How Does Spotify Calculate Monthly Listeners?

Kristian Gorenc Z

Jun 16, 2025

Spotify’s monthly listeners metric is one of the most widely referenced stats in the music industry. Whether you're an artist tracking your growth or an industry professional scouting for talent, understanding how this number is calculated is crucial.

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What Are Monthly Listeners on Spotify?

Spotify defines monthly listeners as the total number of unique users who have streamed an artist’s music in the last 28 days. This includes plays from both active and programmed sources. Active sources refer to streams where a listener actively chooses to play a song, such as searching for an artist or playing a saved track. Programmed sources include algorithm-driven plays, such as those from curated playlists, radio, and autoplay features.

It's important to note that monthly listeners reset every day based on the last 28-day period. If a listener plays an artist’s song on day 1 but does not return within 28 days, they will no longer count towards the monthly listeners metric.

Active Audience vs. Monthly Listeners

A subset of monthly listeners is the active audience—listeners who have actively streamed an artist’s music within the same 28-day window. This distinction is useful for understanding how engaged an artist’s fanbase is, beyond passive or algorithm-driven plays.

Why Monthly Listeners Matter

For artists, managers, and record labels, monthly listeners provide valuable insights into fan engagement, marketing strategies, and booking opportunities. A high number of monthly listeners indicates that an artist is being discovered and streamed frequently. Understanding listener trends helps tailor promotional efforts to specific audiences. Promoters and event organizers often use this metric to gauge an artist’s current popularity.

A Better Way to Track Monthly Listeners: Viberate’s Spotify Analytics

While Spotify for Artists offers basic insights, Viberate’s Spotify analytics provides a more comprehensive view of an artist’s performance. It goes beyond just tracking monthly listeners, offering an in-depth analysis of streaming data, audience demographics, and playlist placements.

What Viberate’s Spotify Analytics Offers

1. Streaming Stats in One Place

Viberate compiles all key streaming metrics in one platform, allowing users to track monthly listeners, song performances, and compare listener trends with industry benchmarks. The platform also enables monitoring of fanbase growth trends by providing an overview of followers over time.

2. Audience Geolocation Insights

Knowing where listeners are coming from is vital for targeted marketing. Viberate enables users to identify top-performing countries and cities, helping artists plan touring and promotional campaigns based on audience density.

3. Playlist Analytics

Playlist placements significantly impact an artist’s reach. With Viberate, users can analyze which playlists an artist is featured on, determine which playlists drive the most streams, and identify potential playlist opportunities to boost exposure.

4. Spotify Monthly Listeners Tracker

Viberate allows users to track an artist’s historical monthly listener data and compare listener counts to industry averages. It also helps monitor how an artist’s fanbase is growing over time.

5. All Spotify Songs Analyzed in One Place

Artists and industry professionals can view every song ranked by performance and filter them by release date. They can also sort songs by the number of all-time, 12-month, 1-month, and 7-day streams, with the option to play songs directly from the interface.

6. Complete Playlist Analytics

Beyond individual songs, Viberate also provides a comprehensive playlist tracking system for every artist. It offers insights into which playlists help songs perform best and identifies potential playlist placements to increase reach.

7. Spotify Tracker for Streams and Other Key Stats

In addition to monthly listeners, Viberate offers total stream counts with performance highlights. Users can also track listener-to-follower ratios to gauge fan engagement and analyze streams-to-listener ratios to assess song virality over time.

8. Audience Heatmaps: Where Are Monthly Listeners Coming From?

Viberate helps pinpoint where an artist’s audience is located. Users can access an interactive heatmap showing listener distribution, optimize promotion strategies for key markets, and plan live events and collaborations based on audience locations.

9. Plan Collaborations With Spotify Data

Collaboration is key in the music industry. Viberate’s data allows users to identify artists with similar fanbases, spot potential collaborators or tour partners, and sort artists by monthly listeners and growth trends.

Conclusion

Understanding is essential for any artist or music professional looking to optimize their streaming strategy. While Spotify’s built-in analytics provide a basic overview, Viberate’s Spotify analytics offers a deeper dive into streaming data, audience insights, and playlist placements.

With Viberate, music professionals get an affordable yet powerful alternative to track, analyze, and grow their presence on Spotify. Whether you're an artist, manager, or label, leveraging these insights can maximize your streaming success and help make informed decisions about marketing, touring, and collaborations.