Episode Cost Calculator

Hourly Rate is a multiplier on your combined Recording Time plus Editing Time, so a change to it applies to every hour you've already logged for the episode at once, while adding editing time only adds hours at the rate you're already paying. At the defaults (1 recording hour, 2 editing hours, $50/hr) a $10 rate increase adds $30 to Labor Cost across all 3 hours, while adding a single editing hour only adds $50 -- the rate change compounds across every hour already on the clock, the extra hour doesn't.

Monthly Cost goes up, because it's Cost Per Episode multiplied by Episodes per Month -- more episodes means more total production hours no matter what. What goes DOWN is the hosting slice of each individual episode's cost, because Monthly Hosting is a flat fee split across however many episodes you publish that month. Don't confuse a lower Hosting per Episode with a lower Monthly Cost; they move in opposite directions as you add episodes.

No. Labor Cost is computed purely from Recording Time, Editing Time, and Hourly Rate for a single episode -- Episodes per Month never enters that calculation at all. It only affects Hosting per Episode (the flat monthly fee divided across episodes) and, by extension, Monthly Cost and Annual Cost, which multiply Cost Per Episode by however many episodes you actually publish.

Yes, if you want a figure that reflects the show's true production cost rather than just its out-of-pocket cash cost. Setting Hourly Rate to what your time would cost to replace with a hired editor or producer turns Cost Per Episode into an honest opportunity-cost number, which is what most creators actually need when deciding whether sponsorship or subscriber revenue justifies the time invested.