Monetize your podcasts with ConvertKit Commerce—and keep most of the revenue for yourself.
If you’re looking to sell podcast subscriptions, there are at least two ways you could go about it:
Sell your subscriptions on a podcast distribution platform—but be subject to fees as high as 30% of each sale. 💸
Sell your subscriptions via our ConvertKit Commerce feature, which not only lets you connect directly with your fans, but also costs a super low 3.5% + $0.30 fee per sale!
Does the second option sound awesome? Of course it does. And in this guide, we’re going to show you how to set it up.
How to make it happen
To set up this integration you will need:
A Transistor.fm account on the Professional plan or higher, because you’ll need the enhanced private podcasts feature. (Transistor.fm is one of the first podcast hosting platforms to offer private podcast feeds, which generates a unique and private podcast feed for each subscriber. This is perfect for putting your podcasts behind a paywall!)
A Zapier account. If you sell multiple products via ConvertKit Commerce, you will need Zapier’s paid plan for this process. But if you will be selling only one product—being your private podcast—via ConvertKit Commerce, then Zapier’s free plan will do.
Your trusty ConvertKit account on a paid plan, because API access is needed.
What we’ll be doing is to set up a Zapier automated workflow (also known as a “Zap”) that will automatically add users who purchase a podcast subscription via ConvertKit Commerce to your Transistor.fm private podcast subscriber list, so that these users will be able to access your private podcasts.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Create a new ConvertKit Commerce product for your private podcast subscription
The first step is to create a new product for your private podcast in ConvertKit Commerce.
(If you’re new to this, we’ve got a full guide on creating ConvertKit Commerce products here!)
As you will be selling a subscription to your private podcast:
In the Product Details section, select “Subscription” as your pricing method
In the Fulfillment section, select “Something Else” as what you’ll be selling
Set Up Your ConvertKit-Transistor Automated Workflow in Zapier
1. Set up ConvertKit as the Trigger App
With a ConvertKit Commerce product set up for your private podcast, go to your Zapier dashboard and make a new Zap.
Choose ConvertKit as the Trigger App for your Zap.
As for the Trigger Event, select “New Purchase” before clicking “Continue.”
The next step is to select your ConvertKit account for using in this Zap:
If you haven’t already connected your ConvertKit account to Zapier, you will need to do that first. (Check out Zapier’s handy guide to connecting app accounts to Zapier here.)
After this, go through the steps for testing your trigger.
2. Add a Filter to your Zap
NOTE: This step is required only if you sell multiple products—including multiple podcast subscriptions—via ConvertKit Commerce. If you will be selling only one podcast subscription via your ConvertKit Commerce account, feel free to skip this Filter step.
Set up your filter so that the Zap will continue only if the name of the ConvertKit Commerce product purchased matches the name of your podcast subscription product.
This will ensure that only buyers of your podcast subscription—and not buyers of any other of your products—will be added to Transistor.fm.
If a buyer has bought a different product, the Zap will stop here and will not add them to Transistor.fm.
3. Set up Transistor.fm as the Action App
NOTE: If you had set up a Filter following the previous step, then you will need Zapier’s paid plan to add this next step to the Zap. This is because multi-step Zaps are available only on a paid Zapier plan. If you won’t be setting up a Filter, then Zapier’s free plan will be good enough for this next step.
Set up a new Action step for your Zap. Choose Transistor.fm as the Action App, and “Create Subscriber” as the Action Event.
Connect your Transistor.fm account to this step, then fill out the form to set up the rest of this action.
In particular, you should:
Map the “Your Private Podcast” field to the Transistor.fm private podcast that you want to put behind a paywall
Map the “Email Address” field to customer emails from ConvertKit Commerce
Click “Continue,” then test your action.
If everything is good to go, name your Zap and turn it on. You’re done!
From now on, all users who buy your podcast subscription via ConvertKit Commerce will be automatically added to your list of private podcast subscribers in Transistor.fm. They will also receive instructions from Transistor.fm on how to access your private podcast.
For more information on setting up a private podcast in Transistor.fm, check out Transistor.fm’s guide on this subject.
Managing Subscription Cancellations
If a user cancels their subscription to your private podcast, then they will also need to be removed from your list of private podcast subscribers in Transistor.fm.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a way of automating this removal process at the moment. 🙁
We suggest that you try to keep a close eye on cancellations so you can manually remove the corresponding subscribers from Transistor.fm afterward.
For example, you can track cancellations by exporting a list of subscribers to the ConvertKit Commerce product for your private podcast.
Then, periodically compare this external list against the latest list of subscribers for the same in your ConvertKit account to identify cancellations (if any).
Key Takeaways
Using ConvertKit Commerce and Zapier, you can sell subscriptions to a Transistor.fm private podcast without paying high fees to a podcast distribution platform.
To do so, set up a Zap in Zapier that automatically adds to Transistor.fm the users who subscribe to your private podcast via ConvertKit Commerce.
Keep a close eye on subscription cancellations in ConvertKit Commerce so you can manually remove the corresponding subscribers from Transistor.fm.