How long should a podcast episode be

Akshay Datt

Founder of Unnati and host of Founder Thesis, a long-form interview podcast with company founders. Over 400 episodes since 2020.

A business podcast episode runs about 45 minutes, and the number is worth less than it looks. The format sets it. An interview with one guest settles at 45 on its own. A panel of recurring hosts comes in nearer 25, because nobody needs warming up. A narrated research show runs past an hour, because the research is the episode. Choose the format and the episode length is already decided.

What is worth more is what happens after launch. Most business shows run noticeably longer by year three than they did in their first month. And the shows that stopped publishing were the short ones.

How long are B2B podcast episodes?

B2B podcast episodes run about 45 minutes. The spread around that number is almost entirely format, and almost none of it is a decision anybody made about length.

Most interview shows land somewhere between half an hour and 55 minutes. The ones that run past an hour, Lenny’s Podcast and Invest Like the Best among them, are shows where the guest is the reason to listen and the host lets the conversation find its own end. Panels run short for the opposite reason. Two hosts with a standing agenda have no rapport to build and no context to set, so they start talking and stop when they are done.

Business podcasts also run long by the standards of podcasting as a whole. Across everything hosted on Buzzsprout, more than a third of episodes come in under 20 minutes. Among business shows, almost none do. More than half run past 40.

How long should a business podcast episode be?

For a business interview podcast, aim for around 48 minutes. For a panel, around 30. That is where the shows still publishing have settled, and most interview shows sit within ten minutes either side of it.

The standard advice, keep it between 20 and 40 minutes, describes the most common length across all podcasts, most of which are not business shows and most of which are not still running. It says nothing about what happens once a senior guest is in the room. A conversation with a founder or a CMO that ends at 30 minutes is a conversation somebody cut, and the business shows that last already publish at 45.

Do podcast episodes get longer over time?

Yes, and by more than anyone budgets for. Around half of business shows run at least 10% longer now than they did across their first dozen episodes, and the ones that grew tended to grow a lot.

The Twenty Minute VC has kept its name for eleven years and now runs well past an hour. Fewer shows went the other way, and the ones that did shrank in steps rather than all at once. Sharp Tech ran hour-long episodes for two years and then dropped under 30. Breaking B2B has roughly halved, twice.

The length you launch at is a starting point, not a commitment. Plan the format, the editing budget and the guest ask for the length the show will reach in year three, not the length in the launch plan.

Are shorter podcast episodes better?

Not for a business audience. The B2B shows that have stopped publishing ran shorter than the ones still going, 37 minutes against 48, and the two shortest shows in the category have both stopped. Whatever kept a show alive, it was not brevity.

Short episodes do work where the format is short by design: a two-host panel with a standing agenda, or a daily show that has to fit a commute. Equity and Marketers of Technology both publish more than a hundred episodes a year at around half an hour or less, and both are healthy.

The one survey that asked listeners found 15% preferred episodes over an hour. Nobody preferred episodes under 15 minutes.

How many minutes a week should a podcast publish?

The number to plan around is not episode length. It is minutes a week. Business shows still publishing put out roughly an hour of audio every week, and how that hour splits into episodes is a free choice that changes almost nothing about the cost.

Acquired publishes twelve episodes a year and still puts out as many minutes as a weekly show. BUILDERS publishes 184 short ones and lands in the same place. Lenny’s Podcast and The Marketing Millennials reach an identical weekly total, one with 70 episodes and one with 164.

Set the weekly minutes first. That number sets recording hours, editing hours and guest bookings, and it holds still when the episode count moves underneath it.

Should every episode be the same length?

For a fixed format, hold within ten minutes of the usual length. For an interview, let the episode run to the conversation. The shows with a repeatable structure, BUILDERS, Equity, Marketers of Technology and The Dave Gerhardt Show, keep nine episodes in ten inside a ten-minute window, and that consistency is most of what makes them feel like a show rather than a series of recordings.

Long-form interviews and narrated research do not hold to it, and should not try. Founder Thesis, Modern CTO, The Logan Bartlett Show and Acquired all swing widely from one episode to the next, because the subject sets the length and the subject changes every week.

A show that changes length by 30 minutes from one episode to the next has changed format, whether or not anyone announced it. If the change is deliberate, say so in the feed; if it is not, the format needs a written rule for what an episode contains.

What to decide before recording

1. The format, which sets the length. Interview, panel or narrated. Roughly 45 minutes, 25, and over an hour.
2. The weekly minutes. Write the number down. A 45-minute weekly show is 45; a daily 20-minute show is 100. Every downstream cost is sized off it.
3. Room to grow. Most shows run longer than they launched at. Budget editing and guest time for the length the show will reach, not the length in the launch plan.
4. The rule for an episode. What has to be in it, and what gets cut when a guest runs long. Shows with a written structure hold their length; shows without one drift into a new format without deciding to.

Frequently asked questions