Podscribe Pricing and Podcast Attribution Cost

Podscribe pricing is a $250 monthly platform fee plus a usage fee on every impression it measures. Podcast impressions (including YouTube simulcasts) start at $1.50 per thousand for the first 2 million a month and step down to $1.35, $1.20 and $1.05 at higher tiers; streaming, CTV and display impressions start at $0.50 per thousand. There is no minimum commitment and no long-term contract. Optional add-ons cost $1,500 a month each. At a typical $25 podcast CPM, that works out to roughly 6% to 9% of your media spend.

Those figures come straight from Podscribe's own pricing page, which is more than most attribution vendors publish. What the page does not do is translate the CPM into the number a media buyer actually budgets with: what measurement costs as a share of the podcast spend it measures. That ratio swings a lot with your budget, and it is the thing to know before you book a demo.

How much is Podscribe?

Podscribe costs $250 a month for the platform, plus a progressive CPM on measured impressions, plus any add-ons you switch on. The tiers are progressive, not retroactive: the lower rate only applies to impressions above each threshold, the way income tax brackets work. Podscribe's own example is a month of 7 million podcast impressions, which bills $3,000 for the first 2 million, $4,050 for the next 3 million and $2,400 for the next 2 million, a $9,450 subtotal plus the $250 platform fee.

Invoices cover the previous month's usage and go out in the first two weeks of the new month. Card is the default payment method, and Podscribe says all card transactions carry a 3.5% fee, so ask for invoice or ACH billing if you can.

What does Podscribe cost as a share of your podcast budget?

Because Podscribe bills per thousand impressions and podcasts are also sold per thousand downloads, the ratio is easy to work out. At a $25 podcast CPM, a $1.50 measurement CPM is 6% of media. The $250 platform fee then adds a fixed amount on top, which is why the share falls as the budget grows. The table below uses $25 as the media CPM, the middle of the $15 to $40 range US podcasts typically charge, and podcast impressions only.

Two things move these numbers. The first is your media CPM: on a $15 CPM show, $1.50 of measurement is 10% of the media cost, while on a $40 CPM show it is under 4%. So measurement is proportionally most expensive on exactly the cheap, niche shows smaller brands tend to test first. The second is add-ons. One $1,500 add-on on a $10,000 month takes the total from $850 to $2,350, which is 23.5% of media. Below about $50,000 a month in podcast spend, treat the add-ons as a luxury.

Does Podscribe have a minimum spend or contract?

No. Podscribe states there is no minimum commitment and no long-term contract; you pay for the impressions measured each month plus the $250 platform fee. The practical floor is that fee. On a small test where you measure only a few hundred thousand impressions, the fixed $250 is most of the bill, so the per-impression price on the pricing page understates what a small campaign really pays per thousand.

Does Podscribe offer a free trial?

Not a standard one. Podscribe says it does not offer a free trial and instead runs demos and talks through pilot options before you start. Its FAQ also says all sales are final, with billing errors handled through its billing team. Plan the first month as a paid pilot and pick a flight of shows big enough to produce a readable result.

Is Podscribe worth it for a podcast advertiser?

It is worth it when the money it helps you stop wasting is larger than its fee. The simplest test is one bad show. On a $10,000 month split across four $2,500 shows, Podscribe costs about $850. If the data tells you one of the four is not converting and you move that $2,500 to a show that does, measurement has paid for itself three times over in a single month. If your spend is so concentrated that you would renew every show anyway, attribution data has little to change and the fee is overhead.

Where it earns its keep is the decision podcast buyers get wrong most often: renewing a show on the strength of promo-code redemptions alone. Codes undercount, because many listeners hear the ad and then search for the brand, and a pixel-based tool picks up visits and conversions the code never sees. Podscribe says setup is pixel-based and ingests data from standard ad servers such as Art19, Megaphone and AdsWizz, or from campaign spreadsheets.

On the add-ons, be strict. The Research tool (show demographics, competitor spend and ad load) is useful at the planning stage, but at $1,500 a month it only makes sense for a team placing a lot of new shows. If the $1,500 Google Sheet Sync is only there to move numbers into your reporting, a data integration platform that connects your apps and databases may already be in your stack and do the same job for every other channel too.

What should you budget for podcast ads plus measurement?

Budget the media first, then add 6% to 10% for measurement at small and mid budgets, falling toward 5% above $100,000 a month. A brand testing four shows at $2,500 each would budget about $10,000 of media and $850 of Podscribe, before any agency or network layer. That last layer is often the larger number: networks and agencies typically add 15% to 20% or more on top of the media, as covered in our breakdown of podcast advertising agency fees.

That is why the cheapest place to save is usually the booking, not the measurement. On Sponsorships, podcasters publish their audience and a price per placement, and brands book and pay the show directly at 0% commission on a flat Brand plan of $49.50 a month billed yearly. Keeping the network markup in the media budget easily covers the cost of measuring the result. Our podcast advertising page shows how to shortlist shows by niche and price, and the podcast advertising rates guide explains how hosts set CPMs and flat fees so you can sanity-check a quote before you buy.

How does Podscribe compare with tracking podcast ads yourself?

The no-tool method costs nothing but undercounts: a unique promo code and vanity URL per show, plus a post-purchase "how did you hear about us" question. It is fine for a first test of two or three shows. It tells you which show produced coded orders, not how many listeners converted without the code, so it tends to make good shows look worse than they are. Once you run more than a handful of shows at once, or spend enough that a wrong renewal costs more than the $250 fee and usage, pixel-based attribution is the more honest data.

Prices are from podscribe.com/pricing. Podcast media CPMs are typical US ranges, not quotes, and each show sets its own rate.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Podscribe cost per month?

Podscribe costs $250 a month plus usage. Podcast impressions bill at $1.50 per thousand for the first 2 million, then $1.35, $1.20 and $1.05 at higher tiers. A brand measuring 1 million podcast impressions pays about $1,750 for the month, before any $1,500 add-ons.

Is Podscribe pricing per impression?

Yes. Podscribe bills per thousand measured impressions on a progressive scale, so higher tiers only apply to impressions above each threshold. Podcast and simulcast YouTube impressions share one scale, and streaming, CTV and display impressions start at $0.50 per thousand on a separate scale.

Does Podscribe charge a credit card fee?

Yes. Podscribe's FAQ says all credit card transactions carry a 3.5% fee. Card is the default, so on a $5,950 month that adds about $208. Podscribe can also issue invoices per advertiser with a per-campaign, per-day usage breakdown.

Can I cancel Podscribe anytime?

There is no long-term contract or minimum commitment, so you can stop measuring at any time and you only pay for the impressions measured. Podscribe says your data stays in its US data centers for up to five years unless you request deletion.