Free Agency 📈- $20M, Joe Budden, and becoming dangerously independent

In the event you do not know who Joe Budden is:

A former rapper who first gained fame in the early 2000s with his hit single "Pump It Up" (honestly, a banger to me) and as a member of the hip-hop supergroup Slaughterhouse. After retiring from rap in 2016, he successfully pivoted to media, launching The Joe Budden Podcast and establishing himself as one of hip-hop's most influential cultural commentators and independent content creators.

This entire thing stems from Joe deciding to flex on his Instagram about his earnings and views on Patreon.

I agree with Joe. It is different.

From Joe’s own disclosure in the NYT, we learn a lot about his business operations:

Things We Know:

• The Joe Budden Podcast has at least 70,000 paying subscribers.
• Averaging around $1M in monthly subscription revenue in 2025
• Subscriptions ranging from $5, $10, $25, and $50 monthly
• Two weekly releases to the public
• 30 independent contractors on payroll
• $1.5M in overhead costs
• Active Discord server with thousands of fans
• Maintains his own advertising operations in-house
• They have licensing deals for their catalog

This is the makings of a healthy media business, with margins, if I had to guess, above 30%.

What We Don’t Know (and I’m curious about)

• How many free listeners convert to paid, and what is the marketing cost per converted patron?
• What share of total income comes from in-house ads, and how volatile is that stream compared to subscriptions?
• What are CPMs, brand categories, and long-term viability without platform network effects?
• With $1M gross monthly and $1.5M overhead, what’s margin once contractor pay, taxes, and platform fees are included?

Either way, we know a lot about what it takes to go (and stay) independent: people, platform, and flexibility.

The Right Deal at the Right Time

Joe inked a Spotify deal in 2018, which was around $2M a year. The challenge was that it was an audio exclusive, meaning he could not distribute podcast episodes on other audio platforms, though he could still post content on YouTube. That deal went publicly sour in 2020. Spotify of course had another interest in podcasts at the time: because streaming services have to pay out rights holders (the people who own the music), and artists (who make the music), there’s slim margins for profitability.

Podcasting was a unique way to partner with someone, and own more of the pie, since advertising is a means of paying for the content. With podcasts, its an entirely free revenue stream that doesn’t require paying labels.

He then turned down another deal reportedly worth $44M, because they wanted him to pull everything from Youtube. In 2021, Patreon became the official home for the Joe Budden Podcast Network.

Creator-Platform Fit

To understand how massive this story is, we also need to investigate the other party, Patreon.

Patreon was started by former musician Jack Conte, Patreon’s entire ethos revolves around putting creators first. Conte is on record as saying he was upset with the splits Youtube gave him, and wanted a better way to make his art and live his life.

The thing that makes Patreon beloved by creators is the same thing that makes it difficult for them to become profitable. They need a critical mass of creators using their services and enough of them to become financially successful to keep attracting more.

In 2021, their last public valuation in 2021 had them around $4B and there were ambitions to IPO. But to do that, they have to chart a path towards profitability, which is exactly why a story like Joe’s is so important. If you can show that people are not just growing, but making money.

Patreon employs a sachet strategy. Here’s founder and African media expert David Adeleke to explain the concept:

Sachetisation is a colloquial term that describes the repackaging and breakdown of products and services into smaller, more affordable sizes. It’s one of the most effective tools for penetrating markets at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

This strategy is not exclusive to emerging markets or places with economic challenges though ; It’s used across industries to expand market opportunities via price.

On Patreon, sachetisation is built into the product dynamically:

• Free membership tiers = entry without commitment
• $1–$5 pledges = low-friction entry points
• One-off digital products = pay once, no subscription
• Gifted memberships = fans subsidize others to expand reach
• Timed discounts or trials = time-sensitive upsell windows

Instead of locking fans into high monthly fees, creators offer micro-access—more ways to say “yes” at lower psychological and financial cost. Anyone can charge any price for anything, and allow choice.

To give creators the ability to engage membership across services they already use, and to defending against YouTube and Facebook platform dominance, Patreon looks to help give creators the opportunity to connect membership across tools. Things like:

• Spotify streams for patron-only podcast episodes inside the native app once accounts are connected.
• Private RSS feeds let members hear gated audio in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Castro, and any standard podcatcher.
• Vimeo integration delivers un-shareable, paywalled videos within Patreon posts using Vimeo’s player security.
• Discord roles auto-synced to membership tiers, granting gated text/voice channels
  
  The more revenue a creator earns, the more commission Patreon gets, and the more intertwined the platform dynamics become. This means if you come with an audience, Patreon is a great look: the tools tools will service your growth, without hampering your ownership.

70,000 Reasons

Joe came with an arsenal of work, a loyal audience, celebrity and a voice. Patreon provided a unique set of infrastructure tools that did not meddle in his IP. He is free to do exactly what he wants, when he wants, and Patreon reaps the benefits of having a prominent voice occupy space in their ecosystem, drawing more attention to them. They need to be acquiring more creations like Joe, to make their move towards profitability. They also need to grow into new and emerging markets, where membership

Let’s assume he’s on the lower end of their existing payment plan:

For every $1M month, that means:

• Patreon's cut (8%): ~$83,200
• Payment processing: ~$30,000+ (e.g.Stripe, Paypal)
• Joe Budden Podcast : ~$926,800`

If that was the only revenue stream that the network had, it’s an $11M take away. But it gets better, because of compounding.

Let's build a model together to explain why this kind of independence can become so lucrative, by focusing exclusively on the subscriptions. First a few assumptions:

The Assumptions

1. The 70,000 subscribers are unequally distributed across the four pricing tiers:

• 50% at $5
• 20% at $10
• 20% at $25
• 10% at $50

2. The podcast grows at a gross rate of 8% monthly
3. It loses 3% to churn (people unsubscribing)
4. So there's a net growth rate of 5%.

If all the Joe Budden Podcast did was keep the same growth rate, in 16 months the subscription business grows to $1.67M a month, making it a $20M a year business, with 160,000 paying fans. While that growth may be slower and less viral, it charts a path to profitability and creates clarity about the kind of growth required. He doesn't have to guess what is necessary month to month. Even if you played with the percentages on the tiers, you can get to an 8 figure business, in under 3 years. That's just subscriptions.

A supporter who joins at $25 or $50 delivers 5–10x the value of someone at $5. That means part of the business model hinges on tier-weighted conversion, not just volume. Sustained growth comes from moving people up the ladder of pricing, not just onto it. It's not easy, but it is a real thing. Once you come into the ecosystem, there's tons of opportunity to woo you into new offers and experiences.

Beware the Fantasy

While Budden's success is remarkable, it's crucial to ground this in reality. The creator economy isn't just about the winners - it's about understanding the full spectrum. A few stats are consistently floating across the interwebs.

• Only about 4% of creators earn more than $100K/year.
• 78% make less than $23,500 annually
• 50% reference experiencing burnout

So if we are going to talk about Joe is building (and we should), then we’d also have to talk about the underlying realities of a growing market where the averages are deeply skewed, and the infrastructure is still being built.

Anything is possible. Not at the same time in the same way.

Anywhere there is “independence” there are tools and services that facilitate it. That’s because being independent requires an ecosystem of services to go direct.

Joe has been podcasting for 15 years straight. That kind of volume lends itself to economies of scale; at a certain point, you can start to use your library as leverage, the same way a recording artist can take out a loan against their catalog of songs. He is in a beneficial relationship with Patreon:

To keep growing as a company they need creators to keep signing up and being publicly successful, so others will bring their libraries over (or start) and pay for their services. Their acquisition strategy has been about extending their core ethos: people pay people, and we want to be the way they transact.

But as of yet, there is no substantive creator “middle class.” There are 4 factors contributing to this:

1. The Algorithm Game. Consistency doesn't get you noticed - spikes do. Think viral moments, not steady growth. The system rewards whoever's hot right now, creating a "winner takes most" dynamic that's brutal for emerging creators.
2. The Money Math. Creator revenue is not linear. Going from 10K to 100K followers isn't just adding zeros. It's exponential. Your earning potential from ads, patrons, and sponsors multiplies dramatically once you hit certain thresholds.
3. The Independence Tax. There's no safety net as a creator. No benefits, no base salary, no guaranteed ownership of your work (unless you ensure it). You're essentially running a startup with few of the usual protections. You are persistently adapting and hedging against new risks.
   

Things To Take Away:

Choose what the product is. For Joe, the podcast is the product. Every week, you are getting something new, whether you pay or not. But when you pay, you get access to even more. Everything revolves around the show and the brand of the show, which has become a cultural staple. That works for him, but it isn’t for everyone. For some, the media is a means to an end: consulting, advising, speaking, etc.

Define independence personally and professionally. This gets dicey, but the clearer you can get about what it means for you, the less likely you are to have things just passively happen to you. If it’s creative control, there are ways to solve for that. If it’s steady income, you might take a different kind of deal.

Decide what you’re comfortable paying. There’s a cost to whatever form of freedom you’re pursuing. For Joe, it’s the tools he uses to facilitate direct fan engagement, monetization, and community. Knowing the tradeoffs can help you from being surprised by the cost of doing business.

You can wing it, but not forever. Admittedly, Joe said he did know what he was doing when he first started. Then he learned and iterated. He found the help he needed, and built strategically from there.

Know the dependencies. Joe and Patreon are interconnected, and it’s working. There’s a value that is clear and they have shared outcomes that make the relationship work. That could change, and if it does, he is free to leave with his IP and work product. You can and should have the same contingencies.

Joe Budden represents something remarkable: a self-retired rapper in his mid-40s who became the highest-earning creator on Patreon by understanding the long game. His first YouTube video dropped 17 years ago. Building something is always challenging and comes with unforeseen hiccups. That's exactly why what Budden's has built deserves deep examination - to separate the practical blueprint from the personal legend.