How do I get guests when my podcast is brand new?

There are more than 4.69 million podcasts indexed worldwide, but only roughly 450,000 to 500,000 of them are actually active. The rest went quiet, a fate the industry politely calls “podfade” (DemandSage, updated April 4, 2026). Most new shows stall inside the first ten episodes, and the reason is almost always the same one: the host runs out of guests. The pitch is not the hard part. The leverage is. A brand-new podcast has no download numbers to flaunt, no back catalog to prove quality, and no social proof, which is exactly what every gatekeeper screens for.

That is the wall. The better the artist, the more likely a publicist or manager sits between you and them, and that layer exists to filter you out on size, not to connect you. A publicist decides whether your show is big enough to bother with, and a brand-new show is, by definition, the smallest number in the inbox. So the two obvious instincts both fail. Chase big names and get ignored, or pay to jump the line: traditional PR to reach an established act runs roughly 5,000 to 15,000 dollars a month, and a podcast booking agency to source and place guests runs about 499 to 2,000 dollars a month (2026 industry figures), money a new show does not have and should not spend.

The artists who would happily come on get buried a different way. Independent musicians live in flooded inboxes and DM requests, where a generic invite from an unknown show reads like every other one. The numbers are blunt: generic mass outreach converts at roughly 1 to 3 percent, while personalized invites that prove a real fit convert at 15 to 25 percent (2026 guesting data). So the real question is not how to fake credibility you have not earned. It is how to reach the right artists directly and give them a reason to say yes that has nothing to do with your download count.

The move for a brand-new show is to compete on the two things you control from episode one, fit and a genuine spotlight, and to have the conversation somewhere numbers do not gate it. Go to reachable, up-and-coming artists who want exposure as much as you want a guest, and contact them directly instead of routing through a publicist who screens on show size. When the artist reads your invite themselves and sees a clear reason your audience is their audience, a small show stops being a disqualifier and starts being an opportunity.

That is the gap iKonX is built to close. iKonX is a network for music where independent artists are reachable directly, no “contact management” dead end and no size filter, and the artists on it are there to be found and booked, so your invite lands as a welcome opportunity rather than spam. The value runs both ways: the artist gets a real spotlight and a clean booking, and a new host gets a guest who actually fits. It also keeps the money honest when an appearance is paid. On iKonX the artist sets their own price and keeps 100 percent of it, iKonX takes 0 percent platform commission, and the buyer pays a flat 10 percent on top, so nothing is skimmed off the booking. iKonX is free to download and explore, full access to paid features is a flat 9.99 dollars a month, and the only payout deduction is a low, sub-5 percent withdrawal fee when an artist moves earnings out, well below the industry standard and never a cut of the booking itself. Roadmap honesty: reaching and booking the independent artists on the network is live today, and iKonX is adding more music guests and verticals as it grows, so your reach scales with the platform instead of promising a name it does not have yet.