Inside the Podcast That Pulls in $1.25 Million Per Episode
The Acquired sponsor kit warrants a double-take.
A single “Presenting” sponsorship — just four podcast episodes — is priced at $1.5 million. And that slot’s already sold out for the next season.
But the real number is even more jaw-dropping.
Each season (just four episodes), Acquired sells one Presenting sponsorship and two to three additional midroll placements. That means each season likely brings in over $4 million in total sponsorship revenue — and that’s before you factor in their $75K/month back catalog inventory or $300K+ speaking engagements.
Even more impressive? The price is going up every season. And they still can’t keep inventory in stock.
How is this possible?
Because Acquired has built the kind of audience every brand wants: obsessed, influential, and deeply engaged. This isn’t a volume play — it’s a trust play.
Let’s break down why this model works — and what it means for your own podcast strategy.
When Engagement Beats Scale
Marketers often obsess over download numbers — but Acquired proves that scale is not the ceiling.
Each episode gets around 1 million downloads in the first 6 months, and yet they’re commanding multi-million-dollar sponsorship revenue. How?
Because those aren’t just casual listens. They’re 3-4 hour deep dives on companies like Nvidia, Amazon, and LVMH. Their format is basically a cinematic business audiobook — and their listeners tune in for every minute.
When your audience is this dialed-in, you don’t need 10 million downloads. You need 1 million right people giving you 12+ hours of their attention over a season. That’s reach you can’t buy through display ads or social media.
The Audience Every Brand Wants
The numbers in Acquired’s latest listener survey are bananas:
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20% are active company founders
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14% are CEOs
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35% are C-level or VP-level executives
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21% are in VC, finance, or corp dev
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26% are engineers, PMs, or data scientists
This is the business world’s power base. The people who make big decisions. The people who move markets.
Their listeners include exec teams from Meta, Nvidia, DoorDash, Apple, and LinkedIn — and they’re not just listening, they’re quoting the podcast in board meetings and diligence calls.
When Acquired features a sponsor, that sponsor’s brand is being introduced in the most trusted context imaginable — by hosts who have spent 100+ hours researching the episode, and who only work with a tiny handful of long-term partners each season.
Sponsorships That Actually Perform
This isn’t just about brand lift.
Vouch Insurance converted 58 companies into customers from a single season sponsorship — with Acquired as their only podcast placement. Fundrise came back multiple times after seeing ROI. Pitchbook had 80 customers cite Acquired as a factor in their decision to buy or renew.
And remember: Acquired was only reaching 150,000 listeners back then.
Today, it’s 7 figures — and growing >100% year over year.
That’s why brands are paying seven figures for four episodes, and coming back for more.
Reach Isn’t Just Downloads — And Parla Helps You Prove It
Here’s the part marketers and PR teams often miss:
Reach ≠ Downloads.
You need to look at who is listening, how they’re engaging, and where else the content is living.
Acquired isn’t just an audio show. It has a growing YouTube presence, a 30,000-member Slack community, a 55,000+ person email list, and social reach that drives 100K+ impressions per post. This is why sponsors gladly pay more — because the exposure stretches well beyond RSS feeds.
At Parla, we give you the tools to evaluate that kind of modern podcast reach. We go beyond just download estimates and let you see YouTube view counts, cross-platform engagement, and audience data that helps you justify a higher ROI — even from mid-sized shows.
Some of the best placement opportunities today aren’t the biggest shows. They’re the ones with the right audience and the right level of trust.
Want to find podcasts like Acquired — before their rates skyrocket too?
Join Parla today at parla.fm/join.
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