example, the Crooked Media podcasts (Pod Save America, etc.) include ads in which the hosts also discuss their private lives, personal disagreements, and pop culture, which creates this weird kind of serialized drama/discussion that carries through either within an episode and between ads, OR in ads for the same product but across multiple episodes. All of that makes listeners more likely to listen to ads instead of skipping them.

Plus, alot of the time, the ad reads are done live while recording (Rooster Teeth does this), so when they're done reading the copy, the hosts sometimes continue to talk about the product or topic.

What's ad revenue like now for IH?

$0, I stopped taking on advertisers after joining Stripe