Sponsorship invoiced and chased
Clean paperwork for brands and agencies, chased automatically.
Podcasters
Podcast money is spikier than it looks
Host-read ads, supporter subscriptions, network deals, live shows and a studio full of claimable kit. Podcast money is spikier than it looks, and more claimable than most people think.
What you get
- Sponsor invoices sent out and chased
- Supporter money counted before the platform fee, and the fee claimed
- Mics, editing and your home studio claimed
- Live show tickets and touring costs handled
- Your tax return prepared and filed
- One fixed monthly fee, FreeAgent included
The numbers that decide it
Four figures worth knowing by heart
Four numbers govern a podcast year, and the first is money you have already spent.
The feeAn allowable cost, not a discount
When earnedWhich tax year a sponsorship belongs to
In fullHow production kit is claimed
£1,000Trading allowance — measured on gross income
2026/27 figures. See key tax dates and the calculators for the full picture.
Your year
Four dates and two monthly habits
The two habits are what make the four dates uneventful.
6 AprilNew tax year. Everything earned from here belongs to the next return.
Each monthSupporter platform statements reconciled gross, with the fee recorded as a cost.
As invoicedSponsorship recorded to the period you earned it, not the period it is paid.
5 OctoberRegister for Self Assessment after your first year over the trading allowance.
31 JanuaryReturn, balancing payment and first payment on account.
31 JulySecond payment on account.
Source: gov.uk Self Assessment, trading allowance and VAT guidance, checked July 2026. Rates are 2026/27 from this site's own calculators.
What the year actually looks like
Spikier than it sounds
A typical show mixes host-read sponsorships paid on long agency terms, programmatic ad revenue, supporter subscriptions, live-show tickets and perhaps a book or a course. Some months everything lands at once and some months nothing does, which makes the profit for the year very difficult to feel and very easy to calculate.
The production side is more claimable than most podcasters realise. Microphones, interfaces, acoustic treatment, editing software, hosting, artwork, music licensing and travel to record are all costs of making the thing. So is a proportion of the room you record in.
The detail that decides it
What actually moves the numbers on a show
Four things. The first is money most podcasters hand over without claiming.
- The platform fee is an expense, not a discount
- Supporter platforms deduct their fee before the money reaches you. The income is the gross pledge and the fee is an allowable cost — declaring the gross and forgetting the fee overstates your profit and costs you tax on money you never had. It is the most common error on a podcast return.
- Sponsorship belongs to the date you earned it
- Host-read deals are often invoiced months before they are paid. The income belongs to the period you did the work, not the period the agency settled, and getting that wrong shifts profit between tax years.
- Production costs, in full
- Microphones, interfaces, acoustic treatment, editing software, hosting fees, artwork, music licensing and travel to record are all allowable. So is a proportion of the home costs for the space you record and edit in, set on an honest basis.
- Co-hosts need a structure before the money is worth arguing about
- Two people splitting a show informally is fine until a network deal arrives. A partnership or a company set up while everyone is still friendly is straightforward; the same conversation after a large invoice is not.
The money you already paid
What the platform took, and why it matters
£17,400 of supporter pledges, and the fee nobody claims
Supporter platforms take their cut before the payout reaches your bank. Both figures below are real and only one of them usually gets recorded.
- Supporter pledges for the year, gross
- £17,400
- Platform and payment fees taken before payout — 11%
- £1,914
- Amount that actually reached your bank
- £15,486
- Tax on the fees, if you declare the gross and forget to claim them
- £498
Either record the gross income and claim the fee as a cost, or record the net. Both give the same profit. The expensive version is recording the gross and claiming nothing, which is exactly what happens when the return is built from the platform statement alone.
Source: gov.uk Self Assessment, trading allowance and VAT guidance, checked July 2026. Rates are 2026/27 from this site's own calculators.
What we do about it
Show finances, produced properly
Supporter income reconciled gross
Including the platform fees you are entitled to claim.
Production costs claimed
Studio, microphones, editing, hosting, artwork and music licensing.
Live shows handled
Ticket income, venue costs and touring expenses treated correctly.
Self Assessment included
One clean return covering the whole show.
Co-host structures
Partnerships and companies set up fairly, before a network deal makes it urgent.
Questions
What creators ask us
Is supporter or subscription income taxable?
Yes — supporter payments through subscription platforms are trading income. The platform fees deducted on the way through are an allowable expense, which is easy to miss if you only record what lands in the bank.
Can I claim my home studio?
A proportion of home costs for the space where you record and edit, plus the kit itself — microphones, interfaces, acoustic treatment and editing software — is generally claimable. We set the apportionment at something honest and defensible.
A network wants to sign our show. What changes?
Network deals usually mean bigger, more regular income and a contract worth reading carefully. It is often the moment a limited company, or a proper partnership between co-hosts, starts to make sense. We model it before you sign rather than after.
We split everything 50/50 informally. Is that a problem?
It works until it does not. Once there is real money or a contract in one person's name, an informal split creates tax and legal questions nobody wants to answer retrospectively. Setting up a partnership or company while it is still easy costs very little.
Accreditations & Partnerships
