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This guide aims to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the Billboard 200 chart, how it functions, and tutorials on contributing to charting on the Billboard 200.
What is the Billboard 200 Chart?
The Billboard 200 chart is Billboard’s primary weekly album chart, exclusively tracking data within the United States market.
It ranks the 200 most popular albums in the United States based on various metrics, offering insights into album performance.
Data is collected from Friday 12:00am ET to Thursday 11:59pm ET each week, and the chart is updated every Tuesday.
How Does the Billboard 200 Work?
Billboard gathers data from Luminate, which collects sales data from various sources including record stores, digital downloads, and streaming services like Spotify.
The metrics from the data considered for the Billboard 200 includes:
Album Sales
The number of complete album units sold, including both physical and digital sales.
Track Sales
The count of individual tracks from an album that are purchased.
Streaming
The frequency with which an album’s songs are streamed online, including both audio and video.
Equivalent Album Units (EAU)
Billboard combines these metrics to calculate an album’s overall performance in Equivalent Album Units (EAU).
Purchases:
1 album sale = 1 EAU
10 individual track sales = 1 EAU
Streaming:
1,250 paid/subscription on-demand audio/video streams = 1 EAU
3,750 ad-supported on-demand audio/video streams = 1 EAU
Billboard 200 Purchasing Rules
Sales caps per individual customer each week:
1 digital album sale
4 physical album sales
The following info will be tracked to detect bulk purchases from the same person:
Email address
Payment Method
IP address
Shipping address
Billing address
How is it Different from the Billboard Hot 100?
While the Billboard Hot 100 focuses on songs, the Billboard 200 evaluates entire albums.
Billboard 200 Digitals Buying Guide
The following digital music platforms count towards Billboard charts:
Please remember that only digital sales made in the United States or Puerto Rico will be considered for the Billboard 200 chart.
Purchasing Strategy
For <Dall>, as the album consists of 11 tracks, buying each track individually would ultimately generate more units than purchasing the album alone.
Remember that 10 individual track sales = 1 EAU
For instance, if 10 people buy only the album, that's 10 EAU sold.
However, if 10 people purchase all 11 tracks separately, that's 11 EAU sold.
This strategy enables us to gain additional units, which is crucial for maximizing our potential to chart.
You must download the tracks you have purchased for it to count towards Billboard.
Buying on multiple platforms
If you wish to follow the purchasing strategy across multiple digital music platforms, for every platform you must change your:
Email address
Payment method
IP address
Shipping address
Billing address
This will help you avoid detection for bulk purchases in accordance with Billboard’s purchasing rules.
Do NOT use a VPN. Read how to change IP address on this page.
We recommend using billing addresses that are within the same state or even the same town as your IP address. This reduces the likelihood of your transactions being flagged as suspicious, as they will be linked to the same geographic area.
Please make sure to spread out your purchases across different platforms to avoid raising suspicion.
For example, if you plan to make purchases on three platforms, you can buy from one platform each day.
Payment Methods
When using a credit card, it's important to verify that the billing address associated with your account matches the one registered on the card.
Using multiple cards with identical billing addresses could potentially restrict their usage, as we aim to avoid repetitive use of the same billing address.
If you plan to purchase across multiple platforms, we recommend using iTunes Gift Cards and Amazon Gift Cards as payment methods for these two platforms.
Unfortunately, Qobuz and 7Digital do not have gift card options.
How to Change Your IP Address on Mobile and PC
Use this website to see your IP address before and after making changes to ensure it's different.
On Mobile:
Disconnect from Wi-Fi
Go to your mobile device's settings and disconnect from any Wi-Fi networks.
Enable Airplane Mode
Open your device's settings.
Find the "Airplane Mode" option and turn it on.
Wait for 30 Seconds
Leave Airplane Mode on for at least 30 seconds.
Disable Airplane Mode
Turn off Airplane Mode in your device's settings.
Check IP Address:
After disabling Airplane Mode, your mobile device should have a new IP address.
On PC (Using Mobile Hotspot):
Connect Your Phone to Your PC:
Plug your phone into your PC using a USB cable.
Enable Hotspot:
On your phone, enable the mobile hotspot feature.
Follow Mobile Steps:
Repeat the steps mentioned earlier for changing the IP address on your mobile device.
Check IP Address on PC:
After completing the steps, your PC should now have the new IP address from your mobile device's hotspot.
Please keep your mobile device connected to the PC until you've finished closing all necessary applications or processes that require the IP address change.
Example of valid digital purchases
Make sure you have access to the emails you provide.
Please refrain from using these address examples for your purchases. If you are considering it, others may also be doing so, resulting in multiple purchases with the same billing address.
Billboard 200 Physicals Buying Guide
The following stores sell the physical <Dall> album & count towards the Billboard 200 chart.
Must say "Sold by Amazon.com"
Please remember only physical album sales sent to an address in the United States or Puerto Rico will count on the Billboard 200 chart.
Tracking Period
Physical album online purchases are counted on the Billboard 200 chart based on the shipping date rather than the purchase date.
All U.S. <Dall> albums purchased online and shipped by Thursday, June 6th, 11:59 PM ET will be counted for the first-week charts.
Online sales shipped after Thursday, June 6th, 11:59 PM ET, will be counted for the second week, even if they were bought before the cut-off.
Physical album sales at brick-and-mortar stores made after Thursday, June 6th, 11:59 PM ET, will be counted for the second week.
Album Versions
Only the standard Album Versions A & B will contribute to the Billboard 200 chart.
This is apparent from the absence of the QR/Platform Version in the inventory of any official US retailers mentioned by Modhaus.
Bulk Purchases
Do not purchase more than 4 albums in a single transaction. Only the first 4 albums purchased will be counted by Billboard.
For example, buying 7 albums in one transaction will still only count as 4 sales.
If you purchase more than 10 albums in a single transaction, none of the albums will be counted towards Billboard. Therefore, if you plan to purchase a large number of albums, we recommend buying a maximum of 4 albums at one store, then visiting another store to purchase another 4 albums.
If you intend to purchase more than 4 copies of <Dall>, for each store you purchase from we advise you to change your:
Email address
Payment method
IP address
Shipping address
Billing address
This will help you avoid being flagged for bulk purchasing.
In-Store Purchases
It is advisable to visit a physical store during the initial tracking week to purchase your albums. This ensures that your album sales will be counted for that tracking week without any potential shipping delays.
When making purchases in-store, we strongly recommend using cash, as transactions made with cards are tracked to prevent bulk purchases.
Barnes & Noble does provide a same-day pickup option for certain products, allowing customers to reserve online and pay in person. However, it has not been confirmed whether this option will be available for <Dall> yet.
Online Purchases
Do not assume K-pop stores report to Billboard, as many receive their stock from Korean sellers, not U.S. distributors.
If you are interested in buying <DALL> from a K-Pop store, make sure to contact them and ASK if they will be reporting sales of the album to Billboard.
If the listing includes pre-order benefits from Korean sellers (ex. SubK Shop’s listing includes Apple Music Korea POBS), that listing will NOT count towards Billboard.
We recommend purchasing exclusively from Modhaus US, B&N, Amazon, or local record shops.
Billboard 200 Streaming Guide
The following streaming platforms count towards Billboard charts:
Please remember that only streams from the United States or Puerto Rico will be considered for the Billboard 200 chart.
All streams from the United States or Puerto Rico are counted towards the Billboard 200 chart.
For instance, if <Dall> had a total of 5 million streams on Sporify in the first week, but only 500,000 were from the US or Puerto Rico, then only those 500,000 streams will count towards the Billboard 200 chart.
If you reside outside the United States or Puerto Rico, do not use a VPN to register your streams. Streams made via VPN will be identified and subsequently removed.
Free streams VS Paid Streams
3,750 free streams generated by songs from an album = 1 EAU
1,250 paid streams generated by songs from an album = 1 EAU
It requires more free streams to reach 1 Equivalent Album Unit (EAU) than paid streams.
Therefore, we recommend either paying for a premium account or starting a free trial to reduce the number of streams needed to reach 1 EAU.
Video Streams
Only official licensed video content uploaded by or on behalf of rights holders is counted for the Billboard 200 and other album charts.
Unofficial reuploads and music show stages are not counted towards Billboard 200 charting.
Officially licensed video content plays from Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Vevo & YouTube will be included in the album chart’s calculations.
Example: Birth MV on Apple Music.
Streaming Strategy
All tracks from an album are considered in streaming counts, so concentrating solely on the title track is not an effective strategy.
As always, manual streaming is preferred over playlists or using Stationhead because it is more reliably counted towards the charts.
If you are unable to stream actively, we recommend joining a Stationhead and leaving it running while you are away. We suggest using headphones to prevent muting the Stationhead while still ensuring you don't hear any audio.
For guidance on how to stream effectively you can refer to the guides available below.
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