Best YouTube video length 2025 - with examples
How long should your YouTube videos be? What is the best length for your YouTube video for monetization?
Most studies contradict, so I'm diving into the stats of my own channels.
I also tell you when and why it is sometimes better to make shorter videos instead of longer videos
It has become a trend to make longer videos over the last few years, because creators want to accumulate more Watch Time.
But Watch Time is not the only metric that counts, Average View Duration is also an important factor to get promoted by the YouTube algorithm.
This is why making longer YouTube videos is not always the best course of action.
So, video length is not the most important metric to get promoted, keeping your viewers engaged is!
How long should your YouTube videos be?
As long as you can make the video, without getting boring.
UPDATE july 2020:
YouTube changed their mid-roll ad policy:
Now videos longer than 8 minutes are eligible for ads (previously 10 minutes)
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★ TABLE OF CONTENTS ★
• 0:00 Start
• 0:44 Watch time + Average View Duration
• 1:38 How long should my YouTube video be?
• 2:22 Longer videos on YouTube
• 3:36 Numbers from my own YouTube channels
• 6:13 Best video length monetization
• 7:20 One long video or multiple shorter videos?
💡 TOPICS IN THIS VIDEO 💡
• YouTube video length?
• How long should YouTube videos be?
• Best video length for monetization
• best length for youtube video
• minimum youtube video length to monetize
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My name is Dexxter Clark from The Netherlands.
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==== TRANSCRIPTION ====
two important factors to consider
What is watch time?
Before we dive into the question: what is the ideal length for a YouTube video,
I want to talk about Watch Time.
Watch time is one of the most important metrics for success of a video on YouTube.
Watch time is the amount of minutes that a video is watched.
If you can keep your viewers watching longer, you accumulate more watch time.
If you keep viewers watching 5 minutes, you have a watch time of 5 minutes.
What is average view duration?
There is another factor: Average View Duration.
This is a percentage of how much of your video is watched: 50% is good, 40% also, 30% or lower is bad.
The higher Average View Duration, the more promotion you get.
There is a debate on what is more important: AVD or Watch time.
It doesn't matter: they are both extremely important.
If you nail them both, you are going through the roof.
As long as you can make it, without getting boring.
My answer to the question : what is the ideal length for a YouTube video:
As long as you can make it, without getting boring.
That last part is important: without getting boring.
Don't make a video for the sake of making it longer.
Some videos don't have more meat on their bones.
This video for example: I would have liked to make it 20 minutes, but the amount of information I want to share isn't 20 minutes long.
You will shoot yourself in the foot when you make the video longer than it needs to be, since viewers don’t want to see fluff in a video: they want to see a solution for their problem.
If you solve the problem and fill the video with fluff, viewers will leave, which hurts your audience retention (a.k.a. your rankings) and viewers might not even see the video in the first place because YouTube doesn’t even suggest the video.
If the beginning of your video is filled with fluff, and you solve the problem at the end of the video, viewers will leave before they even have seen the “meat” of the video.
Also this hurts your rankings because of bad audience retention and thumbs down.
more videos over 10 minutes
So if you make longer videos, it's easier to accumulate watch time.
Over the last few years it has become a trend to make longer YouTube videos.