What Are Downloads vs. Unique Listeners?

Downloads

Every play you’ve received on your podcast for 60 seconds or more. This means if one individual listens to your podcast twice, it will count as two downloads. 

Unique listeners

The number of individual devices (iPhone, computer, etc.) that have played your show. For example, if I played a podcast episode four times, it would be counted as four downloads but only one unique listener. As a result, this is the metric that's truest to the number of individual listeners your podcast has.

Why downloads and unique listeners matter

Vanity metrics, like downloads, might initially seem impressive and indicative of success – and they can be (partially). However, downloads often fail to provide a comprehensive understanding of your podcast's actual reach. 

Put another way, if your downloads are extremely high but your unique downloads are much less, you have listeners listening to your episodes multiple times on different devices (which is great!) but your actual audience size isn’t as large as download numbers make it out to be.

For this reason, your unique listeners give you a much truer picture of your audience size.

If you’re interested in learning more about the difference between downloads and unique listeners, and other podcast analytics mistakes to avoid to improve your tracking, check out our full article. 

Where to find your podcast downloads and unique downloads on CoHost

Dashboard

Your CoHost dashboard gives you a snapshot comparison of downloads and unique listeners as soon as you log in to the platform.

Analytics center: Downloads and unique listeners

For more in-depth analysis, navigate to "Analytics" in the left sidebar and choose between our downloads and unique listeners pages.