Podcast editor rates: what editing costs, and how long it actually takes

Per hour. The editor tracks time and bills it. Simple, transparent, and the wrong model for you, because every inefficiency, every re-listen, every bad recording you sent them is on your invoice. You can't budget, and you have no idea whether a four-hour bill was a hard episode or a slow afternoon.

Per episode. A fixed price for an episode of an agreed shape: roughly this length, this many speakers, this much production. The editor absorbs the variance. A difficult episode costs them, not you, and an easy one is their gain. This is the model to insist on, because it turns editing from an open-ended cost into a line item.

The catch with per-episode pricing is that "an episode" has to be defined, and most disputes come from it not being. A 45-minute two-hander and a 90-minute four-person panel are not the same episode. Any per-episode rate that doesn't say what it assumes is a rate you'll renegotiate later.

There's a third model, the monthly retainer, which is a per-episode rate with a minimum volume attached. It's covered properly in how agency pricing works, and it makes sense once you're publishing weekly and want predictability on both sides.

This is the number that makes every rate legible, and it's the one nobody puts on their pricing page.

The published estimates line up with what the work feels like. The Podcast Host puts a one-hour recording at roughly two hours of editing at baseline, rising to three-to-five hours for a highly produced episode with music, per-track processing and EQ. Rachel Corbett reckons four to five times the length of the recording. Produce Your Podcast puts it at three to five minutes of work per finished minute. Even the optimistic end, Ollar Studios at two to four times episode length for a light edit, doesn't get a one-hour recording done in under two hours.

What moves it, in my experience, in order of impact:

The recording quality. A clean recording with separate tracks per speaker edits in a fraction of the time of a single muddy file. This is the single biggest variable and it's entirely on your side of the arrangement.

How many speakers. Two voices are a conversation. Four are a scheduling problem in audio form, with crosstalk to untangle and four sets of levels to match.

How much structure. Tidy up filler and false starts, or reorder the conversation so it opens where it gets interesting? Those are different jobs by an hour or more.

Whether it's filmed. Video roughly doubles the work, because every audio cut has to hold on the picture too.

So when you see a rate, the question is: how many hours does this price imply, and is that enough hours to do the work? A per-episode price that implies ninety minutes of work on a one-hour recording is telling you what kind of edit you'll get.

Our editing-only rate is £110 per episode, published on the rate card alongside the two larger scopes. It's worth spelling out what that assumes, because that's the part most rates leave vague.

It assumes an interview or conversation episode of typical length, recorded with reasonable care, with one round of timestamped revisions included. It covers the content edit, sound cleanup, levelling between speakers, and mastering to platform loudness so the episode sits correctly against everything else in a listener's feed. It doesn't include show notes, clips or publishing, which are the next two scopes up at £165 and £335.

Against the hours above, £110 implies the edit is being done at a rate that makes sense for an experienced editor working efficiently on decent recordings. It would not make sense for an editor who takes five hours on every episode, and it's not designed to. The reason it works is that after a few episodes of any show, the spec is written, the recording setup is sorted, and the edit stops being a fresh problem every week.

If a show arrives with a recording problem that turns a two-hour edit into a four-hour one, the first thing I'll do is fix the recording setup, because that's cheaper for both of us than charging for the extra hours forever.

Five things to ask before comparing any two rates, because without them you're comparing numbers that mean different things.

What episode length and how many speakers does this assume? If the answer is "any", the rate will move.

How many revision rounds are included? One is standard. Zero is a rate that will grow. Unlimited is a rate that's priced to cover people who never sign off.

Is the recording setup part of it? A good editor will tell you how to record so the edit is cheaper. One who doesn't is happy to bill for the problem instead.

What's the turnaround, and from when? Three working days from receiving usable files is normal. The "from when" matters more than the number.

Who owns the files? Project files, masters, stems and, above all, the hosting account. If an editor controls your feed, you don't own your show, and that becomes a problem the week they go quiet.

Then do the sum the other way round. Take the rate, estimate the hours it implies, and ask whether that's enough hours to do the work described. The cheapest quote is often the one that implies the fewest hours, and the fewest hours produces an edit you'll be redoing yourself.

The two words get used interchangeably and they aren't the same job, which is why producer rates are higher.

An editor takes a recording and returns a finished episode. A producer takes responsibility for the show: the spec, the recording setup, the notes, the clips, the publishing, and the schedule holding. The edit is inside that, but it's maybe a third of it. There's a longer piece on what the producer actually does if the distinction matters for what you're hiring.

For most people starting out, editor rates are the right thing to compare. For a show that's meant to run weekly for years without you thinking about it, you're shopping for a producer, and the sensible comparison is the full per-episode cost rather than the edit alone.

If you'd like a rate against your actual show rather than a typical one, say what it is and you'll get one, including the assumptions written down.