Is TubeBuddy worth it? It’s a fair question. TubeBuddy is a set of YouTube video and channel optimization tools that helps YouTube creators grow. Over 14 million creators use the free TubeBuddy Chrome extension.
Our own obvious bias aside, TubeBuddy is worth it: YouTube creators who use TubeBuddy grow their channels faster than those who don’t.
The free version of TubeBuddy does a lot. To access all the tools TubeBuddy offers, including advanced A/B testing, YouTube title generation, SEO and other optimization, thumbnail analysis and more, creators can step up to a TubeBuddy Pro or TubeBuddy Legend license.
Let’s dig into the data to see how TubeBuddy helps YouTube creators grow their views and subscribers faster.
Actually, no. Let’s start with a question: why are you considering TubeBuddy? What led you to search for “is TubeBuddy worth it” or the ever-popular “is TubeBuddy safe” (it is) in the first place?
Boil it down, you probably want to grow your channel. You want more views and more subscribers, which translates to more clout and more money. Maybe you’re enticed by Keyword Explorer and upping your SEO game both on and outside YouTube. Maybe you’re looking to keep a closer eye on your competitors, understanding and improving on their strategies, or copying their tags. Or maybe it’s one of TubeBuddy’s over 70 AI, workflow, SEO, analytics, and batch YouTube tools.
Is TubeBuddy Worth It? The Data is In
If you use TubeBuddy,
you will have better YouTube outcomes
than if you don’t.
Active TubeBuddy users get more views and more subs. Active TubeBuddy users, which we’ll define in a moment, see an 86% lift in views and a 55% lift in subscribers relative to those that start using TubeBuddy but who decide to go it alone (or perhaps choose a competitor instead?!)
The TubeBuddy Analytics team (thanks again Yusuf and Manali!) ran the numbers and made some powerful discoveries and a definitive answer to the question of is Tubebuddy worth it. Their analysis follows.
How We Selected Cohorts
To identify our cohorts, we looked at the anonymized results for creators that joined TubeBuddy between May 1 and July 31 2023 and who posted at least five videos to YouTube in that period. Our total sample size was 59,366 active creators.
Group A – Active TubeBuddy Users
Group A used a TubeBuddy tool to completion at least 20 times in the period. For example, using TubeBuddy Keyword Explorer for SEO research then publishing the updated video title/description, or analyzing a thumbnail and going with TubeBuddy thumbnail recommendations, or any number of other things that TubeBuddy can do for creators.
Group B – Inactive TubeBuddy Users
Group B signed up for TubeBuddy and either didn’t use a TubeBuddy tool to completion or did so fewer than 20 times in the three month period. It’s important to note that these users continued to publish videos to YouTube… they just did so without actively using TubeBuddy.
Is TubeBuddy Worth It? Numbers Say Yes
Group A saw significantly higher growth on YouTube over the three month period compared with group B. Both groups comprise individual creators, each with their own unique style, each in their own content niche. From a data point of view, the only difference is that group A actively used TubeBuddy where group B did not.
| Group A – Active with TubeBuddy | Group B – Inactive with TubeBuddy | Difference | |
| Time Period | May 1 – Jul 31, 2023 | ||
| Videos published | >5 | >5 | n/a |
| Subscriber growth | +89.40% | +57.39% | 55% |
| Views | +170.85% | +91.37% | 86% |
Both groups are active on YouTube, publishing at least five videos over the three month period. Both groups show clear channel growth over that period.
Using TubeBuddy tools correlates to higher growth in both subscribers (group A: 89.40% vs group B: 57.39%) and views (group A: 170.85% vs group B: 91.37%).
It’s interesting that both groups show growth; whether group A or B, these are active YouTube creators who are clearly putting in the work and seeing results for their efforts.
There’s an episode of the Planet Money podcast that comes to mind here. In this episode, the hosts discuss parenting styles and draw a direct correlation between expectant or new parents buying parenting books and being a better parent. Not reading parenting books; most go unread. Just buying parenting books. In other words, the content of parenting books may or may not make you a better, more engaged parent. Who’s to say? But the act of looking for and buying parenting books speaks volumes about your intent as a parent.
Through that same lens, installing TubeBuddy — which both of our cohorts did — speaks volumes about your intent as a YouTube creator. If you’re the type of YouTube creator who looks for tools to help you succeed on the platform, you have the right mindset and are predisposed to succeed on the platform.
In this case though, and with all else being equal, we have clear data that says taking that next step and actively using TubeBuddy in your YouTube will lead to even better outcomes.
Outcomes like an 86% vector on views and a 55% bump in subs over a three month period for those that actively use TubeBuddy tools vs. those that don’t.
So is TubeBuddy worth it?
That depends on whether or not you want 86% more views and 55% more subs…
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