Inflammation is one of the most important causes leading to colorectal carcinogenesis, and inflammatory biomarkers such as the platelet‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (
PLR
) might predict survival in colorectal cancer (
CRC
). However, the prognostic value of
PLR
in
CRC
patients remains controversial. The prognostic value of
PLR
was comprehensively analyzed in 12 articles including 3541
CRC
patients (10 for overall survival (
OS
), seven for disease‐free survival (
DFS
), three for recurrence‐free survival (
RFS
), and three for cancer‐specific survival (
CSS
)) in this study. The overall pooled hazard ratios (
HR
s) of
PLR
for
OS
,
DFS
, and
CSS
were significant at 1.29 (95% confidence interval,
CI
= 1.13–1.47,
P
H
= 0.149), 1.43 (95%
CI
= 1.03–1.97,
P
H
= 0.025), and 1.26 (95%
CI
= 1.04–1.52,
P
H
= 0.223), respectively. However, there was no evidence of significance for
RFS
(
HR
= 1.29, 95%
CI
= 0.98–1.70,
P
H
= 0.231) in our study. Stratified analyses indicated elevated
PLR
was a predictor of poor
OS
(metastatic patients) and
DFS
(Caucasian population) and was also significantly associated with
OS
in univariate analysis (
HR
= 1.35, 95%
CI
= 1.14–1.60,
P
H
= 0.532) and those only treated surgically (
HR
= 1.37, 95%
CI
= 1.10–1.70,
P
H
= 1.080). However, our findings indicated that elevated
PLR
is a promising prognostic biomarker for colorectal cancer, especially in metastatic Caucasian
CRC
patients.