How much does it cost to hire a podcast studio in London?

Anywhere from about £40 to £350 an hour. That range is so wide it's almost useless, so this piece is about what sits behind the number and how to compare one studio's quote with another's.

I'm John. I'm a cinematographer, and I run Isle of Pods in Canary Wharf with Artur, who is a sound recordist. Between us we've worked on productions for Netflix, the BBC and the BFI. We sit at the top of that price range, so read what follows knowing that. But the advice holds wherever you end up booking.

What the hourly rate is actually buying

At the cheap end, you're usually renting a room. There will be microphones, maybe a camera or two, and a screen telling you how to start recording. For an audio podcaster who knows their way around a mixer, that's good value.

For video, it gets riskier. Nobody is checking that you're in focus, that the frame isn't cutting off your co-host's head, or that your microphone is pointing at your mouth rather than your collarbone. You find out when you watch it back, which is too late.

Further up, the rate starts to include people: an engineer to set up and run the session, someone who has lit the set properly, and an editor who turns the raw files into something you can publish. That's where most of the price difference comes from. The room is the cheap part.

The costs that often aren't in the headline rate

• The engineer. Some studios include one. Others charge for them by the hour on top of the room.

• Editing. In London a video edit of a one-hour episode is often a separate line, from around £100 to several hundred pounds, with turnaround anywhere from a day to a fortnight.

• Cameras. "Video podcast" can mean one camera on a tripod or three framed angles. Ask how many, and who sets them up.

• The minimum booking. A low hourly rate with a three-hour minimum is not a low price. Compare the minimum charge, not the single hour.

• Overruns. Ask how extra time is billed before you need it.

How to compare two quotes properly

Work out what one finished episode costs, not what an hour of room costs. Add up the hours you'll actually need (never less than the minimum), the engineer, the edit, and any extras you know you'll want. Then compare that number.

A made-up but typical example. Studio A is £90 an hour with a two-hour minimum, plus £40 an hour for an engineer, plus £300 for the edit: £560 for one episode. Studio B is £350 an hour with the engineer and edit included, and you only need an hour: £350. The cheaper rate turned out to be the more expensive episode.

It doesn't always go that way. If you record weekly, edit yourself and only need audio, a self-service room will save you a lot of money. The point is to do the sum.

Questions worth asking before you book

• Is someone technical with us for the whole session, or only for setup?

• How many camera angles, and who frames them?

• Is editing included, and what does "edit" mean here? Cut only, or colour and audio mix as well?

• When will I get the finished files?

• What's the minimum booking, and how are overruns charged?

• Can a guest join remotely, and how?

• How many people can sit on set?

What we charge, and what's in it

Our studio is £350 an hour with a one-hour minimum. That covers:

• an engineer who sets everything up before you arrive, so you're recording within minutes of sitting down

• two cameras and three podcast mics

• lighting set for the time of day you're recording

• a Zoom or Teams stream so colleagues can watch from their desks

• a full HD edit, colour corrected and mixed, delivered within 24 hours

• 15 AI-assisted social clips cut from the episode (custom clips are an extra)

• room for up to six people on set, with the London skyline behind you

The extras people most often add are a 4K edit (£350), a remote guest recorded through Riverside (£100), a make-up artist (from £250), and live monitoring (£60 an hour), where an engineer sits in our control room listening to every word and watching every angle for the whole session. On a standard booking we set and test levels before you start and clean up the audio in the edit. If you'd rather hand the whole day over to us, there's a fully crewed cinema production package at £1,500.

All of it is on our pricing page, which is always the current version. The figures here were correct in October 2026.

Why we cost more

Because you're not renting a room. You're booking two people who have spent their careers on film and TV sets, and who would rather you walked out with something you're proud of than something you have to fix.

It's also why the session feels the way it does. Everything is set up before you arrive. Our engineer starts the recording and then leaves the room, so it's just you and your guests, not a crew watching every word. Some clients tell us that privacy is what let them relax.

And if you're making a weekly audio show on a tight budget, we're honestly not the right fit, and that's fine. If you're a company that needs it to look and sound right first time, with the edit back the next day, have a look at what's included.