How we measure
These are our own rules, with our reasons.
Every number on this page comes from the code that applies it, so the page changes when a rule does.
Your typical
- Your typical is the middle (the median) of how your last 10 posts on the same account were doing by this point after they went up.
- "By this point" means a post that's a day old is compared with your other posts when they were a day old. Close counts: within 12 hours either way, or within 25% of the post's age once that's wider.
- It shows once at least 5 of your earlier posts were read by that point, for posts from 1 day to 90 days old. Posts that were already older when you connected can't be compared, so it fills in as we track new ones.
- Each account has its own typical, from that account's posts only. On YouTube, Shorts and longer videos are compared together.
- If your typical is under 100 views, we show the two numbers side by side, with no multiple.
Why
The middle, not the average: one big post pulls an average up, so most of your posts would look below it. About half your posts are above the middle.
Your last 10: recent enough to reflect your audience now, and enough posts that one odd post barely moves it.
Well ahead of your typical
- We check a new post from 1 day old until it's 3 days old.
- A post is well ahead of your typical when both are true: its views are at least 2x your typical, and it's ahead of every one of the posts it's compared with (at least 7 of your last 10).
- Your typical has to be at least 100 views, so a handful of views can't set it off.
- The alert names the highest of 2x, 3x, 5x or 10x it passed. One alert per post.
- The same rule runs on YouTube and TikTok, each on its own posts. On TikTok we count a post's age in hours from when it went up. On YouTube we go by its upload date (UTC), so a late-evening upload can be checked just hours in.
- In Settings this alert is "Posts taking off": it comes within 3 days of going up, and you can switch it off there.
Why
Two conditions, not one. On ordinary posts, being ahead of all 7 or more happens by chance at most one time in 8 on any one check. We check a new post more than once in its first days, so the chance for any one post is a little higher than that.
The view floor: on a small typical, a few extra views can double it without meaning much.
How many alerts, and when
- At most 3 alerts in any 7 days, one per thing that happened. If more happen, they're picked in this order: posts taking off, milestones, older posts picking up, big follower days and link click bursts.
- Alerts show in the app right away. Pings to your phone are off until you turn them on, and there are at most 3 in any 7 days.
- Quiet hours: no ping from 11 PM to 8 AM in your time zone. They're on unless you turn them off, and a held ping goes out soon after they end, unless you've already seen the alert in the app.
- We check your posts for alerts each time your numbers update: about once a day, and when you open Your content in Insights and the numbers are over 6 hours old. Link click bursts are checked a few times a day.
Why
A few alerts you can trust are worth more than a stream you learn to ignore.
The other alerts
- Older posts picking up: On TikTok for now. A post at least 24 days old whose views over about the last 72 hours came in at 3x or more its own pace over the 14 days before, with at least 500 more views, and at least 25% of your typical views 3 days after posting (the middle of your last 10 posts that far in; we need at least 5). Pace is the views gained per day between the readings we took nearest those times (within 12 hours). At most one per post every 30 days.
- Big follower days: At least 20 new followers or subscribers in a day, and either 2x your typical day or your best day this month. Your typical day: your average over the 28 days before (once we have 7). Best day: needs 7 earlier days this month to beat. YouTube: subscribers gained per day, as YouTube reports them. Its days run midnight to midnight US Pacific time and arrive a few days late; a day more than 5 days back is skipped as old news. TikTok: the change in your follower count between two of our checks about a day apart.
- Milestones: Your follower or subscriber count passing the next round number: 100, 250, 500, 1K, 2.5K, 5K, 10K and on up. We picked the round numbers; the count is the platform's own. YouTube rounds big counts, so there we wait until it's clearly past the mark.
- Link click bursts: A link with at least 20 clicks in 24 hours that's also 3x its average day over the 14 days before. Each check looks at the 24 hours before it. The link has to be at least 7 days old, and each link alerts at most once every 72 hours. Our own count of clicks on your link.
Visits and clicks
- We keep hourly counts of visits to your page and clicks on your links, added up as they happen.
- We count visits, not people. One person visiting twice is two visits. We skip known bots and link previews.
- A scan of your page's QR code counts as a visit from "QR code".
- A country, device type or site with fewer than 3 visits or clicks is only counted inside an "other" row, and with fewer than 3 in all there's no breakdown, so no one visitor stands out.
- Our code never reads, stores or hashes a visitor's IP address, and we don't set or read a cookie to count or recognize visitors.
- Visits and clicks are our own counts. We never add them to, or divide them by, a platform's numbers.
Why
Counts, not a log: there's no record of any one visit to leak or misuse.
Whose number it is
- Numbers we work out ourselves, like your typical, a multiple, or our counts of visits and clicks, say "Calculated by Monkeys in Space" and have a dashed underline.
- Every other number is the platform's own, as it reports it, with the platform named beside it.
- Each platform stays on its own: YouTube and TikTok are never added up, averaged together or compared with each other. Your typical on YouTube comes from your YouTube posts, and on TikTok from your TikToks.
- No scores, grades or rankings: only plain comparisons, like 2x your typical.
- No guessing why a post did well: we show its numbers next to your typical, not a cause.
- No comparing you with other creators: every comparison uses your own posts.
Why
A YouTube video and a TikTok post are different things. Side by side helps; one number for both would mislead.
How fresh the numbers are
- We read each connected account once a day, starting at 9 AM UTC. If a read fails, we try again later that day, up to 3 more times.
- When you open Your content in Insights and the numbers are over 6 hours old, we read them again.
- YouTube videos more than 90 days old are read about once a week.
- YouTube's daily figures run 2 to 3 days behind.
- YouTube's and TikTok's own apps update sooner than we do, so their numbers can be ahead of ours.
- Visits and clicks count as they happen.
Next moves
- Worked out each time you open this page, from your notes, your tags and this tab's numbers. Nothing new is collected or stored, and no AI is involved.
- Your note's week is in: shows for about a week after a note's numbers land, up or down.
- Run it back: New format and New posting time notes written by the day after their date. It needs 4 complete weeks before, nothing else logged from 4 weeks before to 6 days after, no post alert or milestone just before it, and a week above each of the 4 before and at least 1.5x your typical. YouTube also needs a typical week of 700+ views; TikTok, at least +20 followers over your typical week.
- On its own, a week lands above all 4 before it about 1 time in 5. That's why it says try it again.
- Another tag: at least 6 of the tag's posts from the last 180 days, across 3+ weeks, each compared at day 7 with your typical from the 10 posts before it (it has to be 100+ views). The count has to be one chance alone reaches under 2% of the time, stricter with more tags, and your other posts have to be above their typical half the time or less. Approximate: nearby posts are compared with some of the same earlier posts.
- Worth a note: after a post alert, a milestone or your first post after a long gap, when no note is dated near it.
- More shares: a TikTok from the last 14 days, 3+ days old, with shares at least 2x your typical by the same point and above each of 7+ earlier posts, while its views were under 1.25x your typical. It needs 20+ shares, and your typical has to be 10+ shares. Two counts side by side, never a share rate.
- Posting time: after a New posting time note, your TikToks' times of day in your own time zone, since the note and in the 4 weeks before, with 5+ on each side. Mostly means over 70% in one time of day; mixed means 50% to 70%.
- Notes show on both tabs. Each tab uses only its own platform's numbers.
- Suggestions, not advice or promises. They show what came after, not why.
Shelf life (TikTok)
- Calculated by Monkeys in Space.
- From our daily readings of the TikToks you posted since you connected, counting only those we read from their first day.
- A post's first week is its TikTok views at our first reading 7 days or more after it went up.
- From day 14, it counts as still pulling views while each 7 days bring at least a tenth of its first week's views, and at least 100; it stopped on the first day they brought less, or its count went down.
- Each 7 days run from our first reading at or after 7 days back (within 12 hours), so they never cover more; a day with no such reading is skipped.
- A stop found after days we couldn't check is dated to the first of those days.
- Days are whole days since posting, rounded down.
- A post we stopped reading (it left your newest 60, or TikTok stopped listing it) counts as still pulling views up to the last day a check saw it still pulling views, then leaves the count; it's never counted as stopped (a Kaplan-Meier estimate).
- The day named is the first day the share still pulling views was exactly half or, when it fell straight past half, the day before it did.
- If more than half had stopped by day 14, the first day a stop can be seen, it says fewer than half at day 14.
- If the share never fell to half while at least 5 posts were still followed, it names the last day at least 5 were, and says more than half.
- Only days with at least 5 posts still followed are named or drawn.
- Posts you deleted aren't in it at all, which can skew it: deleting posts that faded early makes the rest look longer-lived.
It's early (TikTok)
- Calculated by Monkeys in Space.
- The day is your newest TikTok's age in whole days, for its first 5 days.
- For each of your last 10 TikToks we read from their first day through their first week (at least 5): its TikTok views at our first reading at or after the end of that day, over its views at our last reading before day 7.
- A running count only adds up, so that's at least the share of its first week that had come in at any time that day, and the rest is never more than what was still ahead; a count TikTok lowered counts as nothing ahead.
- Half or more of those posts had at least the share named, rounded down to a quarter.
- It describes your past posts only, not what your newest one will do.
Views from new and older posts
- Calculated by Monkeys in Space.
- For each 7-day week: each post's YouTube views at the end minus its views at the start, from the readings we took nearest those times (within 12 hours); a post that went up during the week counts all its views.
- For each 7-day week: each post's TikTok views at the end minus its views at the start, from the readings we took nearest those times (within 12 hours); a post that went up during the week counts all its views.
- Split three ways: posted that week, posted the week before, and 14 to 35 days old when the week began.
- Posts 7 to 13 days old, or older than 35, aren't in the split.
- Shares are rounded to the nearest 5%.
- From your newest 60 public posts, the ones YouTube lists for us: a week shows only when every post from 35 days before it to its end fits in those 60.
- From your newest 60 public posts, the ones TikTok lists for us: a week shows only when every post from 35 days before it to its end fits in those 60.
- A post with fewer views at the end than at the start is left out, never counted as 0.
Still pulling views
- Calculated by Monkeys in Space.
- Posts 14 days old or more that gained 100 or more YouTube views over the last 7 days: YouTube's count at the end minus its count at the start, from our daily readings.
- Posts 14 days old or more that gained 100 or more TikTok views over the last 7 days: TikTok's count at the end minus its count at the start, from our daily readings.
- Most first, up to 5; nothing is numbered or ranked.
- Pinned posts and posts boosted with Promote can lead this list.
What happened after a note
- Same for every note, whatever its type. No AI involved: the type is just your label.
- The 7 days start on the note's day. Your typical week is your average over up to 4 complete weeks just before.
- YouTube's daily figures run 2 to 3 days behind, so the numbers land a few days after the week ends.
- The TikTok numbers land the day after the week ends.
- Your notes show on both tabs. Each tab uses only its own platform's numbers.
- Notes from the last 30 days also appear on your YouTube views chart.
- It shows what happened after, not why.
- Calendar days: weekends and holidays count.
What we read from each platform: What we read, and why. How we handle data: our Privacy Policy.