How Long Should a Podcast Episode Be?

Coaches and consultants with a podcast can spend an absurd amount of time trying to figure out how long an episode is supposed to be. Is 10 minutes too short to be useful? Is 45 minutes asking too much? Do you need to keep talking because the episode does not feel substantial enough yet, or should you wrap it up before people stop listening?

That is how the clock starts making decisions the strategy should be making. You stretch a focused answer because 10 minutes feels too short, or cut off a useful conversation because 45 minutes feels too long. Meanwhile, the actual job of the episode gets lost somewhere between trying to prove you know enough and trying not to overstay your welcome.

In this episode of The More Profitable Podcast, I’m breaking down how long a podcast episode should be, when 10-minute, 15-to-30-minute, and 45-minute episodes each make sense, and the one rule that matters more than any ideal runtime. 

1:19 - The one rule to use when deciding how long a podcast episode should be

5:54 - When a 10-minute podcast episode makes sense

9:10 - Why the Podcast Housekeeping series was built as short, focused episodes

10:36 - The discipline required to keep a short episode from getting bloated

11:59 - Why most solo podcast episodes work best between 15 and 30 minutes

15:44 - How too many “ands” push a solo episode past its useful length

17:27 - When 45-minute podcast episodes make sense

18:17 - Why some episodes can break the usual length rules and still work

Mentioned In How Long Should a Podcast Episode Be?

Podcast Housekeeping Series

Podcast Launch Accelerator

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Transcript

Let's talk about something that a lot of podcasters, maybe especially new podcasters, but definitely not exclusively new podcasters stumble on and that is how long should your episodes be? I think forever we're sort of drifting between these two ideas that we're not giving enough away and that we're giving too much away and I want to be sort of once and for all definitively it depends. We're going to talk about sort of three sample episode lengths, sort of ranges, and when they are the best fit. Most importantly, I'm going to give you one rule definitively you can always live with and live by when it comes to how long your podcast episodes should be.Let's get into it. Welcome to The More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris. I'm Stacey and this is the spot to learn more about the strategies, tactics, and tools you need to build your more profitable podcast.My team and I work every day with podcasters like you to shift shows from frustrating time sucks to productive members of your sales team because your show should be built to generate and convert leads. So let's get into it. It used to really surprise me how often this question came up of how long should a podcast episode be and I think now after years of doing this and years of producing shows for other people I always come back to one thing and so we're going to give you the one the one rule to live by right up front.In a theory you could end this episode right after this don't but here's the the thing I come back to again and again. I had just started my business it was 2011-2012 maybe it might have been it might have been early 2012 no it had to have been q4 2011 yeah and I was at what was kind of my first big like conference and it was a wordpress conference in uh Chandler Arizona and there was somebody talking about vlogging because again it was 2011 and somebody asked how long a blog post should be and the person who was speaking said exactly as long as it needs to be to make your point not longer not shorter and that is something I have like parroted to clients for the last 15 years it is something I tell myself regularly and it really is the one sort of like always true answer to this question it needs to be as long as it needs to be for the episode to deliver on the promise to deliver on the purpose to do its mother loving job that's how long a podcast episode should be not longer and not shorter however that answer is not supes helpful right like it's not really giving us a length of time and so it can still kind of end up in this muddiness of like well what is enough and that's what I want to talk about today so instead of having sort of three points for you like I normally do we're going to talk about three different time ranges we're going to talk about some episode types and topics that absolutely make sense to be 10 minutes or less we're going to talk about some episodes that need to sit more in that like 15 to 30 minute range and then we're going to talk about examples of episodes that make absolute sense to be 45 plus minutes we're also going to talk about the pros and cons of each of these lengths of times as far as the trade-offs before we jump in I do want to let you know we have a couple spots left through frankly at this point the end of the year for profitable podcast launch accelerator if getting your podcast launched is on your to-do list but it is not yet to done let's to do it together I was fun I liked that one I was I'm proud of that one uh let's get it done together I'm really really really loving this container we've had some really incredible podcasts launch over the last oh year year and a half that we've been running this program uh it's really found its shape and its form and it's it's firmly out of beta testing and running now and I'm stoked the thing I'm maybe most excited about is because we are actually doing this work together because the production is handled these shows are not only getting launched but they're continuing to run past the first season every single production client that we have had launched with us has moved into ongoing production with us because their shows are working and because they can stay in that role of creator and host and don't have to worry about all of the planning and the production because the planning we do together and the production we handle for them if that sounds appealing let's have a conversation uncommonlymore.com is the spot where you will find all of the information you need about both the launch accelerator and ongoing podcast production services if maybe your show is already launched but again spaces are limited as we roll through now firmly the second half of this year so if you want to have a conversation and see when the timing might be right either for the back half of this year or the first half of next year because we are in fact booking for that too head on over uncommonlymore.com and I can't wait to chat with you all right setting that aside let's dig in to some episode links I want to start with shorty shorts right 10 minutes or less episodes I have had people be like I could never do episodes that short it makes no sense it actually can make a lot of sense there are times where a 10-minute episode is great here's the spoiler alert this episode's not going to be particularly long because I'm coming in and I'm answering a very specific question and when you're coming in and you're answering something very specific which can be wildly helpful from a discoverability standpoint both in depending on how well your your podcast is set up but SEO even like AI search when you come in and you answer a very specific question and you're very clue clear on who you're answering that question for that's going to be 10 minutes of super value not just for the listener but for you I love these little quickie 10-minute hits because you get in and you get out and so if you have what I'm going to call sort of an FAQ episode an episode that answers a question people ask all the time great answer that specific question and let that be the whole episode so I absolutely could have done a 10-minute version of this episode where I ended it at exactly as long as it needs to be to make the point and I talked a little bit to support that and then we put this away that could have been all this episode was now I wanted to take it a step further because I want to give you some examples of of each of these kind of episode lengths because I think it helps make it more concrete but this could have easily been a little 10-minute FAQ episode I especially love these kinds of episodes for episodes you're building to ultimately live in email sequences so episodes about working with you foundational sort of terms and concepts that you work through with your clients but them having an understanding of what that is means you get to dig deeper into the work so let's I'm going to absolutely make up an example here stepping outside of my own business my own my own stuff let's say you are a email marketing expert and you sell email marketing services there are endless sort of niche terms that live in the email marketing space one of the ones that I think could be a great one which is super FAQ-y is what does the open rate mean and why do I care about it what am I looking for what's a good open rate versus a bad open rate that could 100% be a 10-minute or less episode that lives in your welcome sequence that goes out after your opt-in talking about commonly asked email marketing questions you could put a whole series of these together as like an email marketing 101 and it is 10-minute episodes stretching the 10-minute into the 15-minute a little for the sake of our example this is what I do with the podcast housekeeping series those episodes are all less than 15 minutes long that was built intentionally so that they could fit together and be consumed in under an hour so that you can take action by the way you're going to hear the podcast housekeeping series rerun again in the next couple weeks so if you've been wondering oh hey it's time for me to do that again it's a coming August every year babe uh what I want you to take away from this is these are episodes that solve one problem answer one question that's where these 10-minute episodes really thrive and honestly more often than not these become really solid seo and email sequence kind of gold mines because they meet somebody where they're at when they're first starting to explore a conversation and when they're first getting to know us or first meeting us we may not have had enough trust or enough interest for them to want to sit and listen to us talk for 15 20 30 45 minutes but they can absolutely come in get their answer and bounce when we're talking about a 10-minute quick episode these are gold mines when done right the thing is here you gotta stay focused you gotta stay on message and you have to resist the urge to go and and and and keep tacking on more information that's what in this case for me moved this kind of episode that we're doing today from a 10-minute episode to will probably end around 20 minutes because I didn't want to just say the thing that everybody needs to know which is that it needs to be as long as it needs to be to deliver on the promise of the episode to make your point no longer no shorter instead I wanted to give these examples and a little bit of pros and cons of each of these sort of example episode links and so know that what will get you away from a 10-minute episode in a hurry is the ands is the other stuff and so it's going to be a balance it almost always is going to be a balance here's the thing that maybe I should have said earlier and maybe nobody says enough which is your podcast probably isn't going to have all episodes of the same length different episode links do different jobs and that's why we're talking about these examples of different episode links with that let's get into our next one 15 to 30 minutes is probably where I would default the most solo episodes category because this is where most solo episodes should sit this is probably the most common it's it's it's where you see most of my episodes fall the reason I like this is it allows us enough time to get into a topic in a meaningful way but I stop talking before you stop listening which is important uh solo episodes longer than 30 minutes are really hard unless there's a really good reason for it to be that long unless you're really getting into something where nuance and examples are super helpful I want to see you being more in the 15 to 20 minute range for a solo episode but up to 30 can absolutely happen again nuance when we're talking about something where nuance matters and we really want to address some of the questions that might shift somebody's perspective around something we're talking about it kind of makes sense to hit 30 minutes and on the flip side of that like 30 minutes is a perfectly acceptable amount of time for you to do an episode with a guest as well we have a couple of clients who have shows where we regularly feature guests because the way they leverage their podcast as a sales tool has more to do with their guests than it does their listeners and we we do our very very best to keep their episodes under 30 minutes the reason I like 30 minute episodes is really really cliche it comes down to knowing who your listeners are and when they're listening when I start talking about an episode that is an hour an hour and a half long it's not gonna fit in your run that's not gonna fit in you walk in the dog that's not gonna fit into some of the moments where I know my best listeners my most engaged listeners my my best right fit clients that segment of my listenership is gonna be more often than not me talking at you for an hour not generally appealing to the people who work with me also they don't want to talk for an hour and so the idea that they might need to which me doing episodes that are that long sort of make it feel like that's what you need to do I don't want to do I don't want to create that belief even and so when we're talking about that 15 to 30 minute mark I think this is where probably 90 percent of shows should be living now when I say 90 percent of shows I should put a little asterisk next to that and say the kinds of shows we produce which is solo hosted and often without a guest one voice for 30 plus minutes is a lot there's a reason when we go and we watch somebody speak on stage even if they've got an hour talk generally there is a Q&A component or some sort of engagement point in that talk also they're right in front of us and that's that helps a lot but looking at how where how and where they're listening will help you define some of this length and also thinking about what do they actually need to know because what I find is for folks who end up especially with solo shows that are longer than 30 minutes there are too many ands so we talked about this when I was talking about the 10 minute episodes right this one didn't end up being a 10 minute episode because I added some ands and so if I hit a point where I'm looking at being more than 30 minutes in this episode I will know I have too many ands and so like I said the bulk of your episodes are likely going to fit in this 15 to 30 minute marker sales episodes are probably going to be closer to that 15 minutes because you're just kind of breaking down what it is they need to do next what the offer is getting in getting out I think my audio sales pages are among some of my shorter episodes because I'm very explicitly explaining a very specific offer to you to start our conversation you'll get more details when we talk but I'm giving you enough to know if you want to talk to me or not on the flip side today's episode is going to be closer to 30 because we're digging into content that has some nuances that has some if thens if you will right and so think about that as you're looking at your own episode length if you hit that 30 minute mark is there does everything here need to be here or is this maybe a series is this maybe more than one episode is this an angle I can sort of attack in a future episode so that I can really refine this to a more actionable tangible neat and tidy promise instead of one that requires me to talk at you for 45 minutes all right speaking of 45 minutes let's talk 45 minute episodes these are almost always guest episodes because when you've got two people talking sometimes it goes a little longer especially when we have two people talking about something really tangible like their experience in working with you case study episodes frequently sit more in this 30 to 45 45 to an hour even now I will say I really really really really recommend keeping episodes under an hour I have a couple of clients who guest episodes frequently go sort of an hour hour and 15 and retention is pretty good but we do lose folks at the end uh when we keep it tighter we've got a better retention but here's the thing sometimes you have an episode that breaks the rules and that's true of every one of the three time zones I just talked about sometimes you have an episode that breaks the rules and it just works and so that's okay again this is why above all the rule is as long as it needs to be to deliver on your purpose to make your point no longer but also no shorter if it takes a while it takes a while but in most cases I see under an hour sitting in that 45 to 60 minutes that's going to be your sweet spot for your guest episodes it's going to be a real long time to listen to one person talk though you're going to need to really be delivering on a promise for that 45 minutes to make sense as a solo episode with that said I have clients who have done 45 minute solo episodes that have had incredible completion rates and worked really well that's why the above all rule is what the above all rule is when you have more than one voice though and when you're trying to have a nuanced conversation that's where 45 minutes is going to make sense because people are listening people are hooked people are engaged you're giving them a reason to listen it's not that long because you were trying to hit some magical marker regardless of the time frame I think the thing that comes up when people ask me this question the most is it really being rooted in this idea that they're going to overstay their welcome or bother the person listening and I think that's the wrong approach to go into anything with right because it's hard to deliver value from a proving place it's hard to stand in your expertise when you're questioning whether you're too much and so regardless of 10 minutes or 15 to 30 or over 45 or three and a half days whatever length the episode is I want you to stand in it confidently I want you to take up the space because here's a reminder we all need from time to time they invited you there they found your show they hit play they continued to listen you're not invading their space you didn't like show up at their front door and say like hey can I tell you about they invited you in they are here voluntarily take up the space stand in your expertise deliver your genius deliver your value confidently regardless of how long it takes and here's what's funny is when you do that it ends up taking a lot less time because you're not trying to prove your value at every second you're not trying to beg them to let you stay you are delivering you are doing what you do best and that is what converts so there's not some magical time there's not some magical length like oh if my episode is 16 minutes and 43 seconds that's when people convert no it needs to be as long as it needs to be to clearly deliver on the promise of the episode to understandably make your point no longer no shorter you have to show up confidently in that time and take up that space this is 701st episode of this show if I was afraid of taking up space I wouldn't have made it past 15 I mean when this show launched I did a 45 minute solo episode plus an hour to an hour and a half minute guest episode every week now in fairness it was 2012 2013 and there were like four other podcasters okay I had a lot less competition but I quickly found that my episodes that did the best were my solo episodes you know why because those are the ones where I was making a very focused and intentional episode I was taking up space I wasn't platforming someone else and worried about you know making them shine or you know not overdoing it no I was taking up space and standing in my expertise and that's why those episodes did well and that's why I shifted the show to solo episodes and that's why the episodes are still primarily solo episodes because they're my chance to talk to you they're my chance for you and I to start a conversation that continues on in my dms in my email on calls whatever this is our chance for you and I to talk and I'm going to take up the space because you invited me here and I want you to take up the space too and the only way that you do that is if I do that so let's take up space together all right if you would like some support in figuring out how best to make your episodes shine how best to make your episodes convert that's the work we do in our podcast production services that's the work we do with our production clients we sit in it day in day out year after year literally building shows that are assets building shows that move listeners into clients and I would love for your show to be added to the list of shows we work with and I would love to work with you because guess what every single one of our production clients they work with me I'm who will do your sales call I'm who will do every one of your strategy calls I will be the first person and the last person to touch every episode because it is intentionally built as a partnership let's get your show produced let's get your show out there and let's get you taking up some space uncommonlymore.com podcast production to learn more and more importantly to book a time for you and I to talk all right I'll see you right back here next week bye thanks so much for listening to the show remember that content consumption does not make changes so commit to doing something from today's episode maybe it's taking action on what we talked about maybe it's reaching out to me and learning more about podcast strategy intensives or what podcast production looks all of that is over at uncommonlymore.com and if you haven't yet signed up for the podcast newsroom I want to remind you that is a great next step if you're not really sure what comes next hang out over there get those exclusive private episodes that's over at podcastnewsroom.com and the last favor I will ask because social proof is endlessly important for sure is to leave a rating or review for this show if you go to rate this podcast.com slash more that's the easiest way to do it but I would love to hear what you thought of the show what you think of the show and if the show has been helpful for you I can't wait to chat with you so this is just the start of the conversation reach out so we can keep it going talk soon.