Listens
Plays count toward a track's listen total and its place on the trending board, which means people will try to fake them. These are the rules that decide what counts.
What makes a listen qualified
All of these, or it doesn't count:
- 30 seconds of verified playback. Not opening the page — actually playing, confirmed by the player checking in as it goes. Skipping ahead doesn't count.
- From an account at least 24 hours old. Brand-new accounts contribute nothing.
- Within the daily caps below.
The caps
| Cap | Limit |
|---|---|
| Per wallet, per track, per day | 5 |
| Per IP address, per day | 50 |
Play a track twenty times in an afternoon and you'll enjoy it twenty times, but only the first 5 count toward that track's listens.
Why the caps exist
Listens move a track up the trending board. Without limits, trending would just be a question of who's willing to leave a tab open the longest, and the listen count would measure patience rather than interest.
The caps make the number mean roughly what it sounds like it means: distinct people, choosing to play something, more than once but not obsessively.
Farming doesn't work
Listens that look manufactured are excluded from listen counts and from trending. We don't publish the specifics of what gets caught, for the obvious reason.
What's worth saying plainly: the play still happens, the artist still gets heard, and nothing is taken away from you. The listen simply doesn't count toward the threshold. There's no penalty to appeal and no balance to restore.
See also Fair play.