Module 8: Numbers and Pricing
Producing pays well when the math is done before the work starts. This module covers the two ways producers charge — per episode and on retainer — the scope lines that keep a good rate from quietly collapsing, and how to raise prices once your calendar fills.
Per-episode vs retainer math
Start from the ladder you met in Module 1. Audio editing — cleanup, leveling, music, a polished file mastered to −16 LUFS — runs $30–150 an episode. Full post, which adds show notes, chapter markers, and the hosting upload, runs $80–300. Producer work — planning, guest briefing, recording oversight, post, notes, clips, distribution — runs $200–800 an episode. The same skills, priced four ways, depending on how much of the show's weight you carry.
Per-episode pricing is clean: a defined deliverable at a defined price. Its weakness is lumpy income — a client who skips a month pays you nothing. Retainers flip that. A podcast manager running a show end to end charges $1,500–5,000+ a month, and even editing-only retainers commonly land at $600–1,800 a month. Freelance bundles for a weekly show typically total $600–1,500 a month. Upwork shows the same shape: monthly retainers at $800–2,500, full edits at $200–500 a project.
The number that decides whether either model works is your effective hourly rate, and it comes from the time math in Module 5: a full-post episode takes roughly 2–4 hours of work per finished hour of audio. A $250 episode that takes you three hours pays $83 an hour. The same episode at six hours pays $42 — and nobody lowered your price; your process did. Run the calculator with your real numbers before you quote anyone. If the effective rate embarrasses you, the fix is a higher price, a tighter scope, or a faster process — never hope.
Producer income builder
Price the month before you live it. Everything updates live.
Monthly revenue: 0
Effective hourly rate: 0
Annual run-rate: 0
You full-post a weekly show at $250 an episode, and each episode takes you five hours once notes, upload, and revision emails are counted. A month in, the money feels thin. What does the math say?
Scope lines that protect you
Every rate in this course assumes a scope, and the scope only exists if it's written down. The industry-standard line is one revision round: the client listens, sends one consolidated set of changes, you make them, the episode ships. Extra rounds are priced extras, and so are rush turnarounds. That's not nickel-and-diming — it's how the $200–800 producer band stays profitable instead of becoming unlimited edits at a fixed price.
Define your tiers by their contents, out loud, in the agreement. Edit-only means cleanup, leveling, music, and a mastered file — not notes, not upload, not clips. Full post means the edit plus show notes, chapter markers, and hosting upload. Producer means planning, guest briefs, recording oversight, post, clips, and distribution. When a full-post client asks you to "also just grab a few clips and maybe look at next month's guests," they've asked for the producer tier. Name it, price it, upgrade them — warmly, with the number attached. Most clients aren't trying to steal the work; they simply don't know where one tier ends and the next begins. The written scope is how they find out, without a fight and without you silently absorbing producer work at an editor's price.
Two more lines earn their keep. Late assets move dates: if raw audio lands two days late, the publish date moves two days, unless the client buys the rush fee. Your calendar is the product; a client who can break it for free will. And approval has a default: if review feedback doesn't arrive within the agreed window, the episode publishes as delivered or waits — pick one, write it down, and the release schedule survives other people's inboxes.
A full-post client has used their one revision round. Now they want a third round — reordering two segments and swapping the intro music — before tomorrow's release. What's the professional response?
Raising rates on a full calendar
A full calendar is the market talking to you: at your current price, demand exceeds your hours. The correct response is to raise the price, and the order matters. New clients get the new rate first — no announcement, no apology, the packages in Module 9 simply carry the higher number. Existing clients get notice and a short runway: "From June, full post goes to $300 an episode; your May episodes stay at $250." Clients who value the release record you've built rarely blink at a 15–25% step.
The second lever is moving up the ladder instead of across it. An editor at $30–150 an episode raises income fastest by becoming the producer at $200–800 — adding planning, briefs, and clips to work they're already touching. A producer with a full slate becomes a manager at $1,500–5,000+ a month by owning the whole operation: calendar, booking, pipeline, analytics. And above that sit the rooms where budgets change character entirely — branded and corporate production at $3,000–20,000+ a month, narrative work at $500–5,000 an episode.
Finally, prune the floor. Marketplace beginner edits at $20–80 an episode are where you start, not where you stay. Every cheap episode on your calendar blocks a full-rate one and trains your week around the wrong work. Finish the engagement cleanly, hand over files and notes like a professional, and let the slot go to a client paying the current rate. Raising rates isn't a speech — it's a calendar that gradually fills with better-priced work.
Your calendar is full: two producer clients at $400 an episode and one legacy edit-only client at $60 an episode who books you solid every week. A new prospect offers producer work at your current $400 rate. What's the right sequence?
What you can now do
- Run the per-episode versus retainer math for your tier and show a client exactly what each price buys.
- Protect your rate with written scope lines: one revision round included, extra rounds and rush turnarounds priced as extras.
- Raise prices the right way when your calendar fills — new clients at the new rate first, existing clients with notice and a short runway.