How to get your first 1,000 subscribers on YouTube

1,000 subscribers is the bar for the YouTube Partner Program's ad revenue tier, but subscribers alone don't get you in. You also need watch hours on long videos or views on Shorts, and a lower tier opens at 500:

The 500-subscriber tier is part of the expanded Partner Program, offered in a long list of countries that YouTube publishes. YouTube's Partner Program page also lists 2-Step Verification on your Google Account, no active Community Guidelines strikes and access to advanced features. The 4,000 hours only count public long videos: watch time in the Shorts feed doesn't count toward them. Work out how far off you are with the YouTube watch hours calculator, and see how to get monetized on YouTube for the rest, including how the review works.

Money aside, subscribers are the people who see your next upload in their Subscriptions feed, and may get a notification when it goes up. They're often the first viewers a new video gets.

There's no honest single answer. YouTube doesn't publish a typical time, and the figures you'll see quoted come from someone's own channel or a small survey. One channel gets there with a single video that takes off; another takes years of steady uploads. What decides it:

• Whether people look for what you make. A video that answers a search keeps getting found long after it's posted. A video only your friends would look for doesn't.
• How many doors you have. Every video is a way in for someone new. Ten good videos give you ten chances; one gives you one.
• Whether a viewer wants the next one. People subscribe when they expect more of what they just enjoyed. A channel about one thing makes that promise clear; a channel about everything doesn't.

Two shortcuts to avoid. Buying subscribers breaks YouTube's fake engagement policy, which can get content removed and channels terminated, and subscribers YouTube identifies as spam don't count toward your total anyway. “Sub4sub”, offering to subscribe to another channel if they subscribe to yours, is named in the same policy as not allowed. Asking your own viewers to subscribe is fine.

The quickest way to your first subscribers is to be the answer to something people already type into YouTube. Before you film, check there's demand:

1. Type your topic into YouTube's search bar and read the suggestions. They're the searches people actually make, in their words.
2. Open the top results. If they're old, long-winded or don't quite answer the question, there's room for yours.
3. Choose a lane narrow enough to own, like “sourdough for beginners” rather than “cooking”, and make several videos in it, so a viewer who likes one finds more.

YouTube's own advice splits titles into two kinds: searchable ones that say clearly what to expect, for people looking for that topic, and intriguing ones that spark curiosity, for people browsing. A new channel has no audience browsing for it yet, so searchable titles are the safer start.

Once you have some viewers, YouTube Analytics shows you where to go next: in the Audience tab, the reports “Channels that your audience watches” and “What your audience watches” list what your viewers watch elsewhere. YouTube suggests them for topic, title, thumbnail and collaboration ideas.

A video nobody clicks can't win a subscriber. YouTube's tips for titles: be accurate (if the title doesn't match the video, viewers may stop watching, which YouTube says can hurt discoverability), keep it short with the most important words first, and use ALL CAPS and emoji sparingly.

For thumbnails, YouTube suggests:

• Keep the design simple, and if you add text, use a font that's easy to read.
• Use the rule of thirds, and upload the image as large as possible, since it shows at different sizes on each device.
• Take photos while you shoot, so you have options when you upload.
• Make the title and thumbnail work together to tell the story, and try updating older thumbnails to win new viewers.

To see what works in your lane, save the thumbnails of the top videos with the YouTube thumbnail downloader and put yours beside them at the size they're seen on a phone. For Shorts, make a 9:16 cover from a frame of the video with the Shorts thumbnail maker.

Search brings people who are looking for you. Shorts bring people who aren't: the Shorts feed shows them to viewers who've never seen your channel. A Short cut from your long video is a trailer for it, and YouTube lets you put a link to the full video right on the Short.

• Add a related video. In YouTube Studio, open the Short from Content, select a related video from your channel and save. Viewers see a link below your channel handle in the Shorts player. It needs advanced features, and the video has to be public or unlisted.
• Or cut it in YouTube Studio. Shorts made with Studio's Clips and Shorts tool get their source video as the related video automatically, unless the Short is private, unlisted or made for kids. YouTube also says you won't be penalized for using your own content in a Short.
• Pick moments that leave a question. The best Short for subscribers is a complete moment that makes people want the rest: the start of a story, one tip from a list, a result without the how.

Shorts' own watch time doesn't count toward the 4,000 hours, but the hours from people who tap through to the long video do. Here's what each kind of post tends to do for a growing channel:

The catch is time: cutting three or four Shorts from every long video, reframing each to vertical and captioning it, can take as long as editing the video. Clyper does that part from the video's YouTube link: it reads the transcript to find the best moments, cuts each on whole sentences, frames it 9:16 on whoever's talking and captions every word. You choose how many, up to one for every 2 minutes of video; you post them and set the related video. More in how to turn a YouTube video into Shorts, how to make YouTube Shorts and how to get more views on YouTube Shorts.

YouTube's rules say plainly that you're allowed to encourage viewers to subscribe. The question is when. An ask in the first seconds, before you've given anything, is easy to skip. An ask right after the payoff lands:

• Ask after you've delivered. Once the tip has worked or the story has landed, a viewer knows what your videos are worth.
• Say what they get. “Subscribe” is a request; “I post a new beginner bake every Thursday” is a reason.
• Point to the next video. A series, or a video that picks up where this one ends, gives a reason to come back that's stronger than any ask.

End screens do this on screen. In YouTube Studio, open the video, select Editor, then End screen: you can add a Subscribe element, a video (your latest, a specific one, or the one YouTube picks as best for each viewer) and a playlist, up to four elements on a 16:9 video. They show in the last 5 to 20 seconds, and the video needs to be at least 25 seconds long. End screens aren't shown on videos made for kids, and viewers can hide them.

Consistency isn't about posting every day. It's about posting at a pace you can keep for months, so you learn from each video and your subscribers know when to expect the next. Here's an example week built around one long video. The numbers in it are assumptions: change the pace to fit your time.

For the chapters, see how to add timestamps to a YouTube video: they help viewers find their way around, and they mark the moments to cut as Shorts.

Posts. The Posts tab lets you share polls, quizzes, images, GIFs, text and videos. Posts show on your channel, and may show on viewers' Home and in their Subscriptions feed; image posts can also show in the Shorts feed. Posts aren't available on channels set as made for kids, or in Germany for now.

Collaborations. Making a video with another creator puts you in front of their audience. YouTube Studio has a feature for it: when you upload, under Collaboration in the Details step, invite the other channel. Once they accept, each collaborator's name and a subscribe button for each channel show on the video, and YouTube says it aims to recommend it to the audiences of everyone involved. The revenue goes to the channel that posted it; it isn't split. Pick creators of a similar size in a nearby lane, so both audiences gain something.

Your own numbers beat any advice once you have a few videos up. In YouTube Studio, open Analytics and check:

• Content tab, Subscribers. The subscribers you gained from each kind of content: videos, Shorts, live streams, posts and others (YouTube search and your channel page). It shows which format turns viewers into subscribers for you.
• Audience tab, new, casual and regular viewers. Your monthly audience split by how often they watch. Regular viewers have watched at least once a month for more than 6 months of the past year. A growing share of casual and regular viewers means people are coming back; returning viewers, the people who'd watched before and came back in the period, is the metric for it.
• Subscribers by video, in Advanced Mode. Click See more on any report, or Advanced Mode at the top right, to compare videos, or groups of videos, by subscribers gained. YouTube's own example: put your tutorials in one group and your vlogs in another, and see which gains more.
• Click-through rate in the first 24 hours. YouTube suggests checking it on Home and Suggested for new viewers, and in the Subscriptions feed for subscribers, to see how a title and thumbnail did.

A simple number to track for each video: subscribers gained per 1,000 views. Divide the subscribers it brought by its views and multiply by 1,000. A video that does twice the rate of your others has found something your viewers want more of: make the next video like it.

Don't worry if Analytics and your channel page disagree: YouTube says the subscriber count in Analytics runs about 48 hours behind, while it checks for spam.