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YouTube Shorts are ranked based on viewer satisfaction — primarily swipe-away rate (are viewers staying or leaving?) and click-through rate from browse. A strong hook in the first 2–3 seconds is non-negotiable. Use the idea title as your spoken or visual hook, then deliver on it quickly.
Shorts work best when the concept is immediately clear, the value is delivered fast, and there's a satisfying payoff. Avoid slow intros, long pauses or "welcome back to my channel" openers — get straight to the point. The algorithm rewards shorts that people watch multiple times.
YouTube Shorts are up to 60 seconds (increasing to 3 minutes for some creators). In practice, the highest-performing Shorts are typically 15–45 seconds. Viewer retention drops off sharply after 30 seconds in most niches — only keep what's necessary to deliver the value.
Shorts can dramatically accelerate subscriber growth because they get served to non-subscribers in the Shorts feed. Many creators use Shorts as a discovery mechanism and long-form videos for depth and monetisation. The challenge is converting Short viewers to long-form viewers — use Shorts to demonstrate your expertise, then direct viewers to longer content.
Yes — as of 2023, Shorts are part of the YouTube Partner Programme (YPP). Revenue is pooled from ads shown between Shorts and distributed based on your share of Shorts views. Shorts RPM is lower than long-form, but volume can make it worthwhile. You still need 500+ subscribers and 3,000+ watch hours (or 3M Shorts views in 90 days) to join YPP.
9:16 vertical format is required for Shorts — the same as Instagram Reels and TikTok. Film natively on your phone in portrait, or crop/reframe horizontal footage. Shorts filmed vertically get significantly better performance than reformatted horizontal content.