How many podcasts are active?

436,068 feeds published an episode in the 90 days before Vintage 2026-08-17. Counting everything the index has ever listed — living and dead — that is 5.5% still publishing.

Why do published totals disagree?

Because they count different things. Living index feeds: 4,711,475. Everything ever listed, including the 3,245,744 feeds the index has marked dead: 7,957,219. Actively publishing: 436,068. Any of the three is defensible — as long as the definition is stated, which is what this page does.

How many podcasts are there?

Q: How many podcasts are there?

There are 4,711,475 podcast feeds in the Podcast Index as of Vintage 2026-08-17. 436,068 of them published an episode in the 90 days before that date.

Counted from the full Podcast Index feed set — the same open database most published totals trace back to — with the count you actually mean spelled out.

Vintage2026-08-17

live

Next Vintage 2026-08-24

Language

Every feed this Vintage carries. Feeds the index has marked dead are a separate list, not part of this count.

4,711,475

There are 4,711,475 podcast feeds in the Podcast Index, and 436,068 of them (9.3%) published an episode in the last 90 days (PodHood Insights, Vintage 2026-08-17).

Activity — all languages

Active 436,068Dormant 4,275,407

plus 3,245,744 feeds on the dead list — IDs only, no language

Which count do you mean?

Published totals disagree by millions because they answer different questions.

4,711,475listed right now

Feeds the Podcast Index carries this Vintage — the count most totals in the 4–5 million range are versions of.

7,957,219ever listed

Living feeds plus the 3,245,744 the index has marked dead — the count behind the biggest headline numbers.

436,068actively publishing

An episode in the last 90 days — 5.5% of everything ever listed. The honest denominator for "how big is podcasting, really".

All three are feed counts, not show counts: a show published on two feeds counts twice, and a feed no index has discovered counts zero. Directories that curate (an approval step, a minimum-episode filter) report smaller totals than open indexes — a difference of definition, not of accuracy.

How this is measured

What is counted as a podcast?

Every RSS feed in the Podcast Index feed set this Vintage — no sampling, no minimum-episode filter, no de-duplication of shows across feeds.

What does “active” mean?

An episode published in the 90 days before the Vintage date, from the feed’s own newest-episode timestamp. A stricter window would shrink the number; ours is stated so the number can be checked.

How current is this number?

It is the 2026-08-17 Vintage, republished weekly. Nothing here is real-time, and a figure you cite today keeps its Vintage stamp for as long as you cite it.

Cite this figure

PodHood Insights, "How many podcasts are there?", Vintage 2026-08-17. Retrieved from podhood.com/insights/how-many-podcasts

The CSV carries the same Vintage stamp in its header, so a number lifted out of this page never loses the date it was true on.

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How we countMethodologyThe Host mapping behind every figure on this page.