Make a show people choose to listen to or watch every week. Most shows earn nothing; a few become a living.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$0
Most shows
$0
Top few percent
$75,000
In a 2025 survey of 558 independent podcasters, 85% said their show makes no money. The typical show earns nothing and costs a little. The top figure is a show with about 10,000 downloads an episode and steady sponsors. The Canadian ad market is much smaller than the American one, so many Canadian shows sell to US sponsors or rely on listener support.
27 downloads
in its first 7 days, for the median show on Buzzsprout
412 downloads in the first week puts an episode in the top 10% of shows on that host. 1,007 puts it in the top 5%. Most sponsors will not talk to you below a few thousand.
About US$18 to US$26
per 1,000 downloads, for one host-read ad
That rate is called the CPM (cost per thousand downloads), and ad networks quote it in US dollars. A weekly show with 1,000 downloads and 2 ads earns about US$50 an episode, and the network often keeps 30% to 50%.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a decent microphone that plugs into your computer, headphones, free editing software and a cheap or free host. The high end adds an audio interface, two good microphones, cameras and lights for a video version, and a year of paid tools. Most hosting and editing tools bill in US dollars, so prices move with the exchange rate. No course or diploma is needed. Paying an editor is the cost that grows fastest once you are serious.
Start with audio and the gear you have. A quiet room with soft furnishings beats an expensive microphone in an echoey kitchen.
Sponsors and ads
Host-read ads are the biggest earner for most shows that make money at all.
Listener support
Patreon, Apple Podcasts Subscriptions and Spotify. Small, loyal audiences can pay more than ads.
YouTube ad share
Video episodes can earn from ads once the channel joins the YouTube Partner Program.
Selling your own thing
Coaching, consulting, live shows, books. Many business podcasts pay off through clients, not the show.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No diploma or licence. You learn by publishing, and the hard part is not stopping.
Pick a narrow topic you can talk about for years
A few weeks
A show for one kind of listener grows faster than a show about everything. A Canadian angle can be a real niche.
Record 3 to 5 episodes before you launch
1 to 2 months
You find your format and have a buffer for bad weeks. Many shows die between episode 3 and 10.
Publish on a fixed schedule for a year
1 year
Weekly or every two weeks, in audio and video so you are on YouTube as well as podcast apps.
Grow through guests and other shows
Ongoing
Guest swaps with similar shows and short video clips are how most small shows find listeners.
Sell ads or memberships once you have an audience
Year 2 to 5
Usually after a few thousand downloads an episode for ads, or a few hundred loyal fans for memberships.
English and drama
Writing an outline and speaking clearly without filler is the core skill.
Communications technology
Audio recording, editing and video production.
Music
Microphones, levels and mixing are the same skills.
Business studies
Selling an ad means pitching a company, sending an invoice and tracking results.
Anyone can start a podcast. Once money arrives, the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) treats it as business income, and you pay both halves of CPP (Canada Pension Plan) contributions on your profit. Once your sales pass $30,000 in four quarters in a row you must register for GST (Goods and Services Tax) or HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) and charge it. The Competition Bureau says paid endorsements must be disclosed clearly, so say on air when a segment is sponsored.
Free host guides and YouTube tutorials
Most hosting companies publish good free guides on gear and editing.
Campus radio
Most universities and many colleges have a station. It is the cheapest way to get studio time.
College broadcasting programs
Humber Polytechnic and Fanshawe College in Ontario, and BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology), teach radio and audio production.
Media degrees
Toronto Metropolitan University's RTA (Radio and Television Arts) School of Media, if you want a staff job producing shows.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Video
YouTube is now one of the biggest places people find podcasts. A filmed show reaches people an audio feed never will.
Short clips
Cutting 30 to 60 second moments for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels is how most shows get discovered.
French
A bilingual show, or a second show in French, reaches an audience with far fewer shows competing for it.
Audio editing
Good enough to edit other people's shows, which is paid work while your own grows.
An existing audience
A newsletter, a channel or a following in a field. Most big new shows start with one.
A co-host
Splits the work and keeps you going on weeks you would quit alone.
Access to good guests
Experts in your field, other creators, people with stories.
A quiet room
Rugs, curtains and a closed door matter more than gear.
The steadiest money in podcasting is often behind the microphone. Companies, nonprofits, universities and broadcasters pay producers and editors to make their shows: booking guests, editing, writing show notes and cutting clips. A few regular clients can pay more than most hosts earn from their own shows.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Monday you research and write the outline. Tuesday you record, maybe with a guest over a video call, for an hour. Wednesday and Thursday go to editing, show notes, the thumbnail and cutting four or five short clips. Friday it goes out, and you answer comments and invite next month's guests. If you have sponsors, you also record their ads and send them a download report. Most podcasters do all of this around a full-time job.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Listen Notes counts about 26,000 podcasts from Canada, against about 2.4 million from the United States. Less competition, but a smaller pool of listeners and sponsors too.
Listen Notes counts about 3.8 million podcasts ever made worldwide. Only about 560,000 of them published an episode in 2026.
Listen Notes logged about 1 million new podcasts in 2020, the most of any year. About 167,000 shows went quiet in 2021 alone.
Of the independent podcasters Alitu surveyed in 2025, only 15% made money, and only 8% of those said the show was their main income.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Creators first, then the rest of the field. See all online and self-made careers.
Last checked October 2026. This is self-employment, so there is no government wage data for it. The income figures come from the studies and platform data listed above.