How Long Should a YouTube Video Be? Data From 2,000 Videos on 80 Channels

Longer than you might think, but it matters less than you'd expect. On the same channels, long-form videos of 20 minutes or more got slightly more views than the channel's usual, and videos under 8 minutes got fewer. Between 12 and 40 minutes, length made almost no difference.

We looked at 2,010 recent long-form videos from 80 YouTube channels across 15 niches, pulled in October 2026, and measured each one against the same channel's usual views. We also compared each channel's Shorts with its long-form videos, and checked which upload days did best.

The short answer

• Under 8 minutes underperformed: 0.75 to 0.92 times the channel's usual views.
• 12 to 40 minutes was the sweet spot, but a flat one: 1.00 to 1.02 times the usual.
• The typical long-form video was 22 minutes long. Education channels ran much longer, at a median of 101 minutes.
• Shorts got about half the views of long-form on the same channel, and beat long-form on only 27% of channels.
• Upload day barely mattered. Saturday was slightly above normal, at 1.06.

YouTube views by video length

A score of 1.0 means the channel's usual views. Lines show the 95% range.

Length	Videos	Channels	Vs usual views	Got 2x the usual
Under 4 minutes	26	10	0.75	15%
4 to 8 minutes	146	23	0.92	18%
8 to 12 minutes	301	41	0.97	19%
12 to 20 minutes	420	57	1.00	19%
20 to 40 minutes	730	60	1.02	19%
Over 40 minutes	387	39	1.02	24%

The pattern is consistent but gentle. Views climb from short to long and then flatten out past 12 minutes. Very long videos, over 40 minutes, were the most likely to break out, with 24% getting double the channel's usual.

Why would longer videos do a bit better? YouTube ranks on watch time as well as clicks, and a 30-minute video someone watches halfway earns far more watch time than a 5-minute video they finish. It also has more room for mid-roll ads, which is why many channels aim for longer videos anyway.

A note on YouTube's August change

On 27 August 2026, YouTube started counting a public view as soon as a video begins playing, including autoplay previews. We measured what that did in our view count study: likes per view fell by 41% on videos published after it.

So we checked the length pattern on both sides of the change:

Length	Before 20 August	After 28 August
Under 8 minutes	0.80	0.98
8 to 12 minutes	0.99	0.99
12 to 20 minutes	1.00	1.00
20 to 40 minutes	1.01	1.00
Over 40 minutes	1.04	1.00

Before the change, short long-form videos clearly lagged. Since the change, the gap has closed. One likely reason: autoplay and hover previews now count as views, and they count the same whether a video is 6 minutes or 60. If your channel reports views, this is worth knowing. Under the new counting, view counts reward length less, while watch time still does.

How long are YouTube videos by niche?

Niche	Median length	Likes per 1,000 views
Education	101 minutes	12
Gaming	34 minutes	15
Books	34 minutes	42
Travel	31 minutes	23
Beauty	25 minutes	30
Home	24 minutes	44
Fitness	23 minutes	21
Fashion	22 minutes	31
Finance	18 minutes	19
Food	16 minutes	19
Business	11 minutes	26
Tech	11 minutes	12
Pets	10.5 minutes	18
Parenting	10 minutes	13

Length norms vary hugely. Long documentaries pull education's median to over an hour and a half, while tech, pets and parenting channels mostly stay around 10 minutes. Compare your length with channels in your niche, not with YouTube as a whole. Home and books channels earn the most likes per view, at over 40 per thousand.

Shorts vs long-form on the same channel

61 of the 88 channels in our sample posted Shorts. On the 51 with enough of both, we compared the median Short with the median long-form video:

Measure	Result
Channels compared	51
Shorts' median views as a share of long-form's	48%
Channels where Shorts beat long-form	27%
Median Short	29,056 views
Median long-form video	71,587 views

On most channels, a Short got about half the views of a long-form video. Shorts can still be worth it: they're quicker to make, and they bring in viewers who might never click a 30-minute video. But on these channels, long-form was the bigger source of views. Our 2025 comparison of Shorts and long-form has more on how the two formats behave.

The best day to upload on YouTube

Day (New York time)	Videos	Vs usual views
Monday	277	1.00
Tuesday	252	0.97
Wednesday	245	1.00
Thursday	247	0.99
Friday	231	1.02
Saturday	386	1.06
Sunday	372	0.97

Saturday was slightly above normal, and its range just touches 1.0, so it's a lean at most. Upload time made even less difference: every block from 6am to 9pm New York time landed within 2% of normal. As with TikTok, the best time to post matters much less than the video.

So how long should your YouTube video be?

1. Aim past 8 minutes for long-form. Under that, videos lagged the channel's usual, at least before August.
2. Don't stretch for length. Past 12 minutes, extra length added very little. A tight 15-minute video beats a padded 30-minute one for the people watching.
3. Match your niche. A 10-minute tech review and a 90-minute history documentary are both normal for their audiences.
4. Use Shorts to find viewers, long-form to keep them. On most channels, long-form videos earned about twice the views of Shorts.
5. Upload when it suits you. Saturday had a slight edge. No day was clearly bad.

Check a channel's lengths

This pulls a channel's latest long-form videos and scores them by length against the channel's usual. In JavaScript (Node 18 or later, as an .mjs file):

const API = "https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape";
const HEADERS = { "x-api-key": process.env.SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY };
const BANDS = [
  [0, 480, "under 8 min"],
  [480, 720, "8-12 min"],
  [720, 1200, "12-20 min"],
  [1200, 2400, "20-40 min"],
  [2400, Infinity, "40 min+"],
];

// Lists can come back as arrays or as objects with numbered keys
const asList = (x) => (Array.isArray(x) ? x : Object.values(x ?? {}));
const median = (xs) => {
  const s = [...xs].sort((a, b) => a - b);
  const mid = Math.floor(s.length / 2);
  return s.length % 2 ? s[mid] : (s[mid - 1] + s[mid]) / 2;
};

const params = new URLSearchParams({ handle: "@mkbhd", sort: "latest" });
const res = await fetch(`${API}/youtube/channel-videos?${params}`, {
  headers: HEADERS,
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}: ${await res.text()}`);
const data = (await res.json()).data ?? {};
const videos = asList(data.videos).filter(
  (v) => v.viewCountInt && v.lengthSeconds,
);
const usual = median(videos.map((v) => v.viewCountInt));
for (const [lo, hi, label] of BANDS) {
  const scores = videos
    .filter(
      (v) => lo <= Number(v.lengthSeconds) && Number(v.lengthSeconds) < hi,
    )
    .map((v) => v.viewCountInt / usual);
  if (scores.length)
    console.log(
      `${label.padEnd(12)} ${median(scores).toFixed(2)}x usual (${scores.length} videos)`,
    );
}

And in Python:

import os
from statistics import median

import requests

API = "https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape"
HEADERS = {"x-api-key": os.environ["SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY"]}
BANDS = [(0, 480, "under 8 min"), (480, 720, "8-12 min"), (720, 1200, "12-20 min"),
         (1200, 2400, "20-40 min"), (2400, 10**6, "40 min+")]

def as_list(x):
    # Lists can come back as lists or as dicts with numbered keys
    return list(x.values()) if isinstance(x, dict) else (x or [])

r = requests.get(f"{API}/youtube/channel-videos", headers=HEADERS,
                 params={"handle": "@mkbhd", "sort": "latest"}, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
data = r.json().get("data") or {}
videos = [v for v in as_list(data.get("videos")) if v.get("viewCountInt") and v.get("lengthSeconds")]
usual = median(v["viewCountInt"] for v in videos)
for lo, hi, label in BANDS:
    scores = [v["viewCountInt"] / usual for v in videos if lo <= int(v["lengthSeconds"]) < hi]
    if scores:
        print(f"{label:<12} {median(scores):.2f}x usual ({len(scores)} videos)")

One call returns about 30 videos for 1 credit. Add continuationToken from the response to go further back.

How we did it

• Channels: 88 YouTube channels across 15 niches, found through YouTube search in October 2026, up to seven per niche.
• Videos: the latest long-form uploads and Shorts on each channel, pulled on 19 October 2026 with SociaVault's channel videos and channel Shorts endpoints. 2,468 long-form videos and 2,412 Shorts.
• Filters: long-form videos 7 to 365 days old, from channels with at least 8 of them: 2,010 videos from 80 channels.
• Score: each video's views divided by the channel's median, then the median per length band or day. The 95% ranges come from resampling 1,000 times.
• Cost: 191 credits.

Limits. Older videos have had longer to collect views, and a channel's recent uploads may be a different length mix from its older ones, so length and age travel together a little. The view count change in August also mixes two counting rules into one dataset, which is why we show the split. Very short long-form videos are rare, so the under-4-minute figure rests on 26 videos. The aggregated tables are in the CSV download.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ideal length for a YouTube video?

On the channels we studied, 12 to 40 minutes performed best, but only slightly better than 8 to 12. Videos under 8 minutes did worst, at 0.75 to 0.92 times the channel's usual views.

Do longer YouTube videos get more views?

Slightly. Videos over 20 minutes got 1.02 times the channel's usual views, and videos over 40 minutes were the most likely to double it. Since YouTube's August 2026 view count change, the gap between short and long videos has narrowed.

How long is the average YouTube video?

The median long-form video in our sample was about 22 minutes. It varies widely by niche, from about 10 minutes for tech and parenting to over 90 minutes for education.

Do YouTube Shorts get more views than long videos?

Not on most channels. The median Short got 48% of the views of the same channel's median long-form video, and Shorts won on only 27% of channels.

What is the best day to upload on YouTube?

Saturday was slightly above normal at 1.06 times the channel's usual views. Every other day was within 3% of normal.

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