Communiqué reports that Nigerian professional podcast production now costs between $181 and $290 per one-hour episode. When shows add video, hosting, social media clipping and live touring, production becomes multimedia business requiring substantial infrastructure investment and production teams.
Nigeria's podcast industry has shifted from bedroom recording to professional studio business. According to Communiqué, "But the moment a producer decides to professionalise a podcast, the costs begin to accumulate. For a one-hour audio episode, a sound engineer can charge between $58 and $109, depending on experience and production complexity." These figures cover audio supervision, cleaning, mixing voices and adding effects.
Scripted shows face additional costs. An experienced podcast scriptwriter in Nigeria charges between $58 and $158 per episode. Finding trained podcast writers remains difficult: Nigeria has journalists and screenwriters, but few trained to write for the ear, where pacing and sound carry the story.
Video production multiplies these costs substantially. Recording and editing a one-hour video episode typically costs between $181 and $290. Producers can lower the average cost by recording several episodes in one day: a full-day booking for four to six one-hour episodes costs between $725 and $1,087.50, spreading production costs across multiple episodes.
Once production finishes, distribution adds more. Hosting services such as Acast and Afripods provide the RSS feed through which shows reach Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Hosting and distribution can add roughly $10 to $30 per month to costs, depending on the service and plan. Producers increasingly hire clippers to extract moments for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, further fragmenting costs across platforms.
For shows at scale, revenue sources diversify: sponsorship, YouTube ad revenue, ticketed live events, and merchandise. But the path from professional production to profitability remains long and uncertain. African podcast infrastructure is built on small teams betting everything on audio. The costs reveal why.