Methodology
Pure metrics, presented plainly. Here's exactly how the rankings work.
Where the numbers come from
Everything on this site is built from public YouTube data: channel subscriber, view, and video counts captured daily, plus per-video view counts for every upload we track. We do not use private analytics, estimates, or scraped watch time. If a show's number looks different from what YouTube shows you, it's because our snapshot was taken at a different moment — never because we adjusted it.
Views are the metric
Shows are ranked by views gained — by default over the last 28 days, the same window YouTube uses. You can re-sort by total views, subscribers, or subscriber growth, but views are always the headline. There is no scoring formula, no points, and no editorial weighting. Sorting is the product.
What counts as a podcast
We track full channels, and we only rank channels that are actually podcasts — shows built around episodes and conversation. Clips channels, team accounts, and general-entertainment channels stay in our database for analysis but never appear in rankings. Every channel is reviewed by a human before it shows up here.
Episodes, clips, and verticals
Every video is classified by format: a horizontal video 30 minutes or longer is an episode, a shorter horizontal video is a clip, and Shorts are verticals. A show's ranked number is its combined channel views across all formats; the split donut on each row (and the Horizontals/Verticals toggles) shows how that breaks down across the catalog we track.
Weekly and monthly charts are permanent
The weekly chart covers Monday through Sunday and is stamped the following Monday. The monthly chart covers the calendar month and is stamped a few days into the next month, once the final days' data has settled. Once a chart is stamped it never changes — movement arrows, rank history on show pages, and the archive all read from those permanent records, not from live data. A show enters the charts the first full period after we start tracking it, so early charts cover fewer shows than recent ones.
Corrections
If a show is missing, misclassified, or linked to the wrong channel, tell us and we'll fix the tracking going forward. Stamped charts stay as published — the record reflects what the data said at the time.