How 2 podcasters changed their strategy and made $25,000 in a month from Patreon - up from around $2,000

• Kevin Fredericks and Anthony Belcher Jr. host a podcast where they discuss topics like entertainment news, but when they first launched it, they didn't know it could turn a significant profit.
• After Belcher quit his job as an Uber driver, he and Fredericks started a Patreon page for the show and developed a strategy to encourage subscriptions.
• Now they can make as much as $25,000 a month from Patreon, with thousands of fans contributing anywhere from $5 to $60.
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Anthony Belcher Jr. - also known as DoBoy from Nick Cannon's long-running comedy show, "Wild 'N Out" - took a gamble on his podcast "Righteous and Ratchet," which he cohosts with fellow stand-up comedian and entrepreneur Kevin Fredericks.

The podcasting duo launched the show in December 2018, relying on back-and-forth banter to keep listeners engaged in conversation topics from French fries to Kevin Hart.

But when Belcher quit his job as an Uber driver right around the time of the launch, he and Fredericks knew the podcast had to be more than relatable. Fredericks runs his own influencer business and YouTube channel with over 600,000 subscribers, but for Belcher, the podcast would become his main source of income.

"Righteous and Ratchet" lives on YouTube as well as podcast platforms, so it generated some revenue from YouTube AdSense and ads sold by podcast distribution company, AudioBoom. But the show wasn't making much money until Fredericks and Belcher took it to Patreon.

Patreon is a membership platform where creators post content for fans with subscriptions, and for the past few years, the service has become increasingly popular for podcasters in particular.

Podcasts make up the second biggest vertical on the site, said Janet Lee, Patreon's creator partnerships lead for podcasts. Podcast users on the site have quadrupled over the past three years, Lee said, and the revenue they generate for Patreon has increased eightfold in that time.

"The podcast fan is a very unique sort of fan," Lee said. "That's why we've seen so much organic growth on Patreon with podcasters."

'Righteous and Ratchet' hosts follow 3 rules to encourage growth on Patreon

By February 2019, two months after its launch, "Righteous and Ratchet" had established a presence on Patreon. For the first few months, the hosts earned a modest income - about $2,000 at most - and Fredericks insisted Belcher keep it all since he recently stopped driving for Uber.

Then, around April or May, they reevaluated their fundraising strategy.

"That was the thing that changed everything for us," Belcher said.

Instead of trying to convince a small segment of their most dedicated fans to donate $10 or $25, they decided to try to make Patreon membership a necessity for all of their listeners at $5 a month, which is now their most popular monthly contribution tier.

"Our whole formula is early, extra, and exclusive," Fredericks said.

Patrons get to watch the main weekly episode in video format a day or two before it goes live on podcast platforms, they get access to an extra bonus episode that can only be unlocked on Patreon, and they hear exclusive takes that the hosts don't share on widely distributed episodes.

"Sometimes we'll have conversations on the bonus episode that are a little more free because we know it's not going to be posted publicly," Fredericks said. For instance, he and Belcher try to avoid saying too much about entertainment industry drama in order to leave room for future collaborations.

Listeners mobilized to support the show, with some donating up to $60 a month

Early, extra, and exclusive content encouraged a spike in $5 donations, and $5 a month from thousands of patrons adds up. Once the majority of their fans started seeing paywalled content as a necessity, the podcast went from earning a few thousand dollars a month to as much as $25,000.

Podcasters like Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala of London-based true crime show "RedHanded" also rely on Patreon to generate more than $14,000 a month, and tabletop role playing podcast "Friends at the Table" earns almost $22,000 per month.

When big Patreon deposits first started to hit his bank account, Belcher was in disbelief.

"It was right around the second or third month when that deposit came in that I was like, 'Oh, this is real,'" Belcher said. "Patreon has me making more money now than I've ever made in my life. It's literally changed my tax bracket."

Fredericks, who was already earning ad income from YouTube and other social-media channels, said Patreon also made a difference in his finances.

He and Belcher upgraded their microphones and other studio equipment, and were even able to invest in office space.

"Patreon is very consistent income," Fredericks said. "With YouTube, you can have high months and down months, but Patreon has been pretty consistent over the past eight months. It's life-changing."