The podcaster Joe Budden, an ex-rapper who has been called the “Howard Stern of hip-hop,” wanted to flex a little. He accidentally over-flexed.

Last month, he posted a screenshot of his traffic from Patreon, a subscription service that allows fans to pay creators directly through monthly contributions. It showed more than 30 million visits in 30 days.

Revenue figures on the Patreon data had been scribbled over. But sleuths manipulated the image, and to them, it appeared that he had earned more than $900,000 — a number that made headlines.

Yet that was just his earnings from the month of June. Overall, the Joe Budden Network is on a pace to generate more than $20 million this year, according to its chief executive, Ian Schwartzman.

Mr. Budden agreed to share those and other details about his podcast business with The New York Times, offering a rare window into the economics of podcasting. Publishers of shows rarely share details of their revenue, or even their download or streaming figures. They want to maintain a competitive edge in the advertising marketplace and, like many private businesses, simply aren’t keen to open their books.

Mr. Budden’s reason for releasing figures now, he said in an interview, goes beyond flexing; he and Mr. Schwartzman want to make a broader argument for maintaining independence as creators. They have been podcasting for a decade; although they spent two years working exclusively with Spotify, they are not affiliated with any outside podcast network or media company today.

The Money Coming In

So far this year, the Joe Budden Network has earned an average of $1.04 million per month on Patreon. It has about 70,000 paying subscribers. Subscriptions range from $5 to $50 per month, with higher tiers granted access to more episodes, including from spinoff shows. (Two weekly episodes of the flagship podcast are released free to the general public.)

This means its 2025 subscription revenue will probably exceed $12 million — enough to make Mr. Budden the top earner on the crowdfunding platform. That status and Mr. Budden’s figures were confirmed by a spokeswoman for Patreon.

But subscriptions are not the podcast’s only revenue stream. Advertising also generates several million dollars, Mr. Schwartzman said.

Mr. Budden’s company sells its own ads, unlike many other top podcasters who team up with large networks like iHeart, Wondery or SiriusXM and split the ad revenue. These companies typically offer hosts an upfront check (a minimum guarantee) but control the rates and the number of commercials played each episode.

Mr. Schwartzman said the company tried to not “oversaturate our audience” with ads, usually working with a maximum of only three sponsors at any given time.

The network’s smaller revenue sources include money from “passive advertisements” on social media platforms — like the ads that play automatically during his videos on YouTube, where Mr. Budden has more than 1.5 million followers. (He was an early adopter, in 2016, of video podcasting.) The company also sells merchandise and licenses some of its content.

The Money Going Out

The Joe Budden Network employs more than 30 independent contractors in roles such as production and administrative support.

Payment of these contractors — and the on-air talent — is the company’s biggest expense. For example, more than $1.5 million annually goes to the co-hosts of “The Joe Budden Podcast.” (They include Trevor Robinson, known as Queenzflip; Marc Lamont Hill; Melyssa Ford; Parks Vallely; Antwan Marby, known as Ish; and Lamar Burney, known as Ice.)

After inadvertently flashing some of his revenue to 1.7 million Instagram followers, Mr. Budden joked that “now everybody’s asked for a raise.”

Other costs including production fees, marketing expenses and real estate. The company is in the process of purchasing, for roughly $2 million, the waterfront condominium unit in Edgewater, N.J., where it records audio and video for “The Joe Budden Podcast.” (It currently rents the unit; residents in the building have complained about sharing space with the operation.)

How He Got Here

Mr. Budden’s approach reflects an emerging trend among podcasters and creators: a desire for more autonomy and equity in every deal, with fewer middlemen.

Learning this lesson took time. In 2017, while Mr. Budden was co-hosting a show on the culture website Complex, “we were just getting by,” Mr. Schwartzman said.

“I was on an allowance,” Mr. Budden said, “$500 a week.”

Then, from 2018 to 2020, “The Joe Budden Podcast” had a licensing agreement with Spotify that paid the show less than $2 million per year, Mr. Schwartzman said. The deal included no shares in advertising revenue or stock, and the podcast could be published only to Spotify.

After a rather acrimonious split, the podcast sought a new partner. But the right deal never materialized; one potential contract would have paid $44 million over two years, for example, but required removing all content from YouTube.

“The bigger the money gets, the more strings that are attached,” Mr. Schwartzman said. “We wanted someone to acknowledge how valuable we were by showing that they would be comfortable giving us skin in the game.”

The Creator Wars

Patreon came along in 2021 — offering no guaranteed check but equity in the company and advisory roles for Mr. Budden and Mr. Schwartzman.

“Joe is in a league of his own,” said Jack Conte, chief executive of Patreon. “It is not common for people to make a million dollars a month on Patreon.” The Joe Budden Network reached that milestone in November, maintaining it every month since.

Recently, subscription platforms like Patreon and its younger competitor, Substack, have pushed more aggressively for podcasters to sign up, promising independence and control of their intellectual property — sometimes with grand language about a media revolution.

“Creators have more leverage and control than actually ever before in the history of the arts,” Mr. Conte said.

This year, Substack announced a $20 million fund to help entice creators away from Patreon and other rivals. These platforms also benefit from taking a roughly 10 percent cut of creators’ earnings. Podcasters on Patreon earned more than $472 million collectively in 2024 — up 35 percent from 2023, according to the company.

Yet many creators still feel daunted when they even hear the word “paywall,” Mr. Budden said. Given the success of Joe Rogan or Alex Cooper, it may seem more attractive to a young podcaster to pursue a big network deal.

Which is why, after the screenshot blunder, Mr. Budden opted to disclose his independent earnings for the first time here. Even if it made him and his business partner “uncomfortable to put any money situation out there for the public and competitors to see,” Mr. Schwartzman said. “How else will they know they can do it this way?”