Now I know some people don’t care about this weird tier assignment that some Kpop stans assign to groups but I’m genuinely confused about what people mean when they call a K-pop group “mid-tier” or “top-tier.”
What is actually being measured when people use these terms? Is it album sales, Korean charting, streams, general public recognition, fandom size, touring, past success, or some combination of all of them?
Because when I look at different groups, the way people use these tiers sometimes seems inconsistent.
For example, tripleS has sold over 567k, while ITZY sold around 369k, yet I generally see ITZY described as a top-tier group while tripleS is still often considered mid-tier. So clearly album sales alone don’t determine it.
Then what would you classify KiiiKiii as? They’ve hit #1 on the charts, recently won a daesang, and their latest song is also doing well. On the other hand, their physical sales are much weaker, with their first-week sales being only around 88k. Would strong Korean chart performance outweigh weaker physical sales?
And what about RESCENE? Would you consider them a top-tier group now if they’re dominating in Korea and on Korean charts despite having only decent physical sales? Or is that still not enough to move a group out of the “mid-tier” category?
I’m also confused about how we’re supposed to classify groups that were very clearly top-tier at their peak but aren’t putting up the same numbers anymore.
Red Velvet is probably the clearest example. Their latest album sold only around 143k and the song did decently on the charts, but obviously that’s poor compared with peak Red Velvet. At the same time, this is still Red Velvet — one of the biggest girl groups of the third generation.
Just because Red Velvet haven’t maintained their popularity to the same extent as BLACKPINK and TWICE, can we really retroactively start calling them a mid-tier group? Does a group’s historical status count when we’re assigning these tiers, or are people only talking about their current popularity?
The same question applies to even older groups like Apink, although I personally remember Apink as being somewhere around that mid-to-top tier for much of their career.
Boy groups make this even more confusing.
How would you classify ZEROBASEONE now? ZB1 used to sell millions with each album, whereas they’re now selling around 500k. That’s obviously still a good number, but nowhere near their peak.
Do you still consider ZB1 top-tier because of what they’ve already achieved?
And if historical reputation matters for ZB1, how would you classify AND2BLE? They have former ZB1 members but obviously don’t have the ZB1 name attached to them, yet they’re selling even more, at around 761k.
DAY6 is another example that confuses me. They sell less physically than KickFlip, but I don’t think many people would argue that KickFlip’s music is more popular with the general public than DAY6’s. DAY6 has the second-most digital points in 2026, only behind BTS, yet when I’ve called DAY6 a top-tier group before, some people have disagreed and described them as mid-tier.
So how much should Korean digital performance matter compared with physical album sales?
I’ve also seen people still describe MONSTA X as a top-tier group despite their most recent album having relatively poor sales. Does their established name and past success mean they remain top-tier regardless of how their newer releases perform, or is there a point where declining numbers change how a group should be classified?
GOT7 is an even more interesting example. At their peak, they were arguably one of the top three K-pop groups internationally during the third generation and were generally considered a top-tier boy group. But their latest album only sold around 180k. Would you still consider GOT7 top-tier today because of everything they’ve achieved and how established their name is, or does current performance matter enough that they should now be placed in a lower tier? Essentially, how far can a group’s name and legacy carry their tier status?
Then there’s &TEAM. Would you consider them a top-tier group because they can sell over one million copies? Their recent album, for example, sold over 1.2 million copies on its first day. If million-selling groups aren’t necessarily top-tier, what additional criteria would they need to meet?
I guess my overall question is: what actually separates a mid-tier group from a top-tier group?
If Group A has huge physical sales but relatively weak digitals, Group B has huge Korean digitals but weaker physical sales, and Group C currently has weaker numbers than both but has years of major hits and name recognition behind them, how do you decide which one is “top-tier”?
Or is the entire tier system basically arbitrary?
It sometimes feels like different people are using completely different criteria, and obviously fandom bias also comes into it. Maybe there isn’t actually an objective line between “mid-tier” and “top-tier” in the first place.
I’m curious how other people personally define these tiers and which metrics you think matter the most.
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