TLDNR:

This was a 30-ish page document that took me a while to write/make, so it’ll take you a while to read. If you’re looking for the key points it goes like this:

The free version is pretty good, and you might as well use it cause it’s free, the BOOST version has exactly one tool that might be worth it, and I haven’t tried the coaching (but I do give some insights on it) Enjoy!

The Free Version

I’ll be going in order of their listed features on their website - the first one of these is their custom scorecard.

Video Ideas

Ideation is one of the staples of being a creator, and VidIQ offers you free ideation… except - only sort of. With the free version, you only get access to three ideas, but in my humble opinion, that’s probably enough

I’ve got a couple of problems with this:

1. Look at those video ideas. Sure, 1,000 hours into one video would certainly get me views, but it would also take me 1,000 hours of gameplay to honestly do. The Most Hilarious Pokemon Fails You’ve Never Seen is maybe one of the cheesiest titles that I can think of. I don’t need fifty more of these ideas, three is just fine.

    

2. Even if one of the ideas is great, it’s still going to take me time to make that video. In the meantime I get three new ideas every day, and you can just save the good ideas for later. If VidIQ puts a limit on this, just ctrl+c your way to more saved ideas.

3. It says it’s in tune with my channel, but I got VERY similar ideas when running the core concept of the channel through chatGPT, which is also free and will generate me 200+ ideas

Keyword Tools

Since YouTube is a search engine, keywords are what help determine search parameters. This is how people find your video through “search” . It heavily applies to things like ‘how to’ channels, but can certainly help in your niche as well.

Competitors

With the free version you get access to the competitors tab, however you are limited to adding two competitors - I’ll use my Pokemon channel again for reference

As you can see MagnusPKMN, and PokeHound are doing quite well. But that’s where the usefulness ends. Unless you’re in a niche where someone is actively stealing subscribers, there’s enough to go around.

If I really wanted data on other competitors, it’s easy enough to remove one of these and add another one.

Here’s what this data can help you to do:
Compare yourself to others, and stagnate your journey, that’s about it. Sure if there are creators in your space that are doing really well with less followers you’ll want to know how they’re doing, but you probably want to know more HOW they’re doing what they’re doing. To learn that though you’d have to actually go to their channel, look at their videos/thumbnails/ideas. These numbers are a fine metric that VidIQ throws at you for free, but what kind of value does it actually add?

You can also see Keywords that your competition uses - which is also kind of pointless because, if you did the Keyword research already, then you don’t need to know theirs, because likely you aren’t going to be making the SAME videos.

Setting Alerts

VidIQ Search Features

The next feature listed is being able to sort by most viewed in real time - here’s the actual picture that they used to explain this feature.

This is maybe one of the features that I think makes the least amount of sense. Seeing as how YouTube’s built in features are already so much better - take a look:

Comment Templates

The Problem: VidIQ is (supposedly) for people without massive audiences. Yet this is a tool that is meant for someone that’s getting thousands of comments a day. If you’re not getting that many, then reply to them!!

You owe it to your fan base, and also people aren’t dumb (at least not my audiences) - they can tell when something is automated, it only serves to take away efficiency.
This tool is fine if you’re a larger creator, can definitely save you some time, and it’s free.

Thumbnail Generator

You can get a very limited number (1) of AI generated thumbnails that are “more in tune with your channel” I typed in “My Pokemon team if I was in the anime” and I got this back:

But, but BUT if you’re going to do that anyway, then just use any other AI generation -since being linked to the channel doesn’t inherently mean any better content. Gemini AI image generation by the way is free, and you can get like 30-50 pictures a day - they range in quality, but you can certainly get an idea from that.

It is free to get a few a day though, so if you like the stuff it creates based on your channel, that’s fine.

The next two reasons are the BEST reasons to use VidIQ - I mean it, these next two are legitimately useful for growth, and they both come in the free version

Channel Audit

This will generate a report for you for the last 30 days with a ton of useful information. I’m not going to show you mine because, it’s not your channel, the stats only help me - but that’s my point. They do help me.

They let me know what content my audience is resonating most with, average watch time on one screen with videos, what kinds of content I might want to double down on.

With the free version you can only get a 30 day audit, - BOOST offers 60/90 day audits, but if you’re posting consistently the 30 day version works. It will pull current data from older videos.

Outlier Videos

If you have the VidIQ chrome extension installed then this score will appear on every video that is an outlier. It also allows you to see which videos with ideas like the ones you want to make have the best yield. (If you want tips for how to use this score in all of it’s effectiveness, this newsletter is not a bad place to start - shameless plug over)

Achievements

The last of the extension features is the achievements bar. This just lets you share views and subscribers achievements to other social platforms. If you like to gamify your life it’s not a bad little widget, but it’s not something I would pay for - so thankfully it’s free.

Free Version - Dashboard

Moving on from the extension though an account on VidIQ will allow you to access some things that they don’t list in their features section, here’s how my dashboard looks:

I’m greeted with my latest video, and the ability to “score with boost” is hidden behind a paywall - we’ll talk about all of the stuff behind the paywalls in a bit.

There’s a nice little counter on the right hand side for up to date stats. It’s a little feel good board, nothing that I couldn’t find on my own with YouTube studio though. Let’s start working our way down 

Scrolling down we have ‘generate a Video Idea’ if you type something in there it will take you to a different screen - this does not actually generate the idea for you- you have to put the idea in, and it will generate a potential video “start to finish”

It claims that it’s in tune with your channel, but from my experience it seems to come from pretty generic AI.

The Keyword search function works a little bit better here than on the chrome extension on YouTube and it allows you to search, and compare it to questions, other formats of the keyword and similar keywords. This is a pretty good feature, and also a part of the free version.

Optimize Tab

Linking my channel here will show you my most recent videos, and as you can see, I can score my latest video if I upgrade, but here’s the issue: My other stuff is graded, and it’s not graded well in my humble opinion. (more on this in the BOOST section)

Generate Tab

The next tab is the generate tab, and it just takes you to the page we talked about earlier where you can generate an entire video idea with a prompt - just like you can do with any free AI

You don’t have limitless options and the stuff that it generates, just aren’t good.

You know what is good? YouTubes own built in tool for this:

Here’s mine:

Look at that - a better built in tool than the thing VidIQ wants me to unlock with Boost to use more of -  and if I choose one of the things that YouTube knows PEOPLE ARE ALREADY LOOKING FOR - I get this:

The only thing it doesn’t do is create a custom thumbnail - but neither does VidIQ because as proven earlier it’s just concepts, which is exactly what the thumbnails published in the last few weeks are

For my Shorts makers, it also gives you a few opportunities for growth in the area of shorts by displaying what’s popping off in your niche in specifically short form content

While we’re here it also gives you this:

Thumbnail Tab

You can upload a video which doesn’t make sense because even from VidIQ’s most popular videos they always say to make the thumbnail before you make the video - so why would you need this here?

You get one free thumbnail a day with the free version.

Keywords Tab

I don’t need more than three keywords because as I’ve said before I can do my own research, so putting more behind a paywall doesn’t help. As you can see I’m not a search based channel I’ve gotten 20 views from my top search.
If you are a search based channel though, I’m gonna show you now how to do some keyword research without VidIQ  - and by the way - it’s where they source their keyword information from

Google Trends

Example:

It gives you a break down of the YouTube searches for the past year you can adjust the rising, the time frame, and you can export all of that data on an excel and run it through a program like ChatGPT, and it will analyze it and give you the results you want, unlimited, completely for free.

Outliers Tab

Do you remember how I said outliers were useful? Well on the Outliers Tab on the free version of VidIQ…. Not so much. They do have amazing scores, but look at how old they are - when you’re looking for ideation, you want to search within the last 1-3 months, maybe 6 months if you have a super small niche, but no further out than that .

AI Coach

Not terrible, but not groundbreaking either, and you are limited on prompts with the free version - says it’s in tune with my channel (VidIQ’s whole schtick), but let’s see what happens if I try the same prompt with ChatGPT (free version):

Here’s my results from ChatGPT I don’t know about you, but I’m clicking on those titles 9/10x more often. If I need an outline it can generate that too - all for free. VidIQs selling point is that it’s linked to your channel, but the premise behind a good video is all the same - so being linked to your channel doesn’t actually do anything for the virality of your ideas.

Learning Tab

The learning tab lets you look at some curated “growth strategy” videos. They aren’t that long, and it’s the generic VidIQ content they offer for free on their YouTube channel

VidIQ - BOOST

Cost: $16.58/mo or $199.00/yr

Dashboard

The titles still don’t really speak to me, and like I said before I can get all of that for free on ChatGPT with somewhat relative/better quality.

Optimization

Thumbnail Generation

Those thumbnails aren’t doing it for me, but one feature I do want to point out that’s interesting is at the top right - the Preview allows you to see how your video would look when compared with other videos in your niche. Really cool, but also you can do that for free with other thumbnail testing sites. 

It also allowed me to produce a script which was hot garbage/ ChatGPT word vomit. If used as more of a guideline it’s fine.

I asked it to do some more thumbnails, because BOOST offers unlimited - so I tested to see if they get slower over time, and they all come out at about the same rate, I tested about 400 thumbnails, and I finally got one that looks promising

If I’m being honest I do like the Nuzlocke mode thumbnail above that one - however, I get very similar work from Gemini AI which is free.

As part of the honest review though , it seems like when you pay for it, there is a slight increase in quality

Keywords

I can look all of this information up on Google trends, but with these keywords I wouldn’t even need to. If you are a search based channel, meaning most of your traffic comes from search, then this might be a feature you want to shell out 200.00 a year for, but for me it’s not worth it.
Here’s why - I know my niche. I already know what’s popular, and you probably do too. I don’t need VidIQ to tell me what’s working for my niche UNLESS, I’m brand new to my niche, but in that case I’m probably just going straight to YouTube for the research

• Pokemon TCG - The TCG Pocket just released two weeks ago, it’s crazy popular right now, but I don’t make TCG content

• Ludwig is one of the top streamers in the world and he occasionally plays Pokemon. I’m not making a video about ludwig

• Pokemon VGC - this is the competitive scene, another area of Pokemon that I don’t do

• Alpaharad, probably the number one Pokemon YouTuber, and unless I’m doing his expose’ this keyword doesn’t help me

• Gameplay - Pokemon gameplay has been covered. Trust me.

These aren’t opportunities for my content. These are “duh”.

Outliers - (one of the best sections of BOOST)

The Outliers on the free version is next to useless, it now might be the only redeeming quality of the BOOSTed version

This is a MASSIVE improvement. For this feature alone, BOOST may be worth it.
HOWEVER - there is a site that I think does it better. It is 50.00 a month, but I make my money back with it - it’s called 1of10.com it’s where I do all of my ideating. It’s better than anything else I’ve tried, and if you use this link : https://1of10.com/?via=TubeForge then I get kickback (though if you google around I’m sure you can find an offer that lets you get 10% off, or your first month for a 1.00). Yes I’m a sleaze for being an affiliate in this type of post, but I can say, that VidIQs version is still pretty good.
So, if you’re trying to stay with one tool for all of your YouTube needs, then this is not the worst feature to hinge the purchase on.

Create Tab - Exclusive to Boost - 5 Picture breakdown

I was pleasantly surprised by the create page

Every item on this page is clickable and you can generate an idea from anywhere which is kind of nice. The section I like most though is here:

No, not the emerging trends, those are kind of bogus - but I don’t often have the time or ability to back through the catalog of comments to see which one got the most likes. This lets me generate ideas from things that my subscribers actively want. Fair warning though, if you make content just for your subscribers you may be missing out on the total addressable market - it’s for video ideation that suits your existing fans

The ability to reinvent viral videos is kind of lack luster. With basic analysis on outliers if I’m good at niche research, I can do that step on my own, and the ‘More Topics for You’ section just takes some of those ideas from earlier and pairs them with an AI generated thumbnail, nothing super useful in either section.

I’m not terribly impressed with the evergreen content section because all of those YouTubers are huge in the space. Johnstone, Pm7, Purplecliffe, and MandJTv easily take up like a tenth of the PokeTubers subscribers by themselves.

Try Out Top Search Terms is a bit of a misnomer. Top according to who? That’s the problem. Not according to Google trends, or YouTube itself.

Fill Content gaps - Those aren’t what I would call content gaps, those are just things I haven’t done because I’m not that type of channel.

Double Down on Your Top Videos - this one made me laugh OUT LOUD. This is one of my worst performing videos of all time, and if I needed any more evidence to prove that VidIQ doesn’t accurately depict my channel, this is was it.

AI Coach - BOOSTED

It’s only slightly more wordy than the non-BOOSTed version

It’s the same stuff. The prompt this time was to create 5 new formats in line with my channel that would set me apart from the competition. None of these suggestions do that, and I would still go with the ChatGPT answers.

Competition

The competition tab didn’t change much, I can add more competitors now, but hopefully I convinced you that it’s not worth 200.00 a year

SEO Tools - BOOST exclusive section

This is the paid version of their SEO tools. I took some tags off of my Sword and Shield video to show how TERRIBLE these new tags are. If people type those into search they aren’t going to click on my video because nothing about my video would suggest that that’s what they need to search for. (Except for maybe Nintendo, but I removed that one myself)

  SNES games? Nope. FEMALE WEREWOLF TRANSFORMATION??

Subscribers tab - BOOST exclusive section

This isn’t bad information, but it’s also information YouTube gives me for free. The Best Times to post is very arbitrary for two reasons

1. If the times are based on my own channel, then I get the most viewers whenever I post a video, regardless of when it originally gets posted. So for instance if I get 10k views on Friday, then if I post on Monday, on Friday I will still get 10k views, because YouTube doesn’t promote things based on time, it’s not a chronological feed, it’s an algorithmic one.

2. If the times are based on my competition, then why on God’s green earth would I want to compete with someone who’s getting 200-600k views? Make it make sense

Learning Tab

This is only slightly different from the free version, instead of VidIQ talking, it’s the creators this time. The messages are all very similar though.

COACHING

Cost: $99.00/mo or $1,188.00/yr

Disclaimer: I have never gotten the coaching and cannot talk about the benefits therein.

HOWEVER 

Here’s what I know - the entire VidIQ suite, both free and paid has a LOT of useless tools, and one or two absolute gems. I’m assuming the same is true with a creator coach.
Remember that you already get a channel audit for the past 30 days from the free chrome extension, but the channel audit is limited because they won’t look at your intros and hooks.

Step-by-step plan to grow faster, is negligible. If they can’t help you grow faster, is there an option for money back? Not according to this. What if you’re already growing pretty fast?

Feedback on thumbnails, titles, and videos - This can certainly be helpful, but keep in mind that VidIQ also does amazing workshops every Tuesday morning and there’s a chance for you to get audited in those live streams as well (for free) But if you want the best feedback, just join a Discord with similar creators in your niche.

Or if you sign up for my newsletter you can also request a free channel audit. (/shameless plug)

Now it’s not lost on me that the people working at VidIQ are professional coaches. They know what to say, they may even be very helpful, Here’s my honest advice about coaching:

If you have an extra $100.00 a month of disposable income then by all means, then it’s probably worth at least testing.

Or just sign up for my newsletter…. last one I promise

Hey - if you want to advertise on the newsletter reach out to [email protected]
If you want your channel roasted (lightly) send your YT handle to [email protected], and put [Roast Me] in the subject line

Hopefully this was helpful to ya’ll - peace.