What's the Billboard 200?

The Billboard 200 is a chart that ranks the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the U.S.

• TEA: Track Equivalent Albums. It's calculated by adding up all the song sales from an album and dividing by 10. Therefore, 10 song downloads from the same album is equivalent to 1 album unit.
• SEA: Streaming Equivalent Albums. It's calculated by adding up all of the audio song streams from an album. Paid streaming totals are divided by 1,000 and free streaming totals are divided by 2,500. So, 1,000 premium streams or 2,500 free streams from the same album is equivalent to 1 album unit.
• SPS: Sales Plus Streaming. It's just a formal way to say pure, SEA and TEA all together.

Starting January 2026, streaming will count more heavily towards charts:

• Before: 1 album unit = 10 track downloads = 3,750 ad supported streams = 1,250 paid/subscription streams.
• After: 1 album unit = 10 track downloads = 2,500 ad-supported streams = 1,000 paid streams.

That means 33.3% fewer ad-supported streams are needed to count as an album unit and 20% fewer paid streams are needed to count as an album unit.

Paid vs Free Streams Ratio

• Old ratio: 1 paid = 3 ad supported streams
• New ratio: 1 paid = 2.5 ad-supported streams

In other words, paid streams are still worth more than ad-supported streams but ad-supported have a bit more of importance compared to previous years.