B2B podcast production in the UK: what it involves and what it costs

A B2B podcast is a small production line run by a company whose main job is something else. The company shows we have seen stall tend to stall in the same place: the work between recording and publishing lands on someone who already has a full week. This post sets out what B2B podcast production actually involves for a UK company, which parts you have to own, which parts you can hand over, and what a year of episodes costs in pounds.

If you are still deciding whether your company should have a show at all, our guide to branded podcasts covers examples and when to say no. This post assumes you have decided, and want to run it properly.

Why do B2B companies make podcasts?

Because the people they sell to listen, and they listen to learn. A study by the podcast agency Lower Street and the research firm ContentFX surveyed 511 business decision-makers in the US and the UK in 2023. It found that 55% of business leaders and founders, and 51% of executives in leadership roles, were regular podcast listeners. It also found that 36% of decision-makers listen mainly to learn something new.

That last figure is the useful one. A B2B show earns its place by teaching the audience something they need for their job. The shows on our work page that cover bids and proposals, B2B tech marketing, hiring and clean energy all work on that principle. The host knows the field, the guest knows something specific, and the listener leaves knowing more than when they pressed play.

A show built that way does three things for a company. It puts the company's people in front of buyers for half an hour at a time, which no advert does. It gives the sales team something worth sending. And it opens doors, because inviting a prospect or a partner onto a show is an easier first conversation than asking for a meeting.

Who does what on a B2B podcast?

Split the work in two: the parts only your company can do, and the parts a production partner can do better and faster.

The top half and the bottom row stay with you whatever you buy. The middle is where the hours go, and it is where an in-house marketing team runs out of time first.

How does sign-off work?

This is the step that makes B2B different from a creator show. Somebody in the company has to approve each episode before it goes out, and sometimes the guest's company does too. Plan for it from the start, or it becomes the bottleneck.

Three habits keep it moving. First, name one approver, not a committee. Second, agree what they are checking: facts, claims about clients, anything a regulator would care about, and whether the guest would be comfortable. Taste in music is not a sign-off item. Third, give them a deadline inside the cycle. If the edit comes back on Monday and the episode goes out on Thursday, the approver has until Wednesday.

On our side, an episode usually comes back in under a week, and revisions continue until you are happy, so a sign-off note never costs extra. Notes can be left at a time code on the video itself, which saves the long email that starts "about two thirds of the way through".

B2B shows also ask for things a creator show rarely does. One hiring show we edit puts the interviewer's questions on screen as banners, so a viewer who skips ahead still knows what is being answered. Another client sends us timestamps for each clip, because their marketing team has already chosen the moments they want for a campaign. Both are ordinary requests. A good production partner should take them in without fuss.

What should you make from each episode?

The episode is the centre, but on its own it reaches only the people who already follow you. The pieces around it are what reach the rest.

The full episode. Cut to whoever is speaking, sound cleaned and levelled, colour matched across cameras. This is the piece buyers watch through when the topic matters to them.

An intro. The strongest 30 to 60 seconds of the conversation at the very start, so a new viewer knows why to stay.

Clips. Vertical cuts for LinkedIn, Shorts and Reels. For a B2B show, LinkedIn is usually where clips do the most good, because that is where the buyers are. Three to five an episode is plenty for most shows, as our post on how many clips one episode can give you explains.

A thumbnail, title and chapters. These decide whether the episode is found on YouTube and whether a buyer clicks it when a salesperson sends the link.

A full episode with all of that, three standard clips included, comes to £555 with us. The pricing page has every line separately, so a team that already has a designer can leave the thumbnail off and keep the rest.

What does a year of B2B podcast production cost?

The cadence decides the budget more than anything else. We bill every four weeks, and three or more episodes in a cycle take 10% off the whole basket.

Those figures are for the standard intro and clips at £555 an episode. There is no VAT on our prices and no minimum term. If you want a different mix, more clips, advanced intros or no thumbnail, the builder on the pricing page adds it up as you choose.

Recording costs sit outside these numbers. Most of the business shows we edit record remotely, which costs nothing beyond the time. If you would rather use a studio, our guide to podcast studio hire in the UK shows what rooms charge and what that adds per episode.

How should a B2B show measure whether it is working?

Not by downloads alone. A B2B show might have a few hundred listeners and still be the best-performing thing the marketing team does, if those listeners are the right few hundred.

Watch four things instead. How much of each episode people watch or listen to. How often guests and listeners turn into conversations with your company. Whether the sales team uses the episodes, and which ones. And whether search for your company's name and your host's name rises over the months. Give it a full season, twelve episodes or so, before you judge it. The first few episodes are the team learning the format.

Where should you start?

Pick the host, pick the first six guests, and decide the cadence you can honestly keep. Fortnightly is a good starting point for most UK companies: frequent enough to build a habit, light enough to survive a busy quarter. Then hand over the production, so the people who know the industry can spend their time on the conversations.

When you have a cadence in mind, price your show for a four-week cycle and multiply by 13 for the year. If you want to talk it through first, send us a message.

If you'd rather hand the edit over, here's what a full episode edit includes and what it costs.