Worked scenario
Buying a podcast mid-roll, end to end
By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated July 2026
The short answer
A 30-second host-read at AdvertiseCast's published $18 average CPM on a show averaging 20,000 downloads per episode invoices at $360. Move to a 60-second read at $25 and the same episode costs $500. The denominator is downloads, not listens.
The invoice math
invoice = CPM × downloads ÷ 1,000
30s host-read: $18.00 × 20,000 ÷ 1,000 = $360
60s host-read: $25.00 × 20,000 ÷ 1,000 = $500
Rates: AdvertiseCast published averages, retrieved July 2026.
Most direct deals price against the show's trailing average downloads per episode at 30 days, not against a hoped-for peak. Ask which window the seller uses; a show quoting its best episode ever is quoting a different product.
What a download actually is
Billing runs on the IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines: a download counts after filtering bots, duplicate requests and partial fetches. It does not prove a human heard your ad; it proves a filtered file request happened. That measurement honesty matters when you compare podcast CPMs against served and viewable impressions elsewhere; the comparability caveat is worked at YouTube vs podcast.
Slot and format spreads
- Position.Mid-rolls typically command the premium; pre-rolls run cheaper, post-rolls cheapest. AdvertiseCast's rate card is the citable anchor for the host-read averages; per-slot spreads vary by show and are quoted at deal time.
- Host-read vs announcer or programmatic inserts. Host-reads carry the trust premium; dynamically inserted announcer spots price lower and behave more like standard audio inventory (see Spotify ads for that lane).
- Niche. B2B and finance shows bill above the average; true-crime reach is cheaper per thousand. Same auction logic as everywhere: scarcity of the audience, not quality of the show.
Buyer's context lives at podcast advertising CPM; the seller's side of this exact deal is at what podcasters earn. Full benchmark table: /rates.