"Spotify stats" means two very different things, depending on who's asking.
A listener wants their Wrapped. Top artists, minutes streamed, the slightly unhinged genre Spotify decided they were into in November. A marketer wants to know whether the branded podcast they've been funding all year is actually reaching anyone who matters.
This guide is for the second person.
Here's the good news: Spotify hands you a genuinely strong analytics dashboard the moment your show goes live, and it's free. Plays, streams, listeners, impressions, completion, followers, audience demographics. Most brands glance at the play count, feel briefly good about themselves, and close the tab. To be frank, that's a waste.
Because the Spotify for Creators dashboard can tell you whether people actually listened, how far they got, and where they found you. That's the difference between a number you can brag about and a number you can build on.
This guide breaks down the Spotify podcast stats that matter in two parts:
- The industry numbers (how big Spotify is, so you know what platform you're standing on)
- The dashboard metrics (what each one means, and what a marketer should do with it)
Then we'll cover the one question Spotify will never answer for you. It's the question your CMO keeps asking, and I'll give you a hint… it starts with "who."
TL;DR: How to read Spotify podcast stats
- Spotify is the biggest audio-first podcast platform. 751 million monthly active users and roughly 7 million podcasts on the platform.
- "Plays" is Spotify's newest metric, and it's the broadest. Introduced in May 2025, a play is any time someone actively listens to or watches an episode. It signals your reach, not your engagement.
- Streams and starts are not the same thing. A start is recorded once someone presses play on your podcast. A stream counts once someone listens past 60 seconds.
- Impressions tell you about discovery; conversion rate tells you if it's working. High impressions with a low conversion rate mean people see your show and scroll right past it.
- Video is where the growth is. Time spent with video on Spotify more than doubled year over year, and more than 80% of the US top 50 podcasts now publish video.
- Spotify doesn't tell you who's listening. Yes, you get age, gender, and location. But you're missing key listener details like company, job title, or industry, which is exactly what a B2B brand needs to tie the show to pipeline.
What are Spotify podcast stats?
Spotify podcast stats are the analytics inside Spotify for Creators (formerly Spotify for Podcasters) that show how people discover, play, and engage with your show on Spotify.
They include plays, streams, starts, unique listeners, impressions, conversion rate, completion and consumption, followers, comments, and limited audience demographics, all free to anyone who publishes a show.
In plain terms: They tell you how many people pressed play, how many kept listening, how far they got, where Spotify surfaced you, and roughly who (demographically) was on the other end.
One thing to know up front. Spotify's analytics only count people who engage with your show on Spotify. It's a listening app, so its dashboard sees Spotify and nothing else. Hold onto that, because it matters later.
And another fun caveat of Spotify. They do not follow IAB measurement guidelines. IAB is the governing body for how podcast platforms measure and present data like downloads. Because of this, Spotify doesn’t even track what we know to be “downloads.” They’ve created their own metrics for starts, streams, and plays.
So, if you’re using a third-party podcast hosting platform and compare data within your hosting platform and Spotify for Creators account, you might see some discrepancies since the host is likely IAB-certified and Spotify is not.
How big is Spotify for podcasts in 2026?
Before we dive into Spotify's podcast analytics and dashboard, let's get a lay of the land on the platform.
A few things a marketer should take from that table.
Spotify is the largest audio-first podcast platform on the planet, and it is not close. But "largest audio platform" and "where podcasts get consumed" are two different claims. YouTube now leads overall podcast consumption in the US, Spotify leads among audio-first apps, and Apple has quietly slipped to a distant third.
So basically, if your podcast strategy only focuses on Apple, you're likely missing significant listener growth from other apps. In fact, I'll just make it simple by saying your podcast shouldn't only be distributed on one listening app, no matter which one it is.
Today, it is so easy to distribute your RSS feed across many, many listening apps, and I think it's a waste if you're not using a podcast hosting platform to your advantage for this.
Okay, rant over. Let's move on to actually talking about Spotify's podcast analytics:
Where to find your Spotify podcast stats
You'll find your podcast's metrics in Spotify for Creators, the free dashboard for anyone who publishes a show, whether you host directly with Spotify or use a third-party hosting platform that points your existing RSS feed at it (my recommended option).
The dashboard is organized around a few buckets:
- Audience (who and how many)
- Engagement (how deep)
- Discovery (where they found you)
And we'll cover all of them.
The Spotify podcast stats that actually matter
Compared to other listening apps, Spotify gives you quite a bit of data. We're going to break down what each metric means and what to do with it instead of pasting the play count into a slide and calling it a strategy (sorry if I just called you out).
Plays
What Spotify counts: The number of times people actively listened to or watched any episode of your show. Spotify introduced Plays in May 2025 as a single number that covers both audio and video. Right now, they’re counting Plays as a 30-second or long listen.
This is your broadest reach metric, and it's the one Spotify now shows publicly as milestones (starting at 50K) so listeners can see what's popular.
Level of importance: Sure, it's useful. Just don't mistake it for engagement. A play means someone pressed play and listened for at least 30 seconds. It does not mean they stayed. Plays are the top of the funnel, not the bottom, and they should be a supporting metric in your reporting, not a north star.
Streams and starts
What Spotify counts: A start is any time a listener presses the start button, no matter how long they listened (could be 1 second, could be 45 minutes). A stream counts once someone has listened past the 60-second mark.
Level of importance: On their own, start and stream aren't too valuable. But when compared to one another, they offer more insight. Starts tell you how many people were curious. Streams tell you how many made it past your intro. If an episode has 1,000 starts and 400 streams, that tells you 600 people bailed in the first minute, and it usually means your intro, audience targeting, episode title, or ad read is losing listeners.
And I know it’s incredibly confusing with Starts, Streams, and Plays… but hey, we didn’t come up with it.
Listeners
What Spotify counts: The number of unique people who played your show, counted once, no matter how many episodes they play.
Level of importance: This is an important metric to track because Listeners strip out audience inflation. One superfan who plays five episodes is five plays, but one listener. Plays tell you how busy your audience is. Listeners tell you how big it is. For growth performance, the Listener metric is the honest view of your audience size.
Impressions and conversion rate
What Spotify counts: An impression is counted each time your show, episode, or clip is shown to someone on a Spotify discovery surface, which could be through Home, Search, or the Library. Conversion rate is the percentage of those impressions that turned into plays.
Level of importance: Definitely interesting to track, but it's only a subset of your entire audience since it's Spotify-specific. High impressions mean Spotify is putting you in front of people. A low conversion rate means those people are looking at your cover art, your title, and your description, and deciding to keep scrolling.
When impressions are healthy, but conversion is weak, your artwork and episode titles are an easy area to test and see if it results in any improvement.
Completion rate
What Spotify counts: Completion rate is the share of listeners who make it to at least 95% of the way through an episode, tracked over an episode's selected time period.
Level of importance: Completion rate is important for measuring and understanding audience engagement. With this metric, you can track whether audiences are getting to the end of your episodes and, therefore, resonating with your content, format, and style. If you have a low completion rate, consider testing different lengths, formats, guests, and topics to see what brings it up.
Followers and returning audience
What Spotify counts: Followers is the number of people who follow your show on Spotify. Returning audience and retention show how many listeners tuned in to at least one episode in the prior 12 months and came back to play another episode during your selected time period.
Level of importance: I'll be honest, followers are a vanity metric and not one I'd place high on your priority list. But with that said, they're the closest thing Spotify gives you to an owned audience.
On the flip side, retention is a strong metric. It tells you whether listeners are returning episode over episode, which can be a powerful insight. If you have high retention, that means you're targeting the right audience and continuing to provide some sort of value to them. If you have a low retention rate, clearly, there's something that isn't resonating with listeners.
Comments
What Spotify counts: The comments and replies listeners leave on your episodes. In 2025 alone, comedy shows on Spotify pulled in nearly 6 million comments.
Level of importance: Important! What marketer doesn't want direct feedback from their audience? Comments are qualitative; they're unsolicited feedback from the exact people you're trying to reach, and engagement like this can feed Spotify's sense of whether your show is worth surfacing. Read them. Reply to them. And if relevant, implement them.
Audience insights (age, gender, location, top genres)
What Spotify counts: Demographic data on your listeners, like age ranges, gender, top locations, and the platforms and devices listeners use. Age and gender are Spotify-only metrics, whereas locations and platforms come from Spotify and all other listening apps.
Level of importance: This is genuinely useful insight for nailing down your ILP (ideal listener profile). Demographic data like age, gender, and location help you bring to life who your listener is, the type of content they want to hear, and what stage they may be at in life.
But that's pretty much it. Age, gender, and geography describe a demographic. They do not describe a buyer, which, for marketers, is critical for measuring the podcast's impact on the brand. And yes, that gap is the whole point of the next section.
What Spotify's stats still won't tell you: The "who" problem
Here's the wall every brand eventually hits.
Spotify can tell you that 34-year-old females in Chicago are your top demographic, and 76% of them complete your episodes. That's great data.
But you're still left wondering:
- What company does she work at/what industry is she in?
- Is she a decision-maker at her company?
- Is the company already a lead in your CRM?
- Has the podcast influenced her buying cycle?
Spotify's analytics are built around listeners and demographics, not people and companies. And it makes sense. Spotify is serving nearly 7 million creators. But for brands, especially B2B brands with a podcast, audience demographics and download counts just won't cut it when you're reporting to leadership and justifying spend for next season.
"I'm in demos with marketing teams every week, and Spotify for Creators is a common hosting platform brands are using. But the problem with it is that these marketers have to walk into leadership meetings and answer, 'Is this reaching the accounts we care about, and is it moving pipeline?' Plays and minimal demographics can't answer that. The moment a brand can see the companies and roles behind those listeners, the whole conversation changes from defending the podcast to growing it."
Steph Andrews, VP of Product at CoHost
How to uncover the decision-makers listening to your podcast
Don't worry, I won't leave you hanging by shedding light on what Spotify can't do.
Let's cover how to answer the "who is actually listening to our podcast?" question from the eyes of a marketer.
Pretty much all podcast hosting platforms tell you how many downloads you're getting, high-level demographics, maybe unique listeners, and consumption data if you're lucky. And all of them (Spotify included) miss the "who actually are your listeners" gap.
That's what we built CoHost for. Our B2B Analytics show you the companies, industries, job roles, and seniority behind your listens, and let you sync that data to your CRM, so the podcast shows up in the same conversation as pipeline. We continue publishing your podcast on Spotify and all other listening apps, but now, we just give you the podcast analytics you need to justify the show and prove its impact on the business.
Spotify shows you the play. We show you the buyer.
FAQ
What are Spotify podcast stats?
Spotify podcast stats are the analytics inside Spotify for Creators that show how people find, play, and engage with your show on Spotify. They include metrics like plays, streams, starts, impressions, and conversion rate, completion, followers, comments, and audience demographics, all free for anyone who publishes a show.
What's the difference between plays, streams, and starts on Spotify?
A start is counted once someone presses the play button. A stream is counted once someone listens past 60 seconds, which is also Spotify's threshold for monetization. A play, introduced in May 2025, is a broader term that encompasses any active listening or watching across audio and video. In short: Starts measure curiosity, streams measure whether people got past your intro, and plays measure total reach.
How do I find my podcast stats on Spotify?
Your stats live in Spotify for Creators (formerly Spotify for Podcasters), the free dashboard for anyone who publishes a show, whether you host with Spotify or point an existing RSS feed at it. You can filter by date range and export the raw data to CSV.
Is Spotify or Apple bigger for podcasts?
Spotify is bigger than Apple for podcasts on most measures, and the gap has widened. Among US weekly podcast listeners in 2025, Spotify (~21%) is well ahead of Apple (~8%), though YouTube (~39%) leads both. Exact market-share figures vary by methodology, but the direction is consistent: Spotify leads audio-first listening, YouTube leads overall consumption, and Apple has fallen behind both.
Does Spotify count video podcast views in its stats?
Yes. Since Spotify introduced the Plays metric in May 2025, a play counts as an active listen or a watch, so video engagement is folded into the same numbers. Video is fast-growing on the platform: Time spent with video content on Spotify more than doubled year over year, and more than 80% of the US top 50 podcasts now publish a video version.
What is a good completion or conversion rate on Spotify?
There's no universal benchmark, because both depend on your format, length, and category. A more useful approach is to track your own trend: Watch where completion drops inside an episode and fix those moments, and when impressions are high but conversion rate is low, improve your cover art, titles, and descriptions, since those are what people judge before pressing play.
Can Spotify tell me which companies are listening to my podcast?
No. Spotify reports demographic data such as age, gender, and location, but it does not provide company names, job titles, or industries. To see which companies and roles are behind your listens, you need an audience-intelligence layer like CoHost's B2B Analytics, which identifies the companies, industries, and job seniority of your listeners and syncs that data to your CRM.
The best Spotify stat is the one Spotify can't show you
Let's bring it home. Spotify for Creators is a genuinely good tool, and it's free, so even better. Track the metrics that actually tell you something (streams past the first minute, completion, retention, conversion rate) and let the play count play a supporting role instead of headlining your reports. Do that much, and your next reporting meeting gets easier.
But easier isn't the same as done. Spotify tells you how many people listened, how far they got, and roughly who they are. The catch is that it stops at "roughly." A show pulling 800 completed listens from directors and VPs at your target accounts is worth more than one pulling 8,000 plays from people who will never buy, and Spotify's dashboard can't tell those two shows apart.
That's the part worth holding onto. The brands that figure out who is listening first won't be defending their podcast budget next season. They'll be expanding it.
Curious who's actually listening to your show, not just how many? Book a demo, and we'll walk you through B2B Analytics.
