Billboard is making changes to how it weighs streams in its album and singles charts, and the new method will give more influence to free/ad-supported streams. It will also weigh streamed music more when calculating album sales.
According to a notice on the Billboard website, starting on January 17 (for charts for the week of January 2-8), Billboard will count a smaller number of streams as being equivalent to an album sale.
Currently, one “album consumption unit” is equal to one sale of an album, or 10 sales of songs from an album, or 1,250 paid/subscription streams of songs from an album, or 3,750 free/ad-supported streams of songs from an album.
As of January 17, 2026, it will take only 2,500 free/ad-supported streams or 1,000 paid/subscription streams to equal one album sale.
In effect, this will mean it will take 33.3% fewer free/ad-supported streams to equal an album sale, and 20% fewer paid/subscription streams to equal and album sale.
While it’s hard to forecast exactly how this will affect the relative standing of artists on the charts, one thing is clear: It will mean Billboard will be counting a higher number of album equivalent sales.
The changes will apply to the Billboard 200, the publication’s main chart tracking album sales in the US, as well as “corresponding genre album consumption charts.”
Additionally, Billboard is changing the weighting of free/ad-supported streams of songs relative to paid/subscription streams, with free streams now counting more towards chart placement.
“The Billboard charts will add more weight to on-demand streaming to better reflect an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors.”
Billboard
Until now, Billboard had counted a paid/subscription stream as being worth three times as much as a free/ad-supported stream. Under the new calculation, a subscription stream will count as equal to 2.5 free/ad-supported streams.
The effect will be that users of free/ad-supported streams will have somewhat more influence over chart rankings than they had so far.
Billboard says the changes are being made “to better reflect an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors.”
Streaming has been growing in its influence on the Billboard charts since 2007, when Billboard first began reporting streams in its Hot 100 (top singles) chart, initially drawing on data from services like AOL and Yahoo!. Spotify became a part of the calculation in 2012.
The Billboard 200 chart of top albums began counting digital album equivalents in 2014, and in 2018, Billboard adjusted the formula to give more weight to paid/subscription streams versus free/ad-supported streams.
In 2020, Billboard added video streams of songs, on services such as YouTube, to its measurement of the Billboard 200 chart.Music Business Worldwide
