From version 7.43, ratings have been available on Pocket Casts for podcasts meeting certain criteria.
- Navigate to a podcast’s details screen — by tapping on a podcast from the Podcasts tab or Discover, for example.
- You may need to tap on the downward arrow to display the podcast’s full details.
- Tap the five stars (
) to open the rating screen. - Select the number of stars (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) that you’d like to give the podcast.
- Tap “Submit”.
If you later decide that you’d like to change your rating, you can also update it using the steps above. Tap the stars to change the rating, then tap “Submit”.
Only listeners of a podcast can give it a rating. If you’re just starting to listen to a podcast and would like to give it a rating, you’ll have to listen to a few episodes first.
The ratings displayed in Pocket Casts are based on user-submitted ratings from within the app as well as ratings that we’ve collected from a number of different third-party sources, one of which is Apple Podcasts. The data from each source is combined and processed through our custom aggregation algorithm that uses different factors to generate a refined rating for each podcast.
One of the factors taken into consideration is rating freshness, which allows our rating to be adaptive and reflect a more present and accurate value.
Because of this algorithmic magic, our rating may differ from other platforms.
First and foremost, a podcast has to be public for it to have ratings. If the podcast is already public but doesn’t have ratings, we may not have enough data for it yet.
This is most likely because you’re using an older version of the Pocket Casts app. The ability to rate podcasts was introduced in the mobile app in version 7.70 and in the web player to coincide with that release.
It’s not possible to leave a written review, to write a customer review, or add a comment for a podcast on Pocket Casts since it does not have a built-in review system. Instead of a review system, Pocket Casts offers a rating system. You can leave a star rating for a podcast you listen to by using the rating scale on the podcast’s page.
Pocket Casts allows you to leave a star rating for any public podcast, instead of a review. Ratings are quick, simple, and help other listeners discover new shows. Written reviews, which some platforms offer, are not supported in Pocket Casts.
- Rating: You select 1 to 5 stars to indicate how much you enjoy a podcast.
- Review: A written opinion or comment. Pocket Casts does not offer this feature.
Ratings in Pocket Casts are displayed in the corresponding podcast’s listing within Discover and, if you’re following the podcast, within the Podcasts tab.
We don’t share these ratings through an API or any other mechanism, however, podcasters can visit their own podcast’s listing to view the show’s current rating and number of ratings.
If a host specifically asks for ratings or follows on a particular platform (like Apple Podcasts or Spotify), doing that there will affect the metrics and discovery tools on that specific platform. Ratings made for podcasts within the Pocket Casts app do not contribute to that podcast’s rating on any other platform.
