Ranveer Allahbadia’s BeerBiceps podcast reportedly charges upwards of Rs 8-15 lakh for a branded episode, with top-tier guest slots and integrations pushing higher. Rates depend on whether it’s a full dedicated episode, a guest appearance, or just social cuts. Smaller creators in the same space charge anywhere from Rs 10,000 to a few lakh per episode, based on downloads and niche. Sponsorship pricing across Indian podcasting still varies wildly since there’s no fixed industry rate card.
The short version: most podcasters in India earn nothing for the first year, a mid-sized show with 20,000 to 50,000 monthly listeners can pull in ten to seventy five thousand rupees a month through sponsors, and the tiny handful at the top, the Ranveer Allahbadia and Raj Shamani tier, are running full media businesses worth crores, not just collecting ad cheques. If you are podcasting for Spotify streaming royalties alone, you will earn almost nothing and I want to tell you why before you waste eighteen months finding that out yourself.
More on this here: How Much Do Podcasters Earn Per Episode? Real Numbers, Not Guesses.
The earnings ladder, stage by stage
I get asked this a lot, usually by people who have just recorded episode one and are already imagining the sponsorship deals. Here is what the actual ladder looks like, based on rates I have seen quoted by Indian creators and marketers, and on public reporting about the bigger names.
- 0 to 1,000 listeners per episode: Rs 0. You are not monetisable yet, and any brand who says they want to “collaborate” at this stage is offering you a free product, not payment.
- 1,000 to 10,000 listeners: Rs 0 to Rs 5,000 a month, usually from one small local business or a barter deal (free courses, free software, sometimes a hotel stay for a travel podcast).
- 10,000 to 50,000 listeners: Rs 10,000 to Rs 75,000 a month, once you have one or two recurring sponsors paying for a mid-roll ad read plus a social post.
- 50,000 to 200,000 listeners: Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh a month, at which point brands start approaching you instead of the other way round, and you can charge for a dedicated episode rather than a single ad slot.
- 200,000-plus, the top 1 percent: Rs 10 lakh to over Rs 1 crore a month, but by this point almost none of that is coming from podcast ads alone. It is coming from a business built around the show.
That last line matters more than any number above it, so I will come back to it.
What Indian podcast ad rates look like
In the US, a podcast with a good download number can command a CPM (cost per thousand listens) of $18 to $50 for a mid-roll ad. In India, brands are typically paying somewhere between Rs 150 and Rs 400 per thousand listens, which is roughly $2 to $5. That is not a typo. It is a gap of ten times or more, and it is the single biggest reason podcast income in India does not compare to what you read in American creator economy reports.
Why the gap? Indian advertisers still budget most of their spend against Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, where the reach numbers look bigger even when the actual attention is shallower. Podcast listening in India is growing fast, IAB India and other industry bodies have tracked steady year on year growth in monthly listeners, but the ad money has not caught up to the listening hours yet. You are early to a market that has not fully priced you.
The platforms that pay, and how much
Spotify for Podcasters (the old Anchor) lets you run ads through its Audience Network, but payouts for Indian shows are small unless your download numbers are large, and many creators tell me the cheques barely cover their hosting fees. Two Indian-specific platforms pay more directly for exclusive content:
- Kuku FM commissions original audio series and pays creators anywhere from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 per finished episode depending on the host’s following and the show’s genre, mostly self-help, business and personal finance content.
- Pocket FM works similarly but leans heavily into fiction and drama serials, paying per episode or on a revenue share tied to listener minutes.
- Amazon Music and JioSaavn both distribute podcasts but function mainly as reach, not revenue, unless you have a distribution deal negotiated separately.
Notice that none of these are Spotify streaming royalties. That is deliberate. Spotify does not pay per-stream royalties to podcasters the way it does to musicians, and this is the part a lot of “how to make money podcasting” articles gloss over. You are not getting a cheque for downloads. You are getting paid for ads, sponsorships, or exclusive content deals, full stop.
A real example: the client from Pune
A few years back a reader named Rohan emailed me after he had been podcasting for fourteen months, twice a week, on personal finance for young professionals. He had a good show, decent editing, guests who answered questions instead of pitching their own products. His download numbers were around 8,000 an episode. He had earned, in total, about Rs 22,000 across the entire fourteen months, mostly from one fintech app that paid him to mention their referral code.
What changed his numbers was not the podcast getting bigger, it grew slowly after that too. What changed it was that he started uploading full video versions to YouTube, cutting three short clips per episode for Instagram and LinkedIn, and using the show as a lead magnet for a paid financial planning cohort he ran on the side. Within eight months the podcast itself was still bringing in maybe Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 a month from sponsors, but the cohort, which the podcast fed directly, was doing Rs 3 to 4 lakh a month. The audio show was never the business. It was the front door.
The uncomfortable bit most of the earnings guides skip
Here is what nobody selling you a podcasting course wants to say plainly: if you are podcasting for the ad revenue itself, in India, you are choosing one of the worst-paying content formats available to you. A YouTube video essay creator with 30,000 subscribers can out-earn an audio podcaster with three times the listenership, purely because YouTube’s ad system and brand deal market are more mature and the CPMs are better. Blogging and newsletters, done well, often out-earn podcasts too, because a written piece is searchable and shareable in a way a forty minute audio file rarely is.
Podcasting works brilliantly as a trust-building tool and a terribly slow direct income source. The people making real money from podcasts in India, the Ranveer Allahbadia (BeerBiceps) tier for instance, whose company Monk Entertainment has been publicly reported to be turning over well over Rs 100 crore, are not living off ad reads. They are running production companies, launching products, taking equity in the startups they interview, and selling courses to the audience the show built. The podcast is the marketing channel, not the P&L.
Getting your first sponsor: a step-by-step
If you are past episode ten and want your first real sponsor rather than a free product exchange, this is the sequence that works for Indian shows:
- Step 1: Get to at least 3,000 to 5,000 downloads per episode, or 5,000-plus YouTube subscribers if your show is video-first, before approaching anyone. Below that, most media buyers will not reply.
- Step 2: Build a one-page media kit with your average downloads, listener demographics (age, city tier, gender split if you have it from Spotify’s or Apple’s analytics), and two or three sample ad reads.
- Step 3: Pitch category-relevant Indian brands directly rather than waiting for an agency. Fintech apps, edtech platforms, D2C skincare and supplement brands, and productivity software companies are the most active podcast advertisers in India right now.
- Step 4: Quote a flat fee per episode rather than a CPM to start with, small brands understand “Rs 8,000 for a 60-second mid-roll” far better than a CPM calculation.
- Step 5: Once you have two repeat sponsors, raise your rate by 20 to 30 percent for the third one. This is where most Indian podcasters underprice themselves for years out of nervousness.
Building income around the podcast, not just from it
While your show is growing, and it will take longer than you want it to, it is worth building parallel income from the same audio skills you are already using. Editing, transcribing and repurposing your own episodes teaches you a skill set that pays immediately, even before your podcast does. Plenty of people I talk to start by learning to find remote transcription jobs for other creators’ shows, which pays per audio minute and can bring in Rs 15,000 to Rs 40,000 a month once you are fast at it. If you work in Hindi or another Indian language, there is a real and growing market to get Hindi transcription work through talk platforms, since English-only transcribers are far more common than bilingual ones and the rate per file is often higher for that reason.
Others use the production and admin skills from running a podcast, scheduling guests, managing a content calendar, editing show notes, to move into virtual assistant work from home for other podcasters and small business owners, which is a steadier income while your own show finds its feet. None of this is glamorous. All of it pays faster than waiting for your podcast’s CPMs to improve.
What determines whether you end up in the top 1 percent
Consistency matters more than talent here, I have watched mediocre interviewers build seven-figure audiences purely by publishing every single week for three years without fail, while brilliant, funny hosts quit after episode 40 because the numbers were not moving fast enough. The show that wins is rarely the best produced one. It is the one still publishing in month 36.
The other separator is whether you treat the podcast as a distribution channel for something else, a course, a consultancy, a product, a newsletter, rather than as the entire business. Cyrus Broacha’s “Cyrus Says” has stayed relevant for years because it sits inside a wider media career, not because the podcast alone is the income source. Build the same way. Decide early what the podcast is meant to sell you into, and design every episode with that in mind.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a beginner podcaster earn in India?
Most beginner podcasters in India earn nothing for the first six to twelve months, and once they do start earning, it is usually Rs 0 to Rs 5,000 a month from a single small sponsor or a barter deal rather than cash.
Can you make a full-time living from podcasting alone in India?
Very few can from ads alone, since CPMs in India run at roughly a tenth of US rates, but podcasters who add courses, consulting, affiliate deals or a production business around the show routinely earn Rs 3 to 10 lakh a month once the audience passes 50,000 regular listeners.
What is a realistic CPM for a podcast ad in India?
Indian brands typically pay between Rs 150 and Rs 400 per thousand listens for a mid-roll ad, compared with $18 to $50 (roughly Rs 1,500 to Rs 4,200) in the US market.
Do Spotify or YouTube pay Indian podcasters directly for streams?
Spotify does not pay per-stream podcast royalties the way it pays musicians, it only pays out through its ad network, which is small in India unless downloads are large. YouTube pays ad revenue on video podcast uploads, which is often a more reliable income stream than audio-only distribution for Indian creators.
