Podcast subscribers who activated their audio benefits churned at an unweighted average of 1.3% a month across six publisher partners, compared with 3% for subscribers who had not, according to an analysis published by podcast subscription platform Supporting Cast.
The six partners are City Cast, Defector, The Dispatch, Slate, The Verge, and Vox. Depending on the partner, subscribers who listened were between 28% and 81% less likely to cancel than those who did not, the company said.
How the Analysis Was Built
Supporting Cast limited the analysis to its API-integrated partners, which run their own payments and memberships and use Supporting Cast only to deliver audio. The company said audio-only subscriptions show the same pattern, but non-listeners make up a very small share of those subscribers, which makes the data noisier.
For most of the six partners, the podcast benefit is one part of a broader membership that also includes articles, newsletters, or other perks.
The company pulled churn on four dates: June 1, July 1, Aug. 1, and Sept. 1. Each pull measured the percentage of subscribers active at the start of the period who canceled during the following 30 days. Supporting Cast averaged the four dates so that one unusual month would not skew results. It said even its smallest partner in the analysis has thousands of listeners and non-listeners.
The company defined a “listener” as anyone who has ever successfully downloaded a podcast episode in their app. A non-listener is anyone with valid access to the audio benefits who has never downloaded an episode. The company segments churn by this “feed activation status.”
A separate chart covering June 1 to Sept. 30 showed a 4.5% churn rate for the unactivated cohort and 1.5% for the activated cohort. Supporting Cast did not say which partners the chart covers.
Listener Retention Converges Across Publishers
Listener churn rates ranged from 0.9% to 1.6% across the partners, while non-listener rates ranged from 2.4% to 5.5%, Supporting Cast said. The company said that once subscribers start listening, publishers with very different audiences end up with similar retention, and the variation comes from people who never connected a podcast app.
All six partners’ overall churn rates fall below Recurly’s 4.14% benchmark for digital media and entertainment, the company said.
Compounding Effect
At the rates cited, about 350 of every 1,000 non-listeners would cancel within a year, compared with about 145 of every 1,000 listeners, Supporting Cast said. After three years, nearly three-quarters of non-listeners would have left, against fewer than 40% of listeners.
The company also modeled revenue for 1,000 subscribers paying $10 a month. If they churned like non-listeners, they would generate about $207,000 over three years. If they churned like listeners, the figure would be about $289,000, roughly 40% more. The company said the gap would grow as churn compounds over time.
Causation Not Established
Supporting Cast acknowledged the data does not show whether listening keeps subscribers or whether more loyal subscribers are simply more likely to listen. “Probably some of both,” the company said, adding that committed members are more likely to set up a private feed or connect Spotify in the first place. It said it cannot fully separate the two effects with this data.
The company said publishers do influence how many subscribers access gated podcasts. It listed four approaches: embedding feed setup on the publisher’s website, placing the feed setup link in the welcome email, offering a two-tap setup, and telling listeners on the show that a members-only feed exists. It illustrated the two-tap approach with a Defector page that lists Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Downcast, along with a manual link option.
“You can’t make someone love your newsletter, but you can make it easy for them to access what they’re paying for in the place where they already listen,” the company wrote.
Image source: Supporting Cast The full analysis is availablehere
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Podcast subscribers who activated their audio benefits churned at an unweighted average of 1.3% a month across six publisher partners, compared with 3% for subscribers who had not, according to an analysis published by podcast subscription platform Supporting Cast.
The six partners are City Cast, Defector, The Dispatch, Slate, The Verge, and Vox. Depending on the partner, subscribers who listened were between 28% and 81% less likely to cancel than those who did not, the company said.
How the Analysis Was Built
Supporting Cast limited the analysis to its API-integrated partners, which run their own payments and memberships and use Supporting Cast only to deliver audio. The company said audio-only subscriptions show the same pattern, but non-listeners make up a very small share of those subscribers, which makes the data noisier.
For most of the six partners, the podcast benefit is one part of a broader membership that also includes articles, newsletters, or other perks.
The company pulled churn on four dates: June 1, July 1, Aug. 1, and Sept. 1. Each pull measured the percentage of subscribers active at the start of the period who canceled during the following 30 days. Supporting Cast averaged the four dates so that one unusual month would not skew results. It said even its smallest partner in the analysis has thousands of listeners and non-listeners.
The company defined a “listener” as anyone who has ever successfully downloaded a podcast episode in their app. A non-listener is anyone with valid access to the audio benefits who has never downloaded an episode. The company segments churn by this “feed activation status.”
A separate chart covering June 1 to Sept. 30 showed a 4.5% churn rate for the unactivated cohort and 1.5% for the activated cohort. Supporting Cast did not say which partners the chart covers.
Listener Retention Converges Across Publishers
Listener churn rates ranged from 0.9% to 1.6% across the partners, while non-listener rates ranged from 2.4% to 5.5%, Supporting Cast said. The company said that once subscribers start listening, publishers with very different audiences end up with similar retention, and the variation comes from people who never connected a podcast app.
All six partners’ overall churn rates fall below Recurly’s 4.14% benchmark for digital media and entertainment, the company said.
Compounding Effect
At the rates cited, about 350 of every 1,000 non-listeners would cancel within a year, compared with about 145 of every 1,000 listeners, Supporting Cast said. After three years, nearly three-quarters of non-listeners would have left, against fewer than 40% of listeners.
The company also modeled revenue for 1,000 subscribers paying $10 a month. If they churned like non-listeners, they would generate about $207,000 over three years. If they churned like listeners, the figure would be about $289,000, roughly 40% more. The company said the gap would grow as churn compounds over time.
Causation Not Established
Supporting Cast acknowledged the data does not show whether listening keeps subscribers or whether more loyal subscribers are simply more likely to listen. “Probably some of both,” the company said, adding that committed members are more likely to set up a private feed or connect Spotify in the first place. It said it cannot fully separate the two effects with this data.
The company said publishers do influence how many subscribers access gated podcasts. It listed four approaches: embedding feed setup on the publisher’s website, placing the feed setup link in the welcome email, offering a two-tap setup, and telling listeners on the show that a members-only feed exists. It illustrated the two-tap approach with a Defector page that lists Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Downcast, along with a manual link option.
“You can’t make someone love your newsletter, but you can make it easy for them to access what they’re paying for in the place where they already listen,” the company wrote.
Image source: Supporting Cast
The full analysis is available here