In general, the template expands to produce a table row with the information country, record chart, reference, and peak position for the given album on the particular chart. Tables of such information are commonly used in Wikipedia articles on singles, albums, discographies and artists.

This template does not verify any positions or chart appearances. It primarily provides a reference URL believed to be associated with a reliable source for a recognised chart. The reference URL itself is also not checked. Entering an incorrect or alternative spelling of an album title can produce a bad link, for example. Individual editors will need to follow the URLs generated by the template to verify their usefulness before walking away from an edited article.

Following, the most common parameters used on the template:

{{Album chart|(Chart identifier)|(Peak position)|artist=|album=|refname=|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}

Following, the parameters for any Billboard chart:

{{Album chart|Billboard(Specific identifier)|(Peak position)|artist=|refname=|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}

Following, the parameters for any UK chart (except for the main UK parameter and UKZobbel):

{{Album chart|UK(Specific identifier)|(Peak position)|artist=|date=YYYY-MM-DD|refname=|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}

If the following situations arise:

1. The album name contains special characters that the album= parameter doesn't handle correctly and returns an URL error.
2. When the template will be used for year-end charts instead of weekly charts.
3. When the chart position is retrieved from a source other than the default by {{Album chart}} such as Billboard's Chart Beat or Allmusic (remember that all sources must be reliable).

Then a manual reference might be needed. When manual referencing is activated, the user must provide the url= and title=, and may additionally provide work=, page=, date=, location= and (if specially relevant) publisher=, just like on the {{cite news}} template, to add a different source than the commonly used by {{Album chart}}.

To activate manual referencing, write an "M" as the third parameter of the template, after the country name and chart position, as this:

• {{Album chart|Australia|1|M|title=Madonna's "MDNA" Tops ARIA Charts|url=http://www.billboard.com/#/news/madonnas-mdna-tops-aria-charts-1584845.story|work=Billboard|location=United States'''|access-date=9 June 2012|rowheader=true}}

And it will show in a table as this:

This mode can be used simultaneously with the normal mode of the template, without the need to change the refname parameter.

• The manual referencing mode is not available for the Music DVD charts.

The parameters publish-date, access-date, and refname are optional. Whether the other parameters are required or not depend on the chart being referenced. See the tables in the Support section below.

• (Chart identifier) (or first parameter, without name): Chart identifier. Must be one of the options listed under Chart ID in the tables of the Support section below. Often named as a country or nationality (e.g., Spain or Spanish), but sometimes named for a specific chart (e.g., Billboardjapanhot100). Some charts allow more than one identifier; the results produced are identical.
• (Peak position) (or second parameter, without name): The number you found to be the peak position achieved by the single on the specific chart to date. If the song has not appeared on the chart (due to low popularity or lack of release in a country), you can enter a dash (–, not a hyphen -). Usually, it's better to omit the template completely.
• album: Title of the album. Made-up words, slang, "hip" spellings, tricky punctuation, etc., can make this parameter difficult to correctly determine. Make sure to check the resulting reference URL (Preview) before saving the definitive version of the article.
• dvd: For Music DVDs, the title of the album. Some Music DVD charts need to be provided with this field instead of the album field to correctly work.
• artist: Name of the album's performer. As for the album parameter, odd spellings and clever stylings (e.g., Ke$ha) can make this parameter difficult to correctly determine. The German chart, for example, typically requires names in lastname,firstname format. Make sure to check the resulting reference URL (Preview) before saving the definitive version of the article. Also note that this parameter is required for all charts where you are reusing the references using the default naming (see below). If you use the refname parameter, however, artist may not be absolutely necessary.
• id: Numeric identifier used by some chart listings (see Polish Music Charts). Determined by performing a search at the chart listings' website for archive chart. The chartid can be found in the Web address (URL) by inspection. For example, Polish Airplay Chart of 12 November 2011 at www.zpav.pl has the URL http://www.zpav.pl/rankingi/listy/nielsen/top5.php?lang=2&idlisty=532, so the chartid to use is 532.
• url: The URL of the reference where you found the song's peak position for the chart. Used only for particular charts (see Support tables) where there is no indexing system, not necessary (or even used) for others.
• urltitle: The title of the page for the reference where you found the song's peak position for the chart. Used in combination with the url parameter, and only for particular charts (see Support tables) where there is no indexing system, not necessary (or even used) for others.
• date: Date of the chart in the format YYYYMMDD, an 8-digit number indicating year (Y), month (M) and day (D). Used only for certain charts, as part of their URL strings (see Frenchdigital below); not necessary (or even used) for others. This date is used solely to create the reference URL to the download chart, and is not displayed textually in the references list. For general citation of any chart's publication date, use the optional publish-date parameter.
• year: Four-digit year indicating the year being reported by the chart. Used in combination with the week parameter and only for certain charts; not necessary (or even used) for others. Not necessarily the same as the publication date referred to by publish-date.
• week: Two-digit week indicating the week being reported by the chart. Week is a number from 01 to 53, with a leading 0 for weeks 01-09 (some charts do not require the leading zero; consult Support tables below). Used in combination with the year parameter and only for certain charts; not necessary (or even used) for others. Not necessarily related to the publication date referred to by publish-date.
• note: For adding a note about a particular version of an album, e.g., note=2-disc deluxe edition, or {{Album chart|Australia|1|album=Making Mirrors|artist=Gotye|note=2-disc deluxe edition}}.
• publish-date: Date of publication of the reference generated by the template, in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Optional parameter.
• access-date: Date that the reference generated by the template was retrieved to determine peak position (i.e., last date an editor verified this citation). Should be in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Optional parameter.
• refname: Enables you to specify a name for the reference generated by the template. If no value is provided for refname the default reference name (in the form ac_Chartid_artist) will be used. A reference with a name can be reused for claims elsewhere in the article. Optional parameter.
• refgroup: Enables you to specify a name for the reference group. Optional parameter.
• rowheader: An optional statement to identify the cell that contains this template with scope=row. This should be present in almost all cases.

Billboard charts all require the artist name. Special characters should be omitted from the artist's name to be passed correctly into the URL. For example,

• {{Album chart|Billboard200|1|artist=Pnk}} is the syntax for citing a number 1 position on the Billboard 200 for P!nk.

The reference generated by the template will point to the following URL: http://www.billboard.com/music/pnk/chart-history/billboard-200.

• Entering the artist name as "P!nk" will produce an invalid URL (http://www.billboard.com/music/p!nk/chart-history/billboard-200).

The following Chart IDs are for Music DVDs. These are different from Live albums and some charts defines them separately. The editor must be extremely careful with the naming when using some of the following IDs.

Since this template produces only individual rows within a table, you will need to add (or already have) the table's framework in the article. Here is an example table with its corresponding output:

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+Example album chart
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
! scope="row"| row 1, cell 1
| row 1, cell 2
|-
! scope="row"| row 2, cell 1
| row 2, cell 2
|-
{{Album chart|Billboard200|2|artist=Paramore|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|BillboardRock|1|artist=Paramore|rowheader=true}}
|}

{{reflist}}

Expands into:

Example using chart data from Homework (Daft Punk album):

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+Chart performance for ''Homework''
! scope="col"| Chart (1997)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
{{Album chart|Australia|37|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|refname=ARIA|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Norway|40|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|refname=HungM|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|New Zealand|8|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|refname=HungM2|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Netherlands|25|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Austria|34|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Flanders|7|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Wallonia|9|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|BillboardCanada|15|artist=Daft Punk|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Finland|34|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|France|3|refname=FAC|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Sweden|16|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|UK|8|artist=Daft Punk|album=Homework|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{Album chart|Billboard200|150|artist=Daft Punk|access-date=30 May 2012|rowheader=true}}
|}

{{reflist}}

Expands into:

This template will automatically categorize articles:

• Category:Pages using album chart with unknown parameters (0) – articles with unsupported parameters
• "Album chart usages for X", where X is the chart identifier. This is used to keep track of template usage and to ease maintenance. See Category:Album chart usages (109). Note that alternate names are not handled gracefully, that is, each identifier is categorizes separately.

• {{Single chart}} – counterpart of Album chart for chart positions for single releases.