Apple Podcasts Statistics
You may freely cite this data so long as you include a link back to this page and include the attribution, “Podcast Industry Insights courtesy of Daniel J. Lewis.”
Hover or tap any chart element below to see the raw numbers.
Our data is collected independently and updated nightly.
Totals
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=total,episodes
Valid podcasts are available in Apple Podcasts with downloadable episodes, regardless of age or active status. There have been many more podcasts and many more episodes, but they are not all still available through valid feeds due to feed-episode limits. This is also not the number of “active” podcasts.
Additions and Removals
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=added,removed,reactivated
New podcasts are usually not added on the weekends or around holidays, but automatic removals or reactivations can occur any day.
Podcasts may be removed manually or automatically from Apple Podcasts for technical problems, hiding or removing by podcaster's choice, or policy violations. Apple does not remove valid podcasts for being inactive.
We subtract podcast removals from our “Totals” section above, but this chart shows the unadjusted monthly activity.
The current month's activity is still in progress.
Detailed activity
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=total,active,inactive
We define “active” as any podcast that has published at least one episode in the last 90 days, and “inactive” as any podcast that has not published any episode in that same time.
“Inactive” does not necessarily mean those shows are dead, podfaded, or podflashed. “Inactive” could include these along with shows that have been ended, retired, put on hiatus, or have an infrequent publishing schedule.
3-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 3-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
7-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 7-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
10-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 10-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
14-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 14-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
30-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 30-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
60-day activity
Current
Historic
*We only recently started calculating 60-day activity, so historical activity is still accumulating.
90-day activity
Current
Historic
Top-level categories
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/categories/?parentsOnly=true
Apple Podcasts offers 110 categories, organized into top-level categories and subcategories. While podcasts can be listed in multiple categories, the first category is used as the primary. We're displaying only the top-level/parent categories for simplicity.
Latest activity windows
Current
Historic
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=episodeAges
How old is the newest episode from podcasts? This chart segments podcasts based on how recently the latest episode was published from each podcast. This is not charting the ages of all episodes.
Available episodes
Current
Historic
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=episodeCountsCond
Due to a variety of default feed-episode limits and podcasters' own choices, any feed with 10 or more episodes may not be showing the podcast's entire episode archive.
Where combined, the amounts are close to evenly split.
90-day activity by episodes
Insider’s API endpoint: /v1/applepodcasts/?fields=episodeCounts
Due to a variety of default feed-episode limits and podcasters' own choices, accurate conclusions cannot be calculated based on podcasts with 10 or more episodes. While you may have heard some claim most podcasts don't go past their seventh episode, this data shows that a single episode is the largest hump most podcasts will face.