How scoring works
Honest by design.
The scorecard grades four things we can measure fairly from public YouTube data, then blends them into one letter. Everything below is exactly how the number is built — no black box, no vanity metrics. The overall grade is a weighted score on a 0–100 scale (A ≥ 88, B ≥ 74, C ≥ 60, D ≥ 45, otherwise F). Any subscore we can’t measure for a given channel is excluded and its weight redistributed — we never invent a number to fill a gap.
The weights aren’t arbitrary. Momentum carries the most because reach relative to your own audience is the clearest sign of whether a channel is growing or coasting, and it’s the metric hardest to fake. Consistency comes next because the algorithm rewards a dependable publishing rhythm more than any single upload. Packaging and engagement matter, but they’re easier to improve once the first two are healthy, so they carry less. If you scored the same channel twice a week apart, the numbers should barely move — the tool is built to read the underlying trajectory, not the noise of one good or bad video.
Momentum 40% weight
The single biggest signal: the median views of your last ten settled long-form videos divided by your subscriber count. A channel that reaches a large share of its own audience is compounding; one that doesn’t has a distribution problem, not a subscriber problem. Bands run from an A above 10% down to an F below 0.3%. Crucially, momentum only counts long-form videos that are at least 14 days old — a maturity guard. Fresh uploads haven’t earned their full view count yet, so counting them would unfairly punish channels that publish often. For a brand-new channel with fewer than three matured videos, we fall back to all long-form uploads and say so.
Consistency 25% weight
How reliably you show up. We look at how many videos you posted in the last 90 days, the median gap between uploads, and how much that gap varies. Weekly-or-better publishing earns an A; roughly biweekly a B; monthly a C; sporadic a D. A dormancy override applies — if the channel has gone dark for more than 60 days, it lands an F regardless of past cadence, because the algorithm has already stopped counting on you.
Packaging 15% weight
The discipline of your titles: what share land in the 40–65 character sweet spot that reads well in search and on mobile, plus basic hygiene — are titles shouting in ALL CAPS or leaning on spammy punctuation? This is a continuous 0–100 score. One honest limitation: thumbnails are the other half of packaging and we deliberately do not score them, because thumbnail quality and whether an image is custom simply aren’t assessable from public data. We’d rather leave it out than fake it.
Engagement 20% weight
The median of likes plus comments divided by views across your recent long-form videos — a proxy for how much your audience actually cares versus passively watches. Above 4% is an A; below 0.5% an F. It rewards a small, active audience over a large, indifferent one.
What we report but don’t grade
We show your Shorts-to-long-form balance as context, not a grade — there’s no single right ratio. And two of the biggest real levers on YouTube, thumbnail click-through and audience retention, live inside YouTube Studio and can’t be seen from outside. That’s the honest ceiling of any public tool.
Disclaimer: every grade here is a directional estimate from public YouTube data only. It’s a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict on your channel. The paid audit — with your real analytics — is where the full picture comes together.
