Open data

21,657 TikTok accounts · 4,903 YouTube channels · CC BY 4.0

Small TikTok accounts earn seven times the likes per follower of large ones

Measured across 21,657 TikTok accounts and 4,903 YouTube channels past one million subscribers. The median account under 10,000 followers collects likes worth 15.9% of its followers on a video; at 1M-10M followers the median is 2.1%. The median YouTube channel with 1M-3M subscribers adds 119,146 views a day; above 10M, 2.1 million. Free data, CC BY 4.0.

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15.9%
Median likes per video, TikTok under 10k followers
as a share of followers
2.1%
Median likes per video, TikTok 1M-10M followers
as a share of followers
119,146
Median views a day, YouTube 1M-3M subscribers
14-day window
2,094,581
Median views a day, YouTube 10M+ subscribers
14-day window

TikTok: likes per video by follower band

Lifetime likes divided by lifetime videos, per account, then percentiles across every measured account in the band. The bars show the median as a share of the account’s followers.

Likes per video
FollowersAccountsMedian followersMedian videosp25Medianp75p90
Under 10k11,8309237325954503,003
10k-100k5,13327,3833224961,3104,17215,107
100k-1M2,942249,7186763,1707,92321,31757,455
1M-10M1,3262,629,2341,15326,20362,019140,542330,627
10M+42617,484,3951,295224,730402,321890,9901,919,671
Likes per video as a share of followers
Followersp25Medianp75p90
Under 10k5.2%15.9%64.7%324.4%
10k-100k1.8%4.4%13.1%48.7%
100k-1M1.3%2.9%7.3%18.1%
1M-10M1.1%2.1%4.4%8.5%
10M+1.2%2.2%3.9%8.0%

Three figures to quote

15.9%

of its followers: what the median account under 10,000 followers collects in likes on a video. At 1M-10M followers the median is 2.1%, above 10M it is 2.2%.

95

likes: the median video on an account under 10,000 followers. 1,310 at 10k-100k, 7,923 at 100k-1M, 62,019 at 1M-10M, 402,321 above 10M.

324.4%

of its followers: the 90th percentile under 10,000 followers. One account in ten there averages more than three likes per follower on a video. Above 10M the same percentile is 8.0%.

What the TikTok data shows

Why the share is so high for small accounts

The figure is a lifetime ratio: every like an account ever collected, divided by every video it still has published. One video that travelled far beyond a small follower base moves the ratio a long way and stays in it for good, which is why the API’s own caveat says spread widens sharply in the smallest band and that the median is the figure to lead with. Two more forces likely add to it, and the data does not separate them: TikTok distributes videos by recommendation rather than through follower feeds, so likes do not scale with followers, and a catalogue built from lookups tends to hold the small accounts somebody had a reason to look up. The table shows the pattern, not which cause weighs most.

Followers grow 19,000-fold; likes per video grow 4,200-fold

Between the smallest and the largest band, the median follower count rises from 923 to 17,484,395. The median likes per video rises from 95 to 402,321. Likes do scale with audience, but well short of proportionally, which is why a per-follower rate that looks poor on a large account can be a perfectly normal one for its size.

Large accounts are a tighter target

The gap between the 25th and 75th percentile is twelvefold under 10,000 followers (5.2% to 64.7%) and threefold above 10 million (1.2% to 3.9%). A benchmark for a large account describes its peers closely; a benchmark for a small one describes a very wide field.

YouTube: views per day by subscriber band

Views added across the channel’s whole back catalogue over 14 days, divided by the days spanned, per channel; then percentiles across every channel in the band. Channels past one million subscribers only; the Method section says why.

Views per day over 14 days
SubscribersChannelsMeasuredCoveragep10p25Medianp75p90p99
1M-3M3,0063,006100.0%4,93331,202119,146334,490800,2403,540,411
3M-10M1,4331,433100.0%26,521139,390449,1861,086,8002,371,3418,687,248
10M+464464100.0%206,364645,9432,094,5814,730,95311,045,83659,926,310

Three figures to quote

119,146

views a day: the median channel with 1M-3M subscribers. 449,186 at 3M-10M and 2,094,581 above 10M.

162x

between the 90th and 10th percentile inside the 1M-3M band: 800,240 views a day against 4,933. Subscriber count places a channel within two orders of magnitude of its daily views, no closer.

4,903

channels: every channel past one million subscribers in the catalogue had a usable 14-day series, so the ladders stand on the whole population rather than a sample.

What the YouTube data shows

Why there is no band below one million subscribers

The floor is a measurement, not a pricing decision, in the API’s own words. The crawler writes 5,000 to 8,000 rows a day against a 35,149-channel catalogue and spends them on the largest channels: in the 30 days to 31 August 2026 every channel above one million subscribers had 14 or more observed days, only 261 of the 10,421 channels between 300,000 and one million did, and below 100,000 not a single channel had any. A percentile drawn from the 300k-1M band would rank a channel against the fifth of its peers that happen to be crawled, so none is published.

Subscriber counts cannot carry a daily benchmark on YouTube

YouTube publishes subscriber counts rounded to three significant figures, and the catalogue stores what YouTube publishes. On 19 September 2026 the 100 largest one-day subscriber gains in the catalogue took only six distinct values, every one a multiple of 1,000: 62 of them were exactly 10,000 and 27 exactly 1,000. A day’s subscriber change on YouTube is a rounding step, not a gain, which is why this page benchmarks views rather than subscribers and does not publish a views-per-subscriber figure.

A few channels past 10 million add nothing

The bottom of every ladder reads zero: the 0th percentile is 0 in all three bands, and the 1st percentile is already above zero, so at most about one channel in a hundred in each band added no views at all across the 14 days. A channel that has stopped is still a channel in its band, and it stays in the population the percentiles are drawn from.

One day, 19 September 2026: the 100 biggest audience gains

The 100 largest one-day gains in each catalogue, ranked by absolute change, so large accounts dominate by construction. Shown as a band distribution; no account is named.

One day, 19 September 2026: the 100 biggest audience gains
AudienceTikTok accounts in the top 100YouTube channels in the top 100
Under 1k00
1k-10k00
10k-100k00
100k-1M035
1M-10M4262
10M+583

TikTok: median gain 5,681 followers, largest 115,099, 98 distinct values among 100. YouTube: median gain 10,000, largest 100,000, six distinct values, all multiples of 1,000.

Method

  1. Start from the Pinlyx Data API catalogues of public TikTok accounts and YouTube channels: 22,419 TikTok accounts, of which 21,657 (96.6%) carry the three counters the ratio needs, and 35,149 YouTube channels, read on 19 September 2026.
  2. TikTok, quoting the API’s definition: “Lifetime like total divided by lifetime video count, reported both absolutely and as a percent of followers. TikTok publishes no per-post data and no view counts to a logged-out reader, so this is the only engagement signal available at account level.” Accounts with no videos are excluded. Every band clears the API’s 100-account floor for a reliable band; the smallest holds 426.
  3. YouTube: views per day is the last observed lifetime view total minus the first, divided by the days spanned, over a 14-day window with at least five observed days. Percentiles are taken across every channel in the band. Three bands start at one million subscribers, and in each the measured count equals the channel count.
  4. One-day gains: the movers feed for 19 September 2026, the 100 largest audience gains per platform, counted into audience bands.
  5. All figures were read on 19 September 2026: the newest TikTok measurement at 10:34 UTC, the YouTube ladder computed at 10:48 UTC. The page rounds; the CSV keeps the original values.

Limits

The catalogues are built from lookups and monitoring, not drawn at random from either platform, so they do not represent the platform as a whole. Both lean toward large, English-language accounts: in the API’s own block samples, 99 of 156 TikTok rows and 106 of 165 YouTube rows were classified as English, and 48 of 140 YouTube channels as based in the United States; those samples are small and the API labels them approximate. TikTok publishes no view counts and no per-post data to a logged-out reader, so likes per video is the only engagement signal available, and it is a lifetime ratio: an account that was large three years ago and is quiet now still reports well. TikTok rounded follower and like counters above one million until 24 August 2026; the bands read each account’s current row, refreshed from exact counters since the cutover, so the rounding does not reach these figures. YouTube rounds subscriber counts to three significant figures at the source, which is why views rather than subscribers are benchmarked, why no views-per-subscriber figure is published, and why there is no band below one million subscribers. The one-day table is a single day ranked by absolute change and says nothing about smaller accounts.

Cite this dataset

The data is CC BY 4.0. Use it, quote it, republish it. The only ask is attribution.

Citation
Guven, E. (2026). TikTok and YouTube video engagement benchmarks 2026 [Data set]. Pinlyx. https://pinlyx.com/research/tiktok-youtube-benchmarks-2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22844602
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22844602(permanent archive on Zenodo)
HTML
<a href="https://pinlyx.com/research/tiktok-youtube-benchmarks-2026">TikTok and YouTube video engagement benchmarks 2026</a>, Pinlyx, CC BY 4.0
Download CSVDownload JSON

TikTok: 21,657 of 22,419 accounts measured (96.6%). YouTube: 4,903 channels past one million subscribers in a 35,149-channel catalogue, 14-day window.

Frequently asked questions

By this measure, the median account under 10,000 followers earns likes worth 15.9% of its followers per video; 4.4% at 10k-100k, 2.9% at 100k-1M, 2.1% at 1M-10M and 2.2% above 10M. An account above its band’s 75th percentile (13.1% at 10k-100k, 4.4% at 1M-10M) sits in the top quarter of its peers. This is likes per video divided by followers, not the likes-plus-comments-plus-shares rate some benchmarks use, because TikTok does not publish those to a logged-out reader.
YouTube rounds subscriber counts to three significant figures, so a channel on 1,243,912 subscribers reports 1.24M. Dividing exact views by a rounded count inherits the rounding, which is why the benchmark is built on views per day. As a bound rather than a benchmark: the median channel with 1M-3M subscribers adds 119,146 views a day, which is between 4% and 12% of its subscribers each day depending on where in the band it sits.
The ratio is lifetime likes over lifetime videos, so a single video that reached far beyond a small follower base lifts the account’s average permanently. TikTok also distributes videos by recommendation rather than through follower feeds, and a catalogue built from lookups tends to hold the small accounts someone had a reason to look up. The data shows the pattern, not the weight of each cause.
Because daily-series coverage collapses below it. In the 30 days to 31 August 2026, every channel above one million subscribers in the catalogue had 14 or more observed days, only 261 of 10,421 channels between 300,000 and one million did, and no channel below 100,000 had any. A percentile from a band covered one-fifth would rank a channel against the peers that happen to be crawled, so the API refuses to build one.
Yes. The figures are CC BY 4.0: use them, quote them and republish them, with attribution to Pinlyx and a link to this page.

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