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Podcast Sponsorship

Your show is worth more than its download number.

We build the rate card off your real audience, take it to market, and close sponsors who renew — instead of selling one 30-second read at whatever the buyer offers.

Book a callFrom 20% of what we sell — you pay nothing up front
$20,000single four-episode sponsorship package closed

Shows undersell themselves because they lead with the wrong number

Downloads are the number every host quotes and the number every buyer discounts. Meanwhile the audience has moved: on a show we run, audio downloads are down roughly 40% from their 2024 peak while video views on the same episodes crossed 30 million in a month. Sponsors aren't buying an RSS ping — they're buying attention, and attention is now spread across the feed, YouTube, and short-form. Price the whole audience and the number changes completely.

What’s included

Every engagement ships with this.

  • A real audience data pack: demographics, geography, platform split, completion rates
  • Rate card and media kit built from that data, not from a template
  • A package ladder — integration, integration plus social, product placement, full partnership
  • Outbound prospecting into value-aligned brands, plus inbound handling
  • Negotiation, terms and contracting
  • Host-read scripts written in your voice, and ad production
  • Social video ad units cut from the episode — the part most networks don't sell
  • Tracked links and promo codes so sponsors can see their return
  • Programmatic fill through Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network as a revenue floor
  • Renewal management — the whole point is the second contract, not the first

How it works

The actual process, not a diagram.

  1. 01

    Audit the audience

    We pull real numbers across every platform your show reaches — not just the host's dashboard. Most shows discover their sellable audience is several times the download figure they've been quoting.

  2. 02

    Build the rate card

    Packages priced off that data, laid out as a ladder so a brand can start small and scale. Plus the media kit that makes the case.

  3. 03

    Take it to market

    Targeted outbound into brands whose customers are already your listeners, and proper handling of the inbound that a growing show starts to attract.

  4. 04

    Produce and place

    Scripts in your voice, ad production, placement in the feed, and the social video units that extend the buy beyond the episode.

  5. 05

    Prove it and renew

    Tracked links and codes from day one, reporting the sponsor can act on, and a renewal conversation that starts from evidence. A sponsor who can see their return is a sponsor who re-signs.

Proof

What this has produced.

Fruits of Motherhood · Parenting / creator

14× audience growth in 3 months

Created, branded and launched the show, then grew it with clips and full videocasts and monetized it with aligned brand partners.

audience growth in three months
14×
audience growth in three months
monthly advertising revenue
$10k+
monthly advertising revenue
in partner sales in a single week
$18k
in partner sales in a single week
deal secured off the back of the show
Book
deal secured off the back of the show

Worthy · Moms Moving On · Consumer marketplace

17 months of consistent performance

Sourced the partnership, wrote the host-read scripts, and ran the campaign across audio, Instagram and Facebook with tracked vanity URLs.

of continuous campaign performance
17 mo
of continuous campaign performance
growth in show listenership year over year
15%
growth in show listenership year over year
growth in the host's Instagram following
2×
growth in the host's Instagram following

Jordan Belfort · Sales School & The Wolf's Den · Business / media

A million-dollar podcast in year one

Built a five-day-a-week short-form show from new and archived material, and secured advertisers before launch.

to New & Noteworthy after launch
2 days
to New & Noteworthy after launch
advertisers secured
Pre-launch
advertisers secured
to seven figures
Year 1
to seven figures

Ritual · Harvesting Happiness · Consumer wellness

A national brand, placed on a show we represent

Sold Harvesting Happiness inventory to Ritual through its media agency — premium host-read spots in a flight alongside some of the biggest shows in podcasting.

gross per host-read spot placed
$4,200
gross per host-read spot placed
closed through the brand's own media agency
Ad Results
closed through the brand's own media agency
placed alongside This Past Weekend with Theo Von
Major flight
placed alongside This Past Weekend with Theo Von

Pricing

Real numbers, not “contact us”.

Starting points based on what this work actually costs to do well. Scope moves the number; we’ll tell you which way on the call.

Most common

Managed ad sales

20%

of sponsorship revenue sourced — no setup fee

  • We source and close the brands
  • Episodic, monthly, season and presenting packages
  • Scripts, ad production and placement
  • We're paid when you are

Rate card & media kit

$2,500

one-time

  • Full cross-platform audience data pack
  • Positioning and package ladder design
  • Rate card and media kit
  • Yours to sell with, whoever sells it

Full monetization

$950

per month + revenue share

  • Everything in Managed ad sales
  • Programmatic fill via Megaphone and Spotify Audience Network
  • Sponsor reporting and renewal management
  • Ongoing inventory and pricing strategy

Rate card work credits against the first months of managed sales. Sponsorship rates on shows we currently represent run $3,000–$8,000 per episode with a four-episode minimum, and 20% off an eight-week commitment.

Questions

The things people ask before signing.

How many downloads do I need before I can sell ads?
Fewer than you think, and downloads are the wrong gate anyway. A show doing a few thousand downloads with an engaged, specific audience and real short-form reach is more sellable than a bigger, vaguer one. What matters is whether we can describe your listener precisely enough that a brand recognizes their customer.
What's my show actually worth?
It depends on the audience, not the format. The shows we represent sell packages from $3,000 to $8,000 per episode, with a four-episode minimum — but that pricing comes out of the audit, not off a shelf. The audit is the first thing we do.
What does a sponsorship package include?
The ladder starts at a host-read pre-roll plus a show-notes link. It goes up through a mid-roll and weekly social story with a tracked code, then on-set product placement and a short-form clip, and at the top a full partnership with a collab post, newsletter feature, landing page and sales attribution. Brands buy up the ladder once the first tier works.
We've never had a sponsor. Is that a problem?
No — it's the normal starting point, and it's why the data pack comes first. What we won't do is dress up a view count as performance data you don't have. We say what's measured, we instrument what isn't, and the first campaign becomes the proof for the next one.
Can you prove a sponsorship worked?
With tracked links and unique codes from day one, yes. The honest caveat: most of the podcast industry still doesn't do this, and a show arriving with no tracking history has no back-catalogue of results to show. Instrumenting it is the first thing we set up, because renewals are where the money is and renewals need evidence.
Who owns the sponsor relationship?
You do. We source, negotiate and manage, but the brands are your partners and the contracts are yours. That matters when a sponsor wants to expand into something we don't run.
What about product placement?
It's the most under-sold inventory in podcasting and, on video-first shows, the most valuable — a logo on the wall behind you is in every shot of every episode, forever. We sell these as year-long, category-exclusive deals rather than per-episode reads.

Works well with

Most shows need two of these, not one.

Podcast Growth

Turn a show that exists into a show that compounds.

Read more →

Podcast Clips

Short-form video that brings your show to where the audience is.

Read more →

Podcast Advertising

For brands: buy podcast ads you can actually attribute.

Read more →

Ready to talk about podcast sponsorship?

A 20-minute call. We'll tell you what we'd do, what it costs, and whether it's the right first move for where your show actually is.

Book a call