How do the podcast charts work?

Looking for a list of the biggest podcasts in the world? You’ll not find an equivalent of the “Billboard” charts, but you will find a number of different charts from an increasing number of podcast platforms.

But, as we’ll go into here, not all of them measure the same thing. In fact, none of them do; so all of the podcast charts are calculated in a different way. Here’s how they all work - and, how to make your show number one.

Spotify

Spotify has a number of charts at its own The Podcast Charts website. All Spotify charts are updated daily, and only measure consumption on the Spotify platform.

In most countries, you can choose from:

Spotify’s top podcasts

These “reflect the most popular shows on Spotify each day based on unique streams”.

A “stream” on Spotify is a listen for longer than sixty seconds; “unique” means that if you listen five times to an episode in a day, it’ll only count as one play.

Spotify’s trending podcasts

This chart is “designed to spotlight the shows that are getting people talking right now. This chart gives listeners a way to discover rising stars and trending familiar favorites, while celebrating the creators that are shaping the conversations of the day.”

It’s likely that this is based on a combination of streams and follows, but based on trending shows - shows that are showing rapid increases.

This chart still seems skewed towards the big shows, but it’s perfectly possible for smaller shows to make it into the trending charts. When we took a look, the #6 show in the “trending podcasts” chart was nowhere in the “top podcasts” chart.

Spotify’s top episodes

This chart “is determined exclusively by the number of unique listeners on that day, providing a look into what’s buzzworthy at the moment.”

This is likely a chart based on daily total unique streams per episode. When we checked, the top three episodes were Joe Rogan shows, thus showing the size of the Joe Rogan Experience as a podcast.

Spotify charts for genres

These are likely based on total unique streams per episode, but filtered into Spotify’s genre list.

YouTube

YouTube has one chart: Weekly Top Podcast Shows. This chart reflects consumption in the US only, and updates every Wednesday.

It only measures consumption on the YouTube platform.

YouTube charts are calculated using total listen time. A 10-hour show that is listened-to by one person will appear higher than a 30 minute show which is listened-to by 15 people.

Apple Podcasts

The main Apple Podcasts “Top shows” chart, published within the app, is normally the one people mean when they quote the Apple Podcasts chart.

All Apple Podcasts charts only measure consumption within the Apple Podcasts app. Listening on the web does not count.

It is based on your selected country within the Apple ecosystem, so if your account is in the UK, for example, you’ll see the UK’s “top shows” chart.

According to Apple when we asked in December 2020, the charts:

“encompass a mix of new follows, playback activity and completion rate; ratings and reviews aren’t factored into these charts.”

They have since added more information as to how the charts work.

The addition of playback activity and completion rate appears to have happened in July 2019. Before that, they were simply based on recent follows - indeed, we uncovered Apple’s original patent. We’ve no real evidence to show that the charts changed much after 2019 - and therefore whether playback activity and completion rate is really included in the algorithm in the main chart.

An appearance on the Apple Podcast charts mainly reflects a podcast’s ability to attract a larger number of new follows to their podcast over recent days. It is not related to downloads.

Other charts within Apple Podcasts, particularly New and Noteworthy, are hand curated by Apple. There is no evidence that ratings or reviews have any effect on Apple’s charts; although since some listeners look at ratings and reviews, they may have an indirect influence.

There are separate charts for every country in Apple Podcasts. You can monitor how you do in all of them by using services like Podgagement.

Edison Podcast Metrics

Edison Podcast Metrics publish a ranker every quarter for the US and for the UK.

The data is sourced from a rolling survey, asking people what podcasts they are consuming.

The use of a survey means that all podcasts are included; however, the use of a rolling survey over the entire quarter means that this ranker favours consistently-releasing shows.

Additionally, given that there are more than 2.7m podcasts available in Apple Podcasts, so asking a sample - even a weighted sample as large as 8,000 - may not accurately reflect total audience.

Triton Rankers

Triton Digital publish a number of rankers for different countries. These rankers are calculated by examining logfiles of participating publishers.

Podtrac

In the US, Podtrac releases monthly rankers for podcasts, as well as publishers and sales networks. This ranker is limited only to participating podcasters. The podcast ranker is ordered by total US audience.

In other countries, Podtrac releases monthly rankers for thirty different countries. These rankers are based on “measured and estimated counts” of downloads, using multiple sources.

Podscribe

Podscribe releases an industry ranker for “top podcasts”, as well as publisher and advertising rankings. It’s based on estimated monthly listeners.

Podscribe uses a number of signals to guesstimate the size of a podcast. Sometimes, it’s used by advertisers within the show, so Podscribe gets direct data; sometimes, Podscribe uses other signals like social media followers.

The published industry ranker is for the US only, though paying Podscribe users can produce rankers for themselves for a number of other countries.

Listen Notes

Listen Notes has a “hot podcasts” chart, “based on user activities yesterday.” It just reflects user activity on the Listen Notes platform.

Listen Notes also has an internal ranker, leading to results like “this podcast is a top 1% podcast in the world”. This ranker is proprietary, and uses some data from an unnamed podcast app.

OP3

OP3 is an open podcast analytics service; and while it doesn’t run a ranker itself, the open data it produces is a useful way to compare your podcast with others in your chosen main genre.

Our sister publication, the Podcast Business Journal, publishes a list of many of the shows which use it.

How to be #1 in the trending charts

Spotify and Apple’s trending charts are relatively easy to appear highly in.

You can appear very highly on the Apple Podcast charts by planning all activity around your podcast release on one specific day, and encouraging as many follows on that one day as possible. Tanner Campbell got into the top 100 chart for books, the second most popular category, with just 24 new followers.

An experiment by Steffan Garrero using social media got a show into the top 50, without any discernable effect on the number of total downloads at all.

Here’s an example of why the trending chart isn’t an accurate barometer for popularity:

Podcast 1 has spread by word of mouth. It has three new subscribers every day, and has existed for three years. It will never appear on the Apple Podcast chart, since that is worked out using recent subscriptions. It now has 3,000 subscribers (and almost as many downloads per episode).

Podcast 2 launched in a blaze of publicity three days ago. It got 200 new subscribers in one day, but has trickled away to very few new subscribers. It has a total of 230 subscribers. Because it did very well in its launch, it appeared at #20 in the charts.

While Podcast 1 has never appeared in the Apple Podcast Charts, it is over ten times larger than Podcast 2.