I analyzed 28.5 million Apple Podcasts star ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Recently, a client asked me about Apple Podcast ratings and reviews. In particular, they wanted to know how their star ratings compare to other shows'.
“Is 80 ratings good?” they asked. “How do we stack up?”
I used to know the answer, because back in 2020, I analyzed 20 million Apple Podcasts star ratings. But that post felt a bit stale, so I decided to look for some more recent data. I pulled a sample of more than 1.7 million shows from Apple Podcasts to find more than 28 million individual star ratings, representing a whopping 133,761,942 stars! Then I crunched some numbers.
Here’s what I learned…
The top shows have a lot of ratings
Here are the top 5 most-rated podcasts among 1.7 million shows in my US dataset:
Crime Junkie with ~344k US ratings
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark with ~162k US ratings
The Ben Shapiro Show with ~145k US ratings
The Daily with ~95k US ratings
Dr. Death with ~87k US ratings
While these rating counts are impressive, they’re not representative of most shows. Let’s look at the 100 most-rated podcasts in the US, and how many star ratings each one has:
That’s a pretty steep drop-off, especially once you get past the very top of the list. This is a very long tail distribution. And you don’t have to go too far along that long tail to realize…
Most podcasts have zero star ratings
The majority of shows I analyzed have no Apple Podcasts star ratings in the US. That’s right: zero. Only 28% of the shows I looked at had one or more US star ratings.
So, if your show has at least one Apple Podcasts star rating in the US, you’re doing better than the majority of podcasts.
But if we raise the bar just a bit, and exclude those podcasts with zero US star ratings, we can work out some useful benchmarks for comparison. Compared to every all shows that have at least one star rating, if your show has:
4 or more star ratings, you have more ratings than 50% of all shows
12 or more star ratings, you have more ratings than 75% of all shows
41 or more star ratings, you have more ratings than 90% of all shows
103 or more star ratings, you have more ratings than 95% of all shows
793 or more star ratings, you have more ratings than 99% of all shows
Interestingly, the floor hasn’t changed since my last analysis in 2020: you still only need 4 or more star ratings to be in the top half of all shows, rating-count-wise.
Most star ratings are 5-star ratings
By a huge margin, 5-star ratings are the most popular, making up more than 87% of all star ratings in Apple Podcasts US:
1-star ratings are a distant second, followed closely by 4-star ratings. The least common star rating: 2 stars. What’s the last 2-star podcast you listened to? Or perhaps more appropriately, what’s the last podcast you felt compelled to leave a 2-star rating for?
Which show has the most 5-star ratings? Crime Junkie
Which show has the most 1-star ratings? I AM RAPAPORT: STEREO PODCAST
Serialized vs. episodic shows
Apple Podcasts support two different types of shows: episodic and serial. Podcasters can set their show to one of these types using the <itunes:type> tag in their RSS feed, and according to Apple, “all shows are categorized as episodic by default.”
Among the 493k shows in my dataset with at least one US star rating, 10k of those shows were set as serial:
Serial shows are designed to be listened to in sequential order — from the first episode to the last. These include documentaries, investigative reports, scripted dramas, and fictionalized narratives.
On average, serialized shows got significantly more star ratings than episodic shows:
Serialized shows have about 5 times more ratings, on average, than episodic shows.
Paid vs. free shows
In Apple Podcasts, most podcasts are free to listen. Apple calls these “free” shows. A small number of shows require payment. Apple calls these “paid” shows.
Still others offer a mix of free and paid content within the same show (e.g. Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel). Apple calls these “hybrid” shows. And clearly, these “hybrid” shows are winning the ratings count race. Among shows that have at least one US star rating, here’s the average number of star ratings per show, broken down by paid vs. free:
Presuming some of those star ratings come from paying customers, it seems possible there’s some mere ownership effect going on here. Also worth pointing out that correlation isn’t causation. It seems far more likely that popular shows are in a strong position to offer paid subscriptions, and not that paid subscriptions can somehow make a show popular.
Clean vs. explicit shows
Creators can set their podcast to either clean or explicit. It’s not always immediately obvious what counts as explicit, but Apple’s content guidelines offer an example: “profanity or content that may not be suitable for children.” Here’s the breakdown of average rating count among shows that have at least one US star rating:
Compared to my last analysis in 2020, the rating count gap between clean and explicit shows is closing. Clean shows are catching up.
Which category gets the most star ratings?
Apple Podcasts maintains a list of more than 100 different categories. Here, I’ve ranked them by average number of Apple Podcasts star ratings. The average here includes shows with zero star ratings.
As in 2020, True Crime is at the top of the list.
Chasing star ratings isn’t a recipe for success
On average, explicit shows get more star ratings than clean shows. Paid shows get more ratings than free shows. Serialized shows get more ratings than episodic shows. And on average, True Crime shows get the most ratings of any category.
Does that mean an explicit, serialized True Crime show with an Apple Podcasts paid subscription guarantees success? Of course not. Correlation isn’t causation.
On platforms like Apple Podcasts, star ratings can be an important part of your show’s product packaging. As Apple says:
Many listeners look at ratings and reviews before choosing to listen to or follow a show, and quality reviews can also help convey that your show has a community of committed fans.
In other words, star ratings are social proof. They’re a signal of listener engagement. But perhaps more than anything, your Apple Podcasts star ratings are a measure of your show’s effectiveness in soliciting star ratings.
While star ratings are one useful data point, I recommend caution. Don’t use star ratings alone to gauge podcast success. Creators now have access to measures like Listen Time that can help us understand true engagement among a much larger group of listeners – not just the super-engaged listeners who leave star ratings.