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My First MillionHow Much We Make From A Podcast With 3 Million Downloads/Month (#368)
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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Behind the scenes: MFM’s downloads, costs, monetization, and growth logic
- Sam Parr shares My First Million’s trailing-30-day audience numbers across podcast platforms and YouTube, emphasizing how Shorts can swing totals and how he views “downloads” as cross-platform reach.
- Ben Wilson compares his show’s smaller but growing download profile, explaining that fixing production and increasing episode volume is his main growth focus.
- They break down podcast monetization and ownership dynamics, including Ben’s ~$1,000 ad placements and Sam’s claim that MFM earns zero direct revenue because HubSpot is the exclusive advertiser post-acquisition.
- They discuss the operational reality of running MFM, citing roughly ~$25K/month production costs and additional growth spend that can bring total monthly investment much higher.
- They argue that podcast growth depends on differentiation and niche strategy, noting that unique guests/topics can outperform famous ones and that niche communities may rally strongly around underrepresented subjects.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasMFM measures “downloads” as a blended footprint across audio platforms plus YouTube, with Shorts materially affecting month-to-month totals.
Sam Parr says My First Million’s trailing-30-day totals include ~1.255M podcast-platform downloads plus ~2.7M YouTube views, with Shorts creating volatility (a prior 30-day window was ~3.6M YouTube views due to viral Shorts). He also cites additional reach from his personal TikTok and Instagram views in the trailing 30 days.
Ben’s show is smaller but has meaningful per-episode performance, and he sees volume/consistency as the main growth lever.
Ben Wilson says How To Take Over The World is at ~80,000 monthly downloads, with mature episodes commonly around ~40,000 downloads and his biggest episode near ~54,000. He attributes his current growth plan primarily to increasing output by fixing a broken production process.
Monetization can vary dramatically by ownership and ad setup—even a large show may show zero direct revenue if it’s bundled into a parent company’s strategy.
Ben says he charges about $1,000 per ad placement and that his show moved from losing money to breaking even and now being profitable. Sam says MFM currently earns zero direct revenue because HubSpot is the only advertiser after acquiring The Hustle (which previously owned the pod via a revenue split with Shaan).
Scaling a podcast operation can resemble running a small media business, with meaningful ongoing production and growth budgets.
A speaker describes MFM’s production team costs at about $25K/month for production (producer, editors, short-form clip team, YouTube producer), with additional growth spending (like buying ads) bringing total monthly spend anywhere from ~$25K to ~$50K or even $50K–$100K depending on aggressiveness. Sam summarizes this as roughly ~$500K/year excluding him and Shaan.
The show’s defining format emerged from an accident, and growth was nonlinear—big launch, drop, then long gradual climb.
Sam describes MFM’s early trajectory: an initial launch bump from The Hustle audience followed by decline, then slow multi-year growth, plus a format shift when a guest no-show led to Sam and Shaan doing their “brainstorming” style together. Sam also says he doesn’t know exactly why downloads rose significantly after the acquisition period (he cites ~600K/month at acquisition, then “up from there a lot”).
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThe problem with podcasts is the same problem that I have with copywriting and hiring writers, which is everyone can talk, and everyone... A lot of people like talking with their friends. Therefore, the noise-to-signal ratio of people who want to do it versus who are good at doing it is, like, really, really hard to determine who's, like, great.
— Sam Parr
Your launch is, like, epic. Then you go down. And then you just, over a period of a couple years, wor- slowly work your way up.
— Sam Parr
The best thing about podcasting is that you can build, uh, a really valuable following with very few followers.
— Ben Wilson
You know the best way to circumvent someone's bullshit detector? Is just not bullshitting.
— Sam Parr
If you already have that monetization engine and you build a podcast, I think it's lights out, man. I think you can crush it.
— Sam Parr
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SPEAKERS
Sam Parr
hostEntrepreneur and co-host of the My First Million podcast.
Ben Wilson
hostProducer on My First Million and creator/host of the podcast How To Take Over The World.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
