How to use TubeIntel

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

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.

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:

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.

The fastest way to pull data on any YouTube channel.

1. 1Go to Search and type a channel name, @handle, or paste a full channel URL.
2. 2Live suggestions appear as you type — click any suggestion to analyze it instantly without consuming quota.
3. 3Click Analyze on a result to fetch channel stats, recent videos, and comment sentiment for the top 5 most-viewed videos.
4. 4You land on the full channel profile. Star (⭐) to track it, or add it to the Competitor Tracker.

Direct URL / channel ID

Pasting a full YouTube URL (e.g. youtube.com/c/handle or youtube.com/channel/UC…) skips the text search entirely and goes straight to analyze — this does not consume a search quota unit.

Track button shortcut

Clicking the ⭐ Track button on a search result automatically runs the full analyze flow if the channel has not been pulled yet — you do not need to click Analyze first. If the channel is already in the library it just marks it as tracked in place.

Recent searches

Your last 8 searches are saved in the browser. They appear in the dropdown when the field is focused, and can be cleared with the × button.

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

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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

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.

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. 3Tick up to 5 channels and click Analyze Selected to pull them all in one go — processed in parallel.
4. 4Use Track All to follow every result, or star channels individually.

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

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.

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. Click legend buttons to show/hide individual channels. Delta cards below show total and % change per channel. Needs data from at least two different calendar days — a status card tells you if you just need to come back tomorrow after refreshing.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Automatic notifications generated when you run a refresh — via Tracker, Dashboard, or the ↻ Refresh Now button on any channel profile.

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.

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

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.

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. Click Redeem to activate a new key.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.