Welcome to the podcast launch strategy podcast, where we take a deep dive into the latest podcast, launch strategies and tactics to help you launch a successful show and grow your podcast. Hi, I'm temple dang. I'm an online marketing expert podcast. And the host of the mesmerizing marketing podcast. I love helping others share their message globally to build a profitable personal brand. That is mesmerizing. All right, let's get this podcast started. Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to podcasts launch strategy. And on this episode, we're going to talk about how much it costs to start a podcast. This is a question that I get a lot from future podcasters. They want to know what is involved in terms of. The cost. So we're going to talk about that today. So if you're thinking of launching a show, you're going to need a couple of things.
One of the things that you may want to get is a specific domain that is named after your show, and then you also would want to get that same domain with the word podcast. So for example, my main podcast, which is called mesmerizing marketing, I have the domain mesmerizing marketing.com, but I also have a domain mesmerizing marketing podcast.com. And if you go to mesmerizing marketing podcast.com, you will see that it takes you to.
My website for the podcast where all of my episodes are there that you can listen to. So why do I recommend getting both domains? Because if people are looking for your show, they may type in the name of your show with the word podcast, and you want to make sure that. They can find it and goes to where they need to go to find your show. But also you don't want anyone else to take that domain. So even if you don't plan on using it.
What you can do is you can redirect it to your main website or your main domain, wherever you're going to, show the feed of all of your episodes. So keep that in mind and for getting your domains you can go to blue host. They also offer amazing hosting plans where they include an SSL certificate. Whereas some other vendors do not do that. So that's why I prefer Bluehost because when you need to get an SSL certificate, it can end up being pretty expensive.
So I liked that they included into their hosting plans. So I will link my affiliate link for you guys in the show notes. So you can check that out. So what else do you need? Do you need to get your domain? And then you also need to get a podcast cover made right. For the cover photo, but that's something that either you can do yourself are you can go on a website called Fiverr F I V E R r.com. I'm going to link that for you in the show notes as well.
And you might be able to save a little bit of a discount. With the canva.com you can go to Canva and you can type in podcast cover, and it's going to give you different templates that are already out there for podcasts covers, and then you can go in and you can modify those. Now the one thing I have to say about Canva is. It is amazing. It is like having a graphic design artist, like all in one place without having to pay someone.
But I also have to say that there is a difference between their free plan and the paid plans. I have the pro version and I really love it because it allows me to take photos in, remove the background from those photos. So for example, if I had a photo that was taken when the background. I can remove the background and I can add my own background.
So maybe you want to add something that's a solid color, so that, that podcasts government will really pop. I can create that in there and they do have a bunch of free tutorials as well that you can watch. So, for that, if you want the pro plan, it's like anywhere from 10 to $12 a month. And then they also offer, I think, a 30 day free trial. So you can use my link in the show notes to get a free trial.
So the other thing is if you don't want to do it yourself you can go to fiber and you can pay someone, 10 to $30 and they can do a beautiful cover for you for your podcast. And obviously there are. Some vendors that, main charge even more. It just depends on what you're looking for. And with that, I would say can go and you can look at what type of work that they've done and see which artists, resonates with you in terms of their artistic style and their portfolio.
the other thing that you're going to need to invest in, if you want to start your own podcast is you're going to need a microphone and you're going to need to have a platform to record your audio and video. And you're also going to need. A platform to host all of your podcast episodes and your show. So I'm going to really simplify it for you guys one by one. So in terms of microphones, I mean, microphones start at $50. They can go all the way to four or $500.
It just depends on what you want, but if you're starting out and this is your first show, my first microphone was the Yeti nano. And if you are in an environment where it's fairly quiet, you don't have like a super loud air conditioner or a background noise. That microphone will work just fine if you're starting out. If you do have an environment that's noisy, then that may not be the best microphone for you, but you can do your research.
I have some other episodes I'm going to record that are going to go into more detail about microphones, but on this one, we're going to focus on what the costs are. So obviously you're going to need a microphone and you might need headphones, things like that. But you can get all of that between a hundred dollars to $200, or even under a hundred, if you go for the bar budget type of items, and then what you're going to need is. You're going to need a recording studio.
So for my recording studio, I use a platform called riverside.fm. And I absolutely love it for so many reasons. I'll just give you a few of the reasons why I love it is if you are interviewing guests and you're also doing a video company, And you have probably noticed in the past, oh, their internet connection is not that good and it can really mess up your entire footage and you might not be able to use it. So the cool thing about riverside.fm is it records on separate tracks.
So basically you can. Download the video on separate tracks and it's going to look way better than it did when you were recording. And you'll be shocked at the improvement and you will probably be able to use it. It can also record and as high as 4k, depending on. You know what webcam you're using or what type of computer you're on. And then as far as the audio and also records in dot WAV files. And if those review are not familiar dot WAV files are even higher quality than MP3.
And then the cool thing is it has this feature called magic editor. Which removes some of the background noise and it like equalizes the audio. So it's absolutely amazing. And you even have the ability to have sound effects in there and add your own intro and outro and they keep adding more features. So I'm going to link it in the show notes for you. And you can use my link to actually try it out for one hour free trial.
So this way before you commit fully, you know that if you like it, but hopefully you love it as much as I do. Depending on if you get the annual plan or the monthly plan, that's going to be like around 17 to $19 a month and it is worth every penny. And the other thing you're going to need is a platform to host your podcast. So the one that I use an absolutely love and I highly recommend is called captivate.fm and captivate dot F. Is amazing because it's very modern.
And if you are looking for audio players that have a really beautiful aesthetic, it's going to be that one. And it also comes with. Uh, Website and it comes with unlimited podcasts. Let's say that you want to have, a couple of other shows down the road while you don't have to pay extra, their pricing is basically based upon downloads. So you would probably be fine with the basic plan in the beginning.
And then you can upgrade to the higher level plans down the road and that's around $19 a month or so. And it's amazing because it also gives you access to download a page that you can use with your analytics. And your stats that you can share with sponsors down the road. And it does provide really great analytics. And it also provides built-in marketing tools, which I really love.
And the exciting thing is they've just added a pre-roll feature where if you have a sponsor, you can insert your own pre-roll ads I would actually suggest that you use pre-roll to promote your own products and services. You know, if you're new and you're just launching a show so people can know more about who you are and what you do. I would say putting the cost of the, you know, equipment aside that's like a one-time fee.
I think, you can have a show for like around $40 a month to, you know, 60, $70 a month. So the other thing I haven't talked about yet is once you have your episodes, You do need to edit them. You know, especially if you want to produce a high quality show, you want to remove some of the filler words. You want to remove anything where the audio wasn't good. And the platform that I use for that, that I love is called descript.com and they have different plans that started around $20 a month.
It's amazing because you can even remove the filler words all with one button. You can do double over. You can do a lot of different things and the. Feature that it has as if you're recording video, you can upload your video and you can edit that video by deleting the words, and it will save you thousands of dollars from sending your videos out to someone else to edit them. And even if you know, you don't have a huge budget to be paying someone to edit your show notes and do all of that.
You know, And to edit your podcast episodes, the cool thing is went to script.com. You can do the editing yourself, and it's really simple to do. It's not complicated at all. I use it for every single episode and absolutely love it. I'm also going to add a couple other resources to the show notes in case you know, you want platforms that can, basically you can upload, you can get transcriptions and note-taking and other things, I would also include otter.ai. Cause you can check it out.
It's amazing. But if you are on a budget, We'll also talk about that because I don't want you to think it has to be, super expensive. If you're on a budget, there are free platforms out there to host your podcasts. There's anchor, you know, anchor.com and a lot of people do use zoom. Now, do I recommend going that route? I don't.
However, if you're on a budget, You know, don't let it hold you back from launching your show, launch your show, however you can, and you can always upgrade later to, other platforms and so forth. But if you just want to test out the waters, you can do that with anchor and you can use zoom The quality of the video and audio with zoom is just not that good. So that's just something to keep in mind, but like I said, you can upgrade down the road and that's another option.
That's a more budget friendly. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode on how much does it cost to start a podcast? And if you're inspired to launch your show, I would recommend that you go to the show notes and you check out my one day launch your podcast masterclass. I have put together this class to cover everything that you need to know from a to Z to launch your show. And it is live it's five hours long.
And if you happen to be listening to this the week of cyber Monday, I'm going to extend the offer through the weekend. So you can take advantage of the special pricing I have for my one day. Launch your podcast masterclass as well as. All of these extra bonuses that have added in there for you, such as the Instagram for business masterclass, which is like a two hour class, another, class on. Podcasts marketing, marketing your podcast, and a ton of other freebies.
So make sure you go check that out. I'm going to be putting my email in the show notes as well. So if you do have any questions about my masterclass or launching your own show, feel free to send me an email and I will definitely get back to you And I'll see you guys next time on podcasts on strategy. And don't forget to go check out my other show, mesmerizing marketing, and go ahead and subscribe to both of them.
Download a bunch of episodes because this is something that you're going to want to binge on. You're going to learn so much and it's going to make the whole podcasting process way easier. It's going to make a lot of sense and you're going to be able to learn how to take it and also make money with it. All right. See you next time. Thank you for listening to the podcast launch strategy podcast.
If you found this episode valuable, please subscribe to the show and go ahead and download some more episodes and share my podcast with your friends. I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to leave a positive review and also visit my website, www dot podcast, launch strategy, podcast.com.
Did check out all of my episodes to connect with me on social media and learn about my launch, your podcast masterclass, a comprehensive six hour masterclass to help you launch and monetize your first show. Make sure you check out the show notes. If you love marketing strategy, go check out my main podcast, mesmerizing marketing, cause I know you'll love it. Happy podcasting. And I'll see you guys on the next episode.