Podcast editing & show notes
Save · 0Podcasters want to record and be done. You take the raw file and hand back the episode, the notes, and the clips.
~590 people search this every month ↑ trending up · US, measured
The short playbook
- Sell the whole post-production package rather than editing alone. The notes and clips are what save the host their evening.
- Clean the audio first in Auphonic or Adobe Podcast Enhance, then cut in Descript.
- Generate notes, chapters, and titles in Castmagic or Podsqueeze, then check names and technical terms. Transcripts mangle proper nouns.
- Agree a turnaround time and hold to it. Podcasters publish on a schedule, and reliability is why they keep an editor.
Tool stack
The editorcuts the episode: ums, tangents, dead air
Audacity Free, open source, and runs entirely on your computer, so client audio never leaves your machine. It costs nothing at any usage level, and version 3.7.8 is in active development for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Descript Edit a client's episode the way you edit a doc: delete a sentence in the transcript and the audio cut is made, which turns one upload into the edit and the show notes draft. The free plan transcribes 1 hour a month and watermarks video exports; paid starts at $16 a month billed yearly. Recent Trustpilot reviews repeatedly report charges continuing after cancellation.
The cleanup passmakes rough recordings sound professional
Auphonic One automated pass fixes levels, loudness, and noise to broadcast standards, and you keep all rights to uploaded audio, which matters when the audio belongs to a client. Free covers 2 hours of processed audio a month; 9 hours a month is $11. Unused free hours do not roll over.
Adobe Podcast Enhance Rescues bad client recordings: laptop mics and echoey rooms come out sounding close to studio, for free. The free tier takes files up to 30 minutes and 500 MB with about an hour of processing a day; Premium is $9.99 a month for bigger files and batch uploads.
The show notes deskturns the episode into show notes, titles, and timestamps
Castmagic Upload an episode and it drafts show notes, timestamps, titles, and social posts in one pass, which covers most of the writing half of this hustle. The Hobby plan is $239 a year, listed as $19 a month, and covers 30 hours of transcribed audio. There is no free plan, only a trial.
Podsqueeze Built only for podcasts, it turns an episode into show notes, newsletters, and clips at the lowest starting price in the category. Trying it is free with no credit card, and the Starter plan is $8.99 a month for 120 minutes, with unused minutes rolling over up to 3 times your monthly amount.
The client finderfinds podcasters who pay for editing
Upwork Podcasters post editing jobs here every day, and it is the biggest pool of them anywhere. Joining is free; Upwork takes a 0 to 15% fee per contract, around 10% for most, and each proposal costs Connects at 15 cents apiece. Freelancer reviews over the past year report account suspensions that take weeks of support tickets to undo.
Podcast Editor Academy A membership run by working podcast editors where client job leads get posted and members trade what podcasters actually pay. It costs $249 per quarter, with a full money back window in the first 14 days.
Fiverr Buyers search for podcast editing and come to you, which makes it the easiest first storefront while you build a portfolio. Listing is free and Fiverr keeps 20% of every order, tips included. Its Trustpilot rating sits at 2.5 of 5, with slow support on order disputes the recurring complaint.
Common questions
How do you edit a podcast?
The work is four passes: cut the mistakes and dead air, clean up the audio so both voices sit even, then draft the show notes, timestamps, and title. The tool stack above runs the whole thing: rough-cut in free Audacity or Descript, even out the sound with Auphonic or the free Adobe Podcast Enhance, and let Castmagic or Podsqueeze write the notes from the transcript. A free path covers all four steps, so you can learn on your own recordings before charging anyone.
How long does it take to edit one episode?
Plan on 2 to 4 times the episode length by hand, so a 60-minute interview commonly runs 2 to 3 hours, and video episodes take longer at 4 to 8 times. Those are editors' own reported ranges: clean audio with two speakers sits at the low end, while crosstalk and background noise push it up. The AI tools in the tool stack above cut the first pass to minutes, so most of your billable time becomes the review, which is where the speed advantage lives.
How much do podcast editors charge?
Freelance editors commonly list $50 to $150 an hour, and per episode most land between $75 and $500 depending on length and how much cleanup and show-note work is included. A basic cut sits near the bottom of that range, while a full-production narrative episode with sound design runs $500 and up. Those are providers' own posted rates, not a promise, and what you actually earn depends on landing clients on Upwork, Fiverr, or through the Podcast Editor Academy above.
What does it cost to start?
Nothing, if you take the free path in the tool stack above. Audacity is free and runs on your own computer so a client's audio never leaves your machine, Adobe Podcast Enhance cleans up the sound for free, and Auphonic gives you 2 hours a month at no cost. The first upgrade worth paying for is a show-notes tool like Podsqueeze at $8.99 a month, once drafting notes by hand becomes the slow part.
Run this hustle? Get featured, or tell us what we got wrong.
Related hustles
Income and demand tiers reflect what we found in public reports and search data, verified to the level shown. Nothing here is a guarantee of earnings.