Podcast merch your listeners already ask for.
The range comes from the show itself: its segments, its sign-offs and the name its listeners go by. We design it, pay for the range and the advertising, and run it. You approve every piece.
ReviewedWhat we run for a podcast
A podcast has hours of its own language, heard every week. A segment has a name. An episode ends on the same words each time. The audience has a name for itself. People who know those words want to wear them, and some have already written in to say so.
We build the range from that material, run the store, and plan each drop around the show’s own calendar. You approve every design before it goes on sale.
Where the range comes from
- A segment name
- It comes round every episode, so every listener knows it. It goes on the t-shirt.
- A sign-off or a catchphrase
- A few words, so it fits a cap, a mug or a sticker.
- A line from one episode
- It is funniest in the weeks after it was said, so it has to go on sale quickly.
- The listeners’ own name
- What an audience calls itself belongs on the piece that members get.
- A milestone
- A hundredth episode or a live date is a reason for a numbered print.
They do different jobs. A range is a ladder, from something small that anyone adds to an order up to something scarce for the people who have listened from the start.
- ImpulseSticker
Added to an order without a second thought, and cheap to post to a member.
- StapleT-shirt
The piece most people buy. A segment name fits across a chest.
- SeasonalHoodie
The highest price in the range. It goes on sale when the weather turns.
- NumberedLimited print
A fixed edition for a milestone or a live date. When it is gone, it is gone.
At merch tables in 2025, t-shirts were 56% of all items sold, at an average of $37. A pullover hoodie averaged $70 and stickers $6. Averages across all genres, before tax.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
A year keyed to the show
A podcast already keeps a calendar: an episode a week, a run of live dates, an anniversary. A drop tied to one of those has a reason to be mentioned on the show that day. So no drop gets a date of its own.
- A to · Spring live shows
- B to · Autumn live shows
- 1 · Live-show tee, on the episode that announces the dates
- 2 · The live range goes online, as the recordings come out
- 3 · Numbered print, for a milestone episode
- 4 · Autumn hoodie, to members first
- 5 · Autumn hoodie, to everyone
- 6 · Winter bundle
A sample year for a show that comes out on Thursdays. No show, tour or release is being announced.
A drop lands all at once, so the store, the printing and the inbox are set up for that day and not for an average one. The first drop is small on purpose, and goes to a list of people you already know.
Paying members
A show with a membership already has that list: the people who pay for it. The membership stays on the platform it is on, and we do not run it. Merch joins it in three ways.
- First
- Members can buy a drop before it opens to everyone.
- Theirs alone
- A members’ bundle: two or three pieces sold together, which nobody else can buy.
- Included
- A piece that comes with a tier, such as a sticker pack. Somebody has to pay to make and post it, so it is costed with you before the tier is offered.
Maximum Fun, a network funded by its listeners, does the third itself. Its membership page lists a magnet and a letterpress card from $10 a month, and adds a t-shirt at $20.
Filed or disclosedSource: Maximum Fun, Join · checked
Live shows
A live podcast is one night in a theatre, in front of people who have heard every episode. They arrive knowing the words on the shirts.
They also spend. atVenu’s report on the shows it settled ranks sixteen genres by what fans spend per head at the table. “Creator/Podcast” is one of them, at $11.25 a head in 2025. That is 3% down on the year before, and above the $10.24 average across all genres.
Filed or disclosedThe genre figures are in the chart “Average $/Head, by top 16 genres”, and show when a bar is pointed at. · Source: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
On the night the table runs as any tour table does: a vending partner staffs it, and we supply the stock and settle with the venue. The tour page sets that out. Two things are different for a podcast.
- The night becomes an episode
- When the recording comes out, listeners who were not in the room hear what was on the table. The live range goes into the store that day.
- One piece belongs to the room
- A print that names the city and the date is something only that night’s audience has.
For a network
A network has the same job once for every show: each has its own jokes and its own listeners, so each needs its own range. We looked at how three companies with many shows run their stores. Two have a specialist behind the shop.
| Company | Its store | Who is behind it |
|---|---|---|
| The Ringer, which Spotify owns | A store on Merchtable’s site, linked as “Shop” from its own | Merchtable, a merch company, which lists The Ringer among its clients |
| Goalhanger, an independent UK podcast company | One shop, with a section for each of several shows | Teemill, a print-on-demand company, which the shop’s terms of sale name as the seller |
| Maximum Fun, a worker-owned co-operative | MaxFunStore, where the menu is “shop by show” | Maximum Fun itself |
Filed or disclosedSource: The Ringer, The Ringer’s store, Merchtable, Goalhanger’s shop, Goalhanger’s shop, terms of sale, MaxFunStore, Maximum Fun, About · checked
The money
Nothing up front. There is no fee, no retainer and no minimum order. We pay for the design, the store and the advertising, and we are paid one way: a share of the profit on the range we run. The split is put in writing before you sign.
A joke that does not sell costs you nothing
Online, each order is printed after it is placed, so there is no stock to buy or store. A line from this month’s episode can be on sale while it is still being quoted, and if nobody buys it, nothing was printed.
What you already earn stays yours
Your membership, your advertising and your ticket sales are no part of what we are paid from. If you already sell merch, that stays 100% yours as well: we add new products only.
Questions
We already have a membership; can merch sit inside it?
Yes. The membership stays where it is, and members can get a drop first, a bundle of their own, or a piece that comes with their tier.
Check what the platform does for you. Patreon made and posted merch for a tier, and now offers that only to creators already using it. One of its rules is worth keeping: a member earned the piece after three payments in a row, so nobody could join, claim it and leave.
Filed or disclosedSource: Patreon help, Add Merch for Membership to your tiers, Patreon help, When will my members earn merch? · checked
How do you handle a network with many shows?
One range for each show, because a joke does not travel from one show to the next. The ranges can share one store, with a shelf for each show, or have a store apiece. Each show’s sales are reported on their own.
Tell us on the call who owns each show’s name and artwork, the network or the hosts. It decides who approves the designs.
How much stock does a live show need?
Fewer pieces than there are seats. Take a sample night in a 1,200-seat theatre. Our estimator assumes 85% of a theatre is filled, which is 1,020 people, and $9 a head, which comes to about $9,200 for the night. At atVenu’s average of $37 for a t-shirt, that is about 250 pieces.
It is an estimate, and the night could land 40% either side. The estimator has no figure of its own for podcasts, so it uses its theatre figure, which is lower than atVenu’s $11.25. The run is sized from what the store has already sold. We buy it and carry the risk, and what is left goes into the store afterwards.
Divini’s own dataDivini’s tour estimator, for a sample theatre. The t-shirt price and the podcast figure are atVenu’s. · Source: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
Can a drop go on sale the day an episode comes out?
Yes. Tell us the release date and we work back from it. Online pieces are printed to order, so there is no print run to wait for. What takes the time is the artwork and your approval.
A live date needs longer. Its run is printed six to eight weeks before the show.
Book a call.
30 minutes with our founder, who takes every first call himself.
Or email contact@divini.co.uk