FAQs

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What is Pandora?

Pandora is personalized internet radio that is designed to help you discover new music you’ll love mixed in with music you already know.

Pandora is powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started over ten years ago to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Pandora is always free, with the option to pay for additional features.

Just type in one of your favorite artists or songs, to give us an idea of the kind of music you’re looking for. We’ll launch a streaming “Pandora station” to explore sounds we think you might like.

What is a Pandora station?

A Pandora station is a personalized stream of music. You start a Pandora station by entering an artist name or a song title that is similar to the kind of music you’d like to hear.

Pandora compares your starting point to each song in Pandora’s massive music collection, using the detailed musical analysis in the Music Genome Project. Then your new Pandora station starts playing songs from a related corner of the musical universe.
Each Pandora station is completely unique to you. What you hear on your stations will be different from what everyone else hears, even when starting from the same artist or song.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Pandora’s music licenses prevent Pandora stations from doing certain things. For information on these licensing limits, please click here.

TIP: You can have up to 100 Pandora stations in your Pandora account. Pandora shines best when you have several different stations to choose from.

Where can I listen to Pandora?

Our goal is for you to be able to listen to Pandora everywhere– any time, any place.

Note that all Pandora accounts are portable, which means you can always access your own personalized Pandora stations from any computer or device that supports Pandora.
Right now you can listen to your own unique Pandora account:

TIP: For more information about each of these ways to listen to Pandora, click the appropriate link above.

Why can’t my Pandora station do certain things?

Our music licenses forbid hearing a song or artist in a predictable way.
Here are our primary licensing restrictions:

  • We cannot play a specific song or artist right away, or “on demand.”
  • We cannot play more than four songs credited to a particular artist name in a three-hour period. This is the maximum, so each artist may play even less often than that.
  • A Pandora station cannot play a playlist of only certain songs or artists: we must include a mix of similar songs and artists on each Pandora station.
  • You cannot rewind, or immediately replay, any song on Pandora.
  • You cannot download or cache music from Pandora. Pandora requires an active internet connection. If you’d like to hear the music Pandora plays for you offline, we make it easy to purchase the music you hear.
  • A Pandora station cannot provide unlimited song “skips.”

Why can’t I “skip” as many songs as I like?

Due to the terms of our music licenses, we must limit the number of times you move on to a new song in any of these ways, known as “skips”:

There are two types of skip limits:

  • All Pandora listeners are limited to 6 skips per hour, per station.
  • Free, ad-supported Pandora accounts are limited to 12 total skips per day, across all stations.

Can I play Pandora in my business or get a commercial license to play Pandora?

If you are playing Pandora for yourself while you work, that’s great– it’s considered personal use even though you are at work. In fact, a large number of our listeners do this.

On the other hand, if you are playing Pandora over loudspeakers at your business for your clients or customers, this is considered commercial use and is not permitted by our music licenses or Terms of Use.

Nor can we offer commercial licenses for Pandora for any other purpose.

 

Can I listen to Pandora outside of the United States?

Unfortunately, no: we can only stream Pandora to listeners within the United States.

Pandora has always believed strongly in honoring licensing and royalty guidelines as determined by the artists, labels and publishers. In the U.S. there is a federal statute called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that provides a comprehensive license for streaming music via Pandora and similar services. At this time, there is no equivalent music licensing system outside the USA.
However, no matter where you are in the world, you can access non-music-streaming features of the site, such as music recommendations and artist information, by directly visiting http://www.pandora.com/backstage.

Also, if you visit the www.Pandora.com homepage, you may enter your email address to be notified if and when Pandora becomes available legally in your country.

Can I donate to Pandora?

We are happy to encourage anyone who would like to help support Pandora to upgrade to Pandora One, our paid subscription service.

Also, if you wish, feel free to click links anywhere within Pandora to purchase music from iTunes or Amazon, as we receive a small commission from those sales.

Is Pandora free?

Yes.

Registering for Pandora will provide you with a free, advertising-supported Pandora account.
You are never required to pay anything to use Pandora.
However, free Pandora accounts will only play 40 hours of music for free per month. Only a small percentage of Pandora listeners ever reach this limit. However, if you do reach the 40-hour limit and the music stops playing on your computer, you have two reasonably-priced options to continue listening.

You can also choose to pay nothing instead, in which case you will receive another free 40 listening hours on the first day of the next calendar month.

Each month in which you hit this 40-hour limit, you’ll have the same choice, month in and month out. We never bill you after the fact, nor do we charge you automatically, or anything sneaky like that. If you’re giving us money, you’ll know it– each payment will be up-front and initiated on your end via credit card.

How do I register for a Pandora account?

Registering for a Pandora account lets you create your own free personalized internet radio! To register for a Pandora account from your computer, just follow these numbered steps.

TIP: If you’re using Pandora on a device, please click here to read the additional information at the very end of this entry.