How to use TubeIntel

A complete walkthrough of every feature — from analyzing a single channel to mapping a niche's entire sponsor network.

🚀 Quick start

TubeIntel turns any public YouTube channel into actionable intelligence. The typical flow:

🔍SearchFind a channel
📊AnalyzePull stats & videos
TrackAdd to watchlist
🛡️VetScore for deals
🔔AlertStay updated
  1. 1Search for a channel (or explore a whole niche) and click Analyze — TubeIntel pulls stats, videos, and comment sentiment.
  2. 2Star (⭐) channels to track them. The Dashboard becomes your home base once you have tracked channels.
  3. 3Use Vetting to score a creator before a partnership, and the Sponsor Network to map who sponsors whom.
  4. 4Set up Alerts to be notified when a tracked channel posts, hits a milestone, or has a view spike.
💡Everything works on public data only — no login to the target channel is needed.

🏠 Dashboard

Your home base once you have tracked channels. It surfaces a portfolio-level view of everything you follow.

Stat cards

Six cards at the top summarise your tracked library at a glance:

Tracked Channels
12
Total Subscribers
4.2M
Avg Views
38K
Median Views
22K
Upload Freq.
2.1/wk
Unread Alerts
3

Hover any ⓘ icon on a card for a plain-language definition of the metric.

Search quota usage

A progress bar shows how many of today's searches you have used. Quotas reset at midnight UTC. Free users see an Upgrade prompt when the bar fills.

Refresh All

Clicking ↻ Refresh All pulls the latest subscriber and view counts for every tracked channel in one go, records a growth snapshot for each, and generates any new Alerts (new videos, milestones, view spikes). Progress is shown per channel as it runs.

Top performers & recent videos

The dashboard lists your top 3 channels by average views and the 5 most recently published videos across your tracked set — both link directly to the relevant profile or video page.

💡If you have not tracked any channels yet, the dashboard shows recently analyzed channels so you can star them without having to search again.

📊 Channel Profile

The full intelligence view for a single channel. Accessed by clicking any channel anywhere in the app.

Header row

Shows the thumbnail, name, handle, country, year founded, Health Badge (A–D grade), Momentum badge (Rising / Stable / Declining), and a business email extracted from the channel description when one is present. Action buttons: ⭐ Track / Untrack, Export CSV, and Remove.

Key metrics row

Seven stat tiles across the top — Subscribers, Total Views, Avg Views, Avg ER%, Posts, View/Sub%, and Comment Vibe. Hover any ⓘ for a definition.

Analytics chart tabs

Views
View count per video — bar chart of the last 50 published.
Engagement
Engagement rate % per video with a channel-average reference line.
Best Days
Heatmap of avg views by day of week. Brightest bar = best day to post.
Length vs Views
Scatter plot of video duration vs view count. Reveals optimal length.
Growth
Subscriber & view count over time from your refresh snapshots.

Performance Outliers

Automatically flags videos as 🏆 Viral Hits (far above average), ✅ Strong (comfortably above average), or ⬇ Underperforming (well below average). Click any title to open its Video Deep Dive.

Title Patterns

Aggregated stats for the channel's titles: average length, % using numbers, % using questions, top frequent words, and a tag cloud. Hover any word tag to see how many titles it appears in.

Full video table

Paginated table of all analyzed videos — search by title keyword, click any row to open the Video Deep Dive.

Private notes

A private notes field visible only to you. Click the pencil icon to edit free-form text — useful for partnership status, rate negotiations, or anything else worth remembering.

💡Export CSV downloads every analyzed video with all metric columns — handy for offline analysis or sharing with a team.

🎬 Video Deep Dive

Click any video row on a channel profile to open its individual stats page.

  1. 1View count, like count, comment count, duration, and like rate at a glance.
  2. 2Performance vs Channel Average shows how far this video is above or below the channel norm.
  3. 3Title Analysis surfaces character count, word count, numbers, question format, and any power words detected (e.g. "Secret", "Shocking", "Ultimate").
  4. 4Description stats break down word count, timestamps, links, and hashtags.
  5. 5Comment Sentiment shows the audience vibe breakdown — see the next section for details.

Playing a video

▶ Play Video embeds the YouTube player directly on the page. ↗ Watch on YouTube opens it in a new tab. The embedded player only loads on click — no auto-play.

Fetching comments on demand

If comment sentiment was not fetched during the initial analyze run, a 💬 Fetch Comments button appears. Clicking it pulls and classifies the top 100 comments and saves the result for everyone.

💬 Comment Sentiment

TubeIntel classifies the top 100 most-relevant comments on a video into four buckets using keyword and emoji matching — no AI key required, runs at analyze time.

Positive58%
Neutral20%
Questions14%
Negative8%

Example sentiment breakdown for a video — click any ⓘ in the app for a definition of each category.

  • Positive — "great", "love", "helpful", fire/heart emoji, etc. High positive % signals an engaged, appreciative audience — good for brand deals.
  • Neutral — statements and observations with no strong lean.
  • Questions — comments phrased as questions. A high % shows active audience curiosity.
  • Negative — "boring", "misleading", "clickbait", etc. Above ~25% may signal audience frustration.

Where it appears

Video page: stacked colour bar + four stat cards for that specific video.

Channel profile: a Comment Vibe tile — aggregated across all analyzed videos. Positive (55%+ positive), Critical (30%+ negative), or Mixed.

💡Sentiment is auto-fetched for the top 5 most-viewed videos on every analyze run. Hover any ⓘ on the sentiment cards for plain-language definitions.

🔑 Keyword Research

Find what your audience is actually searching for on YouTube — free, no YouTube API quota consumed.

  1. 1Go to Keywords and type a seed topic (e.g. Personal Finance, Home Fitness).
  2. 2TubeIntel expands your seed across all 26 alphabet variations and 10 common modifiers in parallel, returning up to 300+ suggestions from YouTube autocomplete.
  3. 3Each keyword is scored 0–100 using demand, competition, and trend direction.
  4. 4Filter by competition level or trend, sort by score or demand, then copy keywords or click Find Channels to search for creators targeting them.

Opportunity score

Hot75–100

High demand, low competition, often trending.

Good55–74

Solid opportunity worth targeting.

Moderate35–54

Viable but crowded or low data.

Saturated<35

Many channels already cover this.

How demand is calculated

Demand is the average view count of videos in our shared database whose titles contain the keyword — a directional proxy for search interest, not official YouTube search volume. Hover any column header ⓘ for a full definition.

💡Keywords uses YouTube autocomplete — it does not count against your daily search quota.

🧭 Niche Explorer

Discover and analyze an entire content category at once instead of searching channel by channel.

  1. 1Enter a niche topic (e.g. Personal Finance, AI Tools) and hit Explore.
  2. 2Browse the ranked channel cards showing subscriber count, relative size bars, and a top performer callout.
  3. 3Click Select All (or tick individual channels) then click Analyze — channels are processed in parallel and automatically added to your Tracker when done.
  4. 4If your tracking limit is reached mid-batch, as many channels as possible are tracked and a warning shows how many were skipped.

Search quota

Bulk analyze deducts one search per channel analyzed — analyzing 10 channels costs 10 searches. Check your remaining quota in the Dashboard before large batches.

💡Tracking a channel that has not been analyzed yet automatically kicks off the full analyze flow — no need to click Analyze first.

👥 Competitor Tracker

Your watchlist of starred channels with four views to slice the data differently.

Table

Sortable list of all tracked channels. Compare up to 5 side-by-side.

📈Growth Timeline

Multi-line chart of subscriber or view growth across all tracked channels over time.

🗺Content Map

Title strategy breakdown — keyword tags, format stats, and a cross-channel comparison table.

💸Sponsor Network

Bipartite graph of brands and channels. Click any brand node to see reach, value, and outreach contacts.

Table view

Sortable columns: Subscribers, Health Grade, Avg Views, Avg ER%, Momentum, and Last Upload. Click any header to sort. Click a row to open the channel profile. The trash icon removes a channel from your library.

Bulk delete

Tick the checkbox in any row to select it for removal. The header checkbox selects all visible channels at once. When one or more are selected a red action bar appears above the table — click Remove X to confirm and delete them all in one go.

Channel tags

Each channel row has a + tag pill (dashed outline) beneath its name. Click it to type a tag and press Enter — tags appear as coloured pills and can be removed with ×. Use the tag filter bar above the table to show only channels with a specific tag. Useful for grouping channels by campaign, niche, or priority.

Side-by-side comparison

Tick the Compare checkbox for up to 5 channels. A comparison table slides in below showing Subscribers, Avg Views, Avg ER%, and Momentum — winner highlighted in green.

Growth Timeline view

Multi-line chart of subscriber or total view counts over time. Use the 7d · 14d · 30d · All range pills to zoom into a specific window — delta cards below update to match the selected period. Click legend buttons to show/hide individual channels. Needs data from at least two different calendar days to draw a subscriber trend line; until then a Recent Video Views chart is shown instead (also filterable by the same range pills).

Content Map view

Side-by-side title strategy breakdown per channel: top keywords, power word usage, upload frequency, number/question %, and avg views by format. When you track more than one channel, a Title Format Comparison table appears. Hover any column header ⓘ for a definition.

Refresh All

Pulls the latest stats for every tracked channel, records a growth snapshot, and fires new alerts — same as Dashboard's Refresh All.

💸 Sponsor Network

A bipartite graph of which brands sponsor which channels, built automatically from your tracked channels' video descriptions.

Your tracked channel
Brand (few channels)
Brand (many channels)
Discovered channel
  1. 1Open Tracker → Sponsor Network. Purple nodes are your tracked channels; orange/red nodes are brands (warmer = more channels mention them).
  2. 2Click any brand node to open its panel: estimated Reach, deal Value, Last Seen, and the list of channels mentioning it — with business emails for outreach where available.
  3. 3Use the Brand Intelligence tabs: Top Brands (reach and value), Trending (90-day momentum), and Opportunities (brands that sponsor others but not a channel you pick).
  4. 4Export CSV gives you the full brand × channel matrix.

Channel node popup

Clicking a channel node (purple) opens a brief panel with subscriber count, avg views, avg ER%, and video count. Click View Full Profile to go to the full channel page.

Discovering more channels per brand

Inside a brand's panel, Find more channels expands the network beyond your tracked set. It always scans the shared library for free first; the YouTube option triggers a live search for additional channels that ran that sponsorship.Pro

Metric definitions

Reach — sum of avg views across every channel mentioning the brand. Est. value — rough integration deal value (~$20 CPM at 40% of a dedicated-video rate). Momentum — mentions in the last 90 days vs the prior 90. Hover any ⓘ in the panel for more detail.

💡YouTube brand discovery is metered: Free = library scan only, Yearly Pro = 2/day, Lifetime Pro = 5/day, Agency = 15/day. Brands discovered recently by anyone are served free from a 48-hour shared cache.

My Channel

Benchmark your own channel against the creators you track. Set it once and the page remembers your choice.

  1. 1Go to My Channel and search for your channel by name, @handle, or YouTube URL.
  2. 2TubeIntel fetches your stats and loads your tracked channels as competitors — no extra setup needed.
  3. 3Review your Sponsor Readiness score and estimated rates, then scroll through the comparison panels.
  4. 4Change your channel at any time with the Change button in the header.

Sponsor Readiness

A 0–10 score built from three axes — subscriber reach (35%), avg view performance (40%), and engagement rate (25%). Your creator tier (Nano / Micro / Mid-tier / Macro / Mega) determines what kind of brand deal you are positioned for, along with an estimated Integrated and Dedicated Video rate based on avg views × $20 CPM.

Me vs My Tracker

A sortable table showing you alongside every tracked competitor. Click any column header (Subs, Avg Views, ER%, Health) to re-rank. Your row is highlighted and marked You.

Title Strategy Benchmark

Compares four title signals in your library against the competitor average — number usage, question format, power word frequency, and average length. An Edge column shows where you lead or trail by more than 5 percentage points.

Rate Positioning

A bar chart ranking every channel by estimated dedicated video rate. Shows your rank (#X of N) so you can see instantly where you sit in the market.

Performance Map

A scatter plot of avg views (X-axis) vs engagement rate (Y-axis) for you and all tracked competitors. Dashed reference lines mark the competitor averages — top-right is the ideal quadrant (high reach + high engagement). Hover any dot to see the channel name and exact metrics.

Content Gap

Keywords appearing frequently in competitor titles that are absent from your video library. Each tag shows how many competitor videos use that word — higher numbers signal stronger demand you are not yet capturing.

Competitor to Watch

Highlights the single tracked channel closest to your subscriber count that is outperforming you most on a views-per-subscriber basis. Shows their Avg Views, ER%, and Health score compared to yours, and the outperformance multiplier.

Video Performance & Title Pattern Report

Your own library analysed: a scrollable list of every video with its % deviation from your channel average (green = above, red = below), and a Title Pattern Report that splits your top half vs bottom half by views — revealing which signals (numbers, questions, power words, title length) correlate with your best work.

💡My Channel reads from your Tracker — track more competitors for richer benchmarks. Add them in Search or the Tracker before visiting this page.

🛡️ Vetting Reports

A partnership-readiness report for a creator, built to help you prioritise outreach and anchor rate negotiations.

Vetting Score
7.5/10
Blended risk + ER
Health Grade
B+
72/100
Fake Risk
✓ Low
View/sub ratio healthy
Dedicated Rate
$2K–$4K
~$20 CPM directional
  1. 1Open Vetting and pick one of your tracked channels from the dropdown.
  2. 2Review the 0–10 Vetting Score, Health Grade (A–D), and Fake Follower Risk (Low / Medium / High).
  3. 3Check the Fair Rate Estimate: Dedicated Video (~$20 CPM on avg views) and Integration (~40% of that). These are directional benchmarks, not quotes.
  4. 4Green / Yellow / Red flag cards summarise key signals at a glance.
  5. 5Export PDF generates a clean, print-ready report — ⓘ help icons are hidden in the export.

Sponsorship history

The report pulls sponsor mentions found in video descriptions, giving you a quick read on who the channel has worked with before and how recently.

💡Hover any ⓘ next to a metric to see exactly how it is calculated. The Vetting page only shows tracked channels — star a channel in Search first if it is not appearing.

🔔 Alerts

Notifications generated automatically when channel stats change. There are two ways alerts fire:

  • Daily auto-refresh — TubeIntel checks your top 10 tracked channels (by subscriber count) every morning at 08:00 UTC and emails you a digest of any new alerts. No action needed.
  • Manual refresh — hitting ↻ Refresh All on the Dashboard or Tracker checks all your tracked channels immediately, covering beyond the top 5.
🎬New Video

Fires when the video count goes up since the last refresh.

🎯Subscriber Milestone

Fires when a channel crosses 1K, 5K, 10K, 50K, 100K, 500K, 1M… subscribers.

📈View Spike

Fires when total channel views grew 15%+ since the last refresh.

⏸️Upload Gap

Fires when a channel hasn't posted in 14+ days (at most once per 7 days per channel).

📉Engagement Drop

Fires when the most recent 5 videos have 30%+ lower engagement rate than the previous 5.

Reading alerts

The bell icon in the top bar shows the unread count. Open Alerts to see the full feed, filter by type, and mark items as read. Clicking a channel name in an alert navigates straight to its profile.

Email alerts

Enable email alerts in Settings to receive a daily digest when new alerts are found. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any alert email.

🤖 AI Insights

Plain-language summaries on channels, niches, and vetting reports — powered by the AI provider of your choice. Bring your own API key.

Anthropic ClaudeRecommendedHaiku · Sonnet
OpenAI GPTgpt-4o-mini · gpt-4o
Google Gemini2.0 Flash · 1.5 Pro
Grok (xAI)grok-3-mini · grok-3
GroqLlama 3.3 70B · 8B
DeepSeekdeepseek-chat · reasoner
  1. 1Go to Settings and pick an AI provider.
  2. 2Paste your API key, choose a model, and click Save.
  3. 3AI Insight cards appear on channel profiles, Niche Explorer, Vetting, and the Competitor Tracker.

Privacy

Your API key is stored in browser session storage only — never sent to TubeIntel servers, and cleared automatically when you close the tab. Each AI call goes directly from your browser to your chosen provider.

⚙️ Settings

Manage your license, AI provider, and library from one place.

License

Shows your current plan, activation date, masked license key, and — for Yearly Pro plans — the expiry date with a countdown. If your Yearly plan expires you are automatically moved back to Free. Have a license key? Use the Redeem link in this section to activate it.

AI provider

Select a provider, paste your API key, pick a model, and click Save. To switch providers, just pick a new one and save again.

Notifications

Toggle Email alerts to receive a daily email digest when new alerts are found for your tracked channels. Alerts fire automatically each morning — no manual refresh needed.

Library

Shows how many channels and videos are in your library. Clear Library removes all your channels, snapshots, and vetting history in one go. The underlying shared channel/video data is preserved and can be re-analyzed later. This action cannot be undone.

📊 Plans, searches & quotas

All paid plans unlock the same features — the daily caps scale with your tier.

PlanSearches / dayTracked channelsSponsor discoveries / day
Free35Library scan only
Yearly Pro25252
Lifetime Pro35505
Agency10015015

A "search" is any channel lookup or full analyze run. Sponsor discovery (the YouTube-backed brand expand) has its own separate daily quota. Both quotas reset at midnight UTC.

Yearly Pro plans expire one year from activation — you are notified 14 days before and automatically moved to Free if not renewed.

💡Got a license key? Go to Settings → License and redeem it to unlock your plan instantly.

Tips & FAQ

Why do rate estimates say "estimate"?

Reach and rate figures are modelled from a channel's average views (~$20 CPM). They help you prioritise outreach and anchor negotiations — treat them as directional, not as invoices.

Do my analyses help other users?

Channel and video data is shared objective YouTube data. Once a channel is analyzed it benefits everyone and will not be re-fetched needlessly — keeping things fast. Comment sentiment follows the same rule: once fetched for a video it is available to all users instantly.

How accurate is comment sentiment?

It is a fast keyword and emoji classifier, not an AI model. It handles most English comments well and is directional — use it to spot patterns (very positive vs. critical sections) rather than as a precise score. Short or ambiguous comments often land in Neutral.

A video shows no sentiment — how do I get it?

Open the video detail page and click 💬 Fetch Comments. Sentiment is auto-pulled for the top 5 videos on every analyze run, but older videos in the library need to be fetched on demand.

The Growth Timeline shows "first snapshot captured".

The timeline needs data from at least two different calendar days to draw a trend line. Come back tomorrow, hit ↻ Refresh All, and the chart will appear. The status card confirms your snapshots are already saved.

I see an infinite spinner / error card.

Use the Retry button. If it persists, sign out and back in from Settings — your session may have expired.

How do I remove a channel from my library?

Click Remove on the channel profile or the trash icon in the Tracker table. To clear your entire library at once, go to Settings → Library → Clear Library.

Ready to dig in?

Jump into the app and analyze your first channel.

Open the app →