What Are Podcast Charts?

For podcasters, understanding how these rankings work is essential. They are a strategic asset for gaining visibility, understanding trends, and tracking your show’s progress on each platform.

The goal of this Ausha Academy “Charts” guide is to clarify exactly how these rankings function.

Charts are based on specific, sometimes complex criteria that vary depending on the type of ranking and the platform. The fact that they are constantly updated—sometimes several times an hour—reflects the dynamic nature of the industry, which we will examine in detail in this first lesson.

🚀 Our goal is to provide you with the best practices, benchmarks, and tools you need to understand your rankings and better manage your podcast’s visibility.

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What is the purpose of the rankings?

Charts have long been a primary way to discover new podcasts, and they continue to play a major role in how listeners navigate apps today.

One out of every two listeners looks for new podcasts directly within the platforms. Of those, 24% check the charts to find their next listen. Appearing in these Top lists, even at a mid-tier level, significantly increases your chances of being discovered. 

When a user opens Apple Podcasts or Spotify, the chart sections are often among the first things they see:

• On Apple Podcasts: Rankings are listed under the “New” (Nouveautés) tab. They are accessible with just one click as soon as you open the app.
• On Spotify: You first need to click the Search tab, then “Podcasts” to access new content and Top Podcasts by category.

Before we dive into the details of how they work, let’s first look at what charts can actually do for your podcast.

1. Your podcast gains instant visibility

Appearing in a ranking, even in the middle or at the bottom of the list, allows a podcast to be seen by listeners who might never have known it existed otherwise. Charts act like a storefront: they showcase shows that are performing well during a specific period and make them easier to discover.

This exposure can be especially strong in certain types of rankings:

• Category charts, where listeners explore a specific topic and are therefore more likely to discover a show that matches their interests.
• Episode charts, which highlight particularly high-performing content and can draw a new audience to your entire show.

2. Your podcast’s credibility is enhanced as a result.

Being in a chart acts as “social proof.” A podcast visible in a Top list (even outside the top spots) is perceived as credible, well-liked, and active.

This reassures listeners: it tells them that others are already listening, that the show is good, and that it’s worth their time. This simple signal can boost trust, encourage subscriptions, and improve the overall perception of your podcast’s quality. 🚀

This creates a virtuous cycle: the more a podcast appears in the charts, the more it’s seen; the more it’s seen, the more clicks and listens it gets; and the more listens it accumulates, the higher it climbs.

A simple yet powerful mechanism for driving a show’s growth.

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3. Identifying growth opportunities becomes much easier.

Charts are also an excellent tool for analyzing your podcast’s reach and spotting strategic opportunities. By looking at which categories or sub-categories you appear in (or don’t), you can quickly see if your initial choice for your podcast is the right fit, or if there’s a better spot to maximize your visibility.

Charts also help you identify your “chart neighbors”: those podcasts sitting just above or just below yours in any given ranking. These are often the shows closest to you in terms of topic, audience size, or growth momentum.

Ce sont souvent les émissions les plus proches de vous en termes de thématique, de taille d’audience ou de dynamique de croissance.

These “neighbors” can become:

• sources of editorial inspiration,
• benchmarks to evaluate your progress,
• or even partners for relevant cross-promotions or collaborations.

In short, rankings do more than just show a position; they provide a strategic look at your competitive landscape, a valuable asset for deciding where to focus your efforts and how to speed up your growth.

4. Tracking the impact of your marketing efforts

Charts are also an excellent barometer for measuring the impact of your marketing and editorial efforts. They often react very quickly to certain events, allowing you to see immediately what is generating interest in your show.

Certain initiatives regularly lead to a boost in the charts: releasing a new episode, hosting a well-known guest, a collaboration or cross-promotion, a marketing campaign, media coverage, or simply a more consistent publishing schedule.

Tracking your movements in the rankings helps you understand what creates traction, evaluate the effectiveness of your actions, and identify which formats or topics best hold your audience’s attention. This then allows you to make informed adjustments to your future editorial or marketing choices.

Charts provide a quick, simple, and concrete overview of what is actually driving your podcast forward.

What types of charts exist?

Listening platforms (like Apple Podcasts 💜 and Spotify 💚) offer various types of charts, and each one can provide unique visibility opportunities. Understanding these different types of charts is essential to knowing how to interpret your rankings and where to focus your attention.

Generally, there are 5 main families of charts:

1. Show Charts

These are the most visible and most viewed rankings. They bring together the shows that have generated the most activity over a given period, across all categories. This chart is often the first indicator of a podcast’s overall momentum.

Note: Show rankings always depend on the country the listener is currently in.

2. Episode Charts

These rankings evaluate the performance of a specific episode, regardless of the overall success of the show. Just like show rankings, they are country-specific: an episode can enter a Top Episodes chart in France without appearing in the Top Episodes of another country.

They are especially useful for identifying the topics or formats that generate the most engagement, measuring the impact of a guest, or spotting the episodes that serve as entry points for new listeners.

It’s also a real opportunity for smaller podcasts: even if the show doesn’t appear in the Top Podcasts yet, a single, particularly successful episode can climb into the Top Episodes and provide immediate visibility for the entire show.

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3. Country Rankings

As you may have gathered, each country has its own rankings, which are completely independent of one another. This means a podcast can be visible in one country, absent in another, and progress differently depending on the market.

These variations provide an initial glimpse into local dynamics, but we will dive into this in more detail in the next part of this lesson.

4. Category and Sub-category Charts

Category and sub-category charts help position a podcast within its thematic universe. These rankings show the editorial landscape your show lives in and the other content it appears alongside when listeners explore a specific subject.

Every platform organizes its content differently, and every country has its own rankings; therefore, the same podcast might not be featured the same way from one market to another or from one platform to another.

To help you better understand this environment, here is the full list of categories and sub-categories provided by Apple Podcasts, followed by those from Spotify. These will help you identify where your show stands and let you check if your category choice aligns with your editorial positioning.

You can find category charts at both the show and episode levels.

Categories and Sub-categories on Apple Podcasts

Apple Podcasts features 19 categories and 92 sub-categories, totaling more than 100 rankings, not including country-specific variations and editorial selections.

Categories and Sub-categories on Spotify

Spotify has 20 categories and 54 sub-categories, totaling approximately 75 rankings, not including differences between Country Stores and editorial selections.

Spotify organizes its content into broader, less segmented categories than Apple Podcasts.

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5. Editorial selections by platform teams

In addition to automated rankings, Apple Podcasts and Spotify also highlight editorial selections created by their internal teams. These are the well-known sections like “Featured,” “Staff Picks,” “New & Noteworthy,” or “Recommended Podcasts”.

Unlike standard charts, these features aren’t based solely on a podcast’s performance. They also take into account editorial quality, the originality of the concept, relevance to current trends, or a desire to showcase emerging creators.

However, there are a few ways to pitch your podcast to editorial teams:

• Apple Podcasts provides a submission form that any podcaster can fill out for free to suggest their show or a specific episode.
• Amazon Music allows creators to contact them directly to submit their podcast to their editorial teams.
• Spotify, on the other hand, doesn’t offer an official process to apply for editorial featuring.

These features remain rare and very selective, but when they do happen, their impact on visibility can be incredibly strong.

Just like traditional rankings, these selections are specific to each country, as they are tailored to local listening habits and editorial priorities. Being featured in these selections can provide massive visibility—sometimes even more than certain charts—even though it is difficult to directly influence this type of recommendation.

What are the differences between Country Stores?

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not function as global platforms that display the same content all over the world. Each country has its own version of the app, known as a Country Store. These Country Stores directly influence how your podcast appears in the rankings.

This means that a podcast can be highly ranked in one country, completely absent in another, and progress much faster in a third. These differences are explained by several key factors.

Spotify and Apple multiply the rankings we just saw by the number of countries (up to 175, depending on the platform). In total, there are more than 30,000 charts that can exist globally, and just as many visibility opportunities for your podcast!

Listening behaviors vary by culture

Listening habits are not the same everywhere. Some countries consume a massive amount of News, while others favor Comedy, Fiction, True Crime, History, or Personal Development.

As a result, certain categories are highly competitive in one country but much more accessible in another, and the same theme can perform differently depending on the culture.

Additionally, editorial teams in each country promote their own selections, favorites, new releases, or podcasts covering trending topics. Naturally, these choices differ from one region to another.

Competition varies completely by market

Your podcast won’t have the same “chart neighbors” in the US as it does in Canada, in the UK, or in Australia. In some countries, your show will be competing against the biggest national podcasts ; in others, the category will be less saturated, making it easier for you to stand out.

This is why a podcast can suddenly appear in the rankings of a country where you may have never even promoted it.

Suivez vos positions en 1 clin d’oeil avec Ausha Charts in-App

Voyez exactement où se classent votre émission et vos concurrents sur Apple Podcasts et Spotify, avec des filtres par émission, pays, catégorie et sous-catégorie.

> Explorez gratuitement vos classements

👏 Congratulations!

You have just finished Lesson #1 of this guide dedicated to Rankings (“Charts”). Here are the key takeaways from this first part:

👏 Now that you’ve mastered the basics of Podcast Charts , let’s move on to the next lesson : How do the rankings work? 🔥

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