YouTube Outlier Finder: Breakout Videos vs Channel Median

YouTube Outlier Finder: Videos That Beat Their Channel

Find the YouTube videos that are doing far better than their channel usually does. Give it channels, a search term or both. A separate Shorts mode does the same for each channel's Shorts. Every recent upload gets an outlier score: its views divided by the median views of the channel's latest uploads. A score of 3 means three times the channel's usual views. You also get views per day, the publish date, duration and a rank, so the breakout videos come first.

Built for creators planning the next upload and for agencies reporting on a roster of channels. Every video is judged against its own channel's normal, so a 40,000-view video on a channel that usually gets 10,000 can outrank a 500,000-view video on a channel that always gets 400,000.

Quick Start

The best recent uploads of two channels:

{
  "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips"],
  "lookbackDays": 30,
  "maxResults": 10
}

Videos from the last two weeks about home espresso that got at least twice their channel's usual views:

{
  "searchQuery": "home espresso",
  "lookbackDays": 14,
  "minOutlierScore": 2,
  "maxResults": 20
}

The Shorts on two channels that beat the channel's recent Shorts at least tenfold:

{
  "contentType": "shorts",
  "channels": ["https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips"],
  "lookbackDays": 30
}

First run: no input needed

Click Start without filling anything in. The Actor scores the latest uploads from two busy example channels, @mkbhd and @LinusTechTips, and returns up to 10 ranked rows. The OUTPUT record marks the run with usedExample: true, and the run status explains how to replace the sample with your own channels or search term. The rows are real, not a mock sheet.

The same happens if you send an empty JSON object ({}). Add channels, a searchQuery, or both to score your own list instead.

Use cases

• Creators: content ideas — see which topics, titles and formats broke out in your niche, judged against each channel's own audience rather than raw views.
• Agencies: channel portfolios — run a client roster through one input and report each channel's over-performing uploads for the month.
• Competitor tracking — schedule a weekly run on competitor channels and collect only the uploads that beat their usual views.
• Trend spotting — search a topic and find the smaller channels whose recent video took off.
• Thumbnail and title research — export the top outliers with their thumbnails, publish dates and views per day for review.
• Sponsorship and creator research — spot channels whose reach is accelerating relative to their own track record.

Recipes for creators and agencies

A creator's weekly idea scan. Search one niche, look at the last week and keep only videos at least twice as big as the channel's usual upload:

{
  "searchQuery": "home espresso",
  "lookbackDays": 7,
  "minOutlierScore": 2,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Schedule it weekly. The same topic search each week shows which formats keep breaking out.

An agency's monthly roster report. Give every client or competitor channel once, widen the window and keep a generous number of rows:

{
  "channels": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/@client-one",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@client-two",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@competitor-three"
  ],
  "lookbackDays": 30,
  "minOutlierScore": 1.5,
  "maxResults": 200
}

Group the rows by channelId for a per-channel section in a report. Each row already carries the channel name, handle, median views, views per day and publish date.

Input

Input	Type	Default	Meaning
channels	array	—	Up to 500 channel links, @handles or UC… channel IDs. Every upload in the window is scored. Paste one per line in Console or send a JSON array.
searchQuery	string	—	A search term. Recent videos for it are scored, each against its own channel.
lookbackDays	integer	30	Only uploads from the last this many days are scored (1-365).
minOutlierScore	number	0	Keep only videos with at least this score. 0 keeps every recent upload, ranked; 2 keeps videos with double the usual views.
maxResults	integer	20	How many top-ranked videos the whole run returns (1-1,000). A run with no channels and no search term returns at most 10.
baselineVideos	integer	30	How many of each channel's latest long-form uploads make up its median views (5-90).
searchSort	string	relevance	Which search results are scored: relevance, uploadDate or viewCount.
contentType	string	long	long scores long-form uploads. shorts scores each channel's Shorts (see Shorts mode).
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy, US	Optional proxy settings; the default works for most runs. Use a direct connection, Apify datacenter proxy or your own proxy URLs.

Use channels, searchQuery or both. A search scores up to three times maxResults recent results. With neither, the run does the 10-row example described above.

Bulk channels

channels accepts up to 500 entries in one run. Entries can be full links, @handles, UC… IDs or the short youtube.com/@name form, and duplicate channels are read once. In Console, paste a column of channels straight into the list, one per line; through the input JSON, send an array. Every upload published inside lookbackDays is scored, so maxResults only controls how many of the best rows come back.

Very large rosters take longer because every channel's recent uploads are read. For more than about 100 channels, split the list across runs or raise the run timeout. Each run's OUTPUT record names any channel that could not be scored and why.

How the outlier score works

For each channel, the Actor builds a baseline from the channel's latest baselineVideos long-form uploads (30 by default), then compares every recent upload with that baseline:

1. Take the median views of the baseline uploads. The median is the middle value, so one past viral hit does not raise the bar for everything else the way an average would.
2. Divide each recent upload's views by that median: outlierScore = viewCount ÷ channelMedianViews.
3. Divide views by age in days to get viewsPerDay, so a 2-day-old video and a 20-day-old video can be compared fairly.

A channel needs at least 3 public uploads with views to get a baseline. Shorts, live streams and upcoming premieres are left out of both the scores and the baseline in long-form mode; Shorts mode compares Shorts with Shorts only.

Worked example. A channel's median is 12,000 views. One upload has 48,000 views after 6 days:

Measure	Calculation	Result
outlierScore	48,000 ÷ 12,000	4.0 (four times the channel's usual views)
viewsPerDay	48,000 ÷ 6	8,000 views per day

Reading the score. The score is relative to the channel, not to YouTube as a whole:

Score	What it means
around 1	A normal upload for this channel.
2 or more	Clearly above the channel's usual performance.
3 to 5	A strong breakout worth studying.
5 to 10	A big breakout, often reaching viewers beyond the channel's usual audience.
over 10	Exceptional for the channel. Check channelMedianViews: very small channels can produce very high ratios from a handful of views.

A high score does not explain why a video worked, and it says nothing about watch time or revenue. Use the title, thumbnail, duration, publish date and views per day together when you study the winners.

What it returns

One row per video, best outlier first. All dates are ISO 8601 in UTC.

Field	Meaning
rank	Position in this run; 1 is the highest outlier score.
videoId, url, title, thumbnailUrl	The video and its watch link.
channelId, channelName, channelHandle, channelUrl	The uploader.
viewCount	Views at the time of the run.
channelMedianViews	The channel's typical views: the median over its latest baselineVideos long-form uploads (30 by default). With an even number of uploads it can end in .5.
outlierScore	viewCount ÷ channelMedianViews. Only a median of exactly 0 is replaced, by 1.
viewsPerDay	viewCount ÷ ageDays. Videos younger than a day count as one day old.
publishedAt, publishedDate, publishedDatePrecision	Publish time and date. exact: the time is known to the second. day: the day is known, so publishedAt is null. estimated: the date is worked out from the upload age YouTube shows, for example "2 weeks ago".
publishedText, ageDays	The upload age as YouTube shows it, and days since publishing.
duration, durationText	Length in seconds and as m:ss / h:mm:ss.
baselineVideos	How many uploads the channel median was taken over.
source, input, searchQuery, scrapedAt	Which input found the video (channel or search), the input itself, the search term on search rows, and when the row was collected.

How exact the dates are. Dates carry an exact, day or estimated precision label. Older uploads may have only day precision; unavailable dates or very recent uploads may remain estimated (counted in OUTPUT.unconfirmedDates). Videos with a known date outside lookbackDays are excluded. Estimated dates can make window coverage uncertain.

The OUTPUT record of the run's key-value store has the run summary: each channel with its median views, how many recent uploads were scored, and an errors list naming each input that could not be scored, with a code and a readable message.

Shorts mode

Set contentType to shorts to score each channel's Shorts against that channel's own recent Shorts. Shorts mode reads channels only: a run with contentType shorts and a searchQuery stops at the start with SEARCH_NOT_SUPPORTED_FOR_SHORTS. Shorts views count plays, replays included, so they are never compared with long-form views.

How a Short is scored. The Shorts tab shows rounded-down view labels ("1.4K views" can be anything from 1,400 to 1,499). The baseline is the channel's newest baselineVideos Shorts that are at least baselineMinAgeDays old, and its median is taken over each label's upper bound, so it errs high. Each promising Short's exact views and publish day come from its own page, and the Short itself is left out of its baseline. A Short is returned only when its scoreLowerBound (exact views ÷ that cautious median) reaches max(minOutlierScore, 10). It must also be at least 0 and at most lookbackDays − 2 days old, belong to the channel, and have at least 10 other Shorts in its baseline. The publish days on Shorts pages may be one day off either way, so Shorts on the last two days of the window are reported as uncertain rather than returned.

Shorts settings (ignored in long-form runs):

Input	Default	Range	Meaning
lookbackDays	30	3-365	Only Shorts published within this many days are returned.
baselineVideos	30	11-90	How many Shorts make up each channel's baseline.
baselineMinAgeDays	3	0-14	Younger Shorts stay out of the baseline; they can still be returned.
baselineMaxAgeDays	365	30-730	When the baseline's oldest Short is older than this, the channel's Shorts are reported as uncertain.
maxTabPagesPerChannel	2	1-2	Shorts tab pages read per channel (48 Shorts a page).
maxDateLookupsPerChannel	8	2-16	Shorts opened per channel to date the baseline.
maxConfirmationsPerChannel	10	1-30	Promising Shorts opened per channel to check exact views, day and owner.
maxRequestsPerChannel, maxRequestsPerRun	30, 400	5-80, 10-5,000	Hard limits on requests to YouTube.
maxBytesPerChannel, maxBytesPerRun	15, 200	2-50, 10-2,000	Download limits in MB; a run may slightly exceed them.

Shorts rows have contentType shorts, isShort true, contractVersion shorts-mode/1 and contractRevision 3, and the same channel, title, view, date and score fields as long-form rows (publishedAt, duration and durationText are always null). Shorts rows add url as a /shorts/ link, tabPosition (0 = the newest Short), viewLabel, viewCountPrecision, shortsMedianViews (same as channelMedianViews), medianViewsUpperBound, scoreLowerBound, leaveOneOut, baselineNewestAgeDays and baselineOldestAgeDays. Rows are ranked by scoreLowerBound, then viewsPerDay. outlierScore (exact views ÷ the median of the labels) is shown for reference only.

Uncertain Shorts. Shorts that looked like outliers but failed a check are not returned and not charged. Up to 200 of them are saved in the key-value store record UNCERTAIN, highest outlierScore first, each with uncertainReasons: SCORE_BOUND_BELOW_THRESHOLD, VIEWS_NOT_EXACT, DATE_MISSING (also when the page shows only an age such as "5 hours ago"), DATE_IN_FUTURE, DATE_AT_WINDOW_EDGE, OWNER_MISMATCH, BASELINE_TOO_SMALL_AFTER_LOO, BASELINE_OLDER_THAN_CAP or ORDER_INCONSISTENT.

Shorts summary. OUTPUT adds acceptanceThreshold, anchorAt and anchorDate (ages count from the run's start date, UTC), caps, capsHit, refusedReservations, row counts (accepted, cutByMaxResults, cutByChargeLimit, uncertainTotal, uncertainListed, droppedOutsideWindow, droppedUnavailable), limitations and one channels entry per channel. A channel entry holds its status (ok, partial or error) with errorCode and errorDetail, its counts, its baseline, the positions it dated, windowCovered, requests and receivedBytes. Its unconfirmedProspects lists promising Shorts that were not checked, as {videoId, reason} with reason CAP_CONFIRMATIONS, BUDGET_EXHAUSTED, OUT_OF_TIME or FETCH_FAILED. A run that hits a limit or the timeout ends partial and still succeeds, even with no rows.

Shorts channel codes: TOO_FEW_SHORTS (no Shorts tab, or fewer than 10 Shorts old enough for a baseline), DATE_BOUNDARY_UNRESOLVED (the channel's newest Short, or the Shorts around the minimum baseline age, could not be dated; errorDetail budget, unavailable or noDate), ORDER_INCONSISTENT (dated Shorts were not newest first; the channel's rows are withheld), BUDGET_EXHAUSTED (a limit stopped the channel before its baseline was complete, or before it started) and PARTIAL (a limit stopped the checks of promising Shorts; checked rows stand).

Shorts limitations, as also given in OUTPUT.limitations:

shorts-mode/1 limitations. (1) Channels only; search is not supported. (2) Shorts tab view labels are truncated floors; baseline medians use label upper bounds and are conservative; outlierScore is informational and can overstate; accepted rows are gated on scoreLowerBound. (3) Tab order is assumed newest first. It is checked at each channel's dated positions, and an inversion withholds that channel's rows. Shorts at undated positions are placed in the baseline by this assumption, which is not proof of their age. (4) Publish days have timezone uncertainty. A shown day may be one day off in either direction, so both window edge days are reported as uncertain. The same ±1 day can move the min-age boundary by one position or move the baseline across the age cap; those effects are not flagged per row. (5) Only Shorts on the tab pages read are considered; a channel posting more Shorts within the window may be partly covered (windowCovered). (6) Shorts views count plays including replays and are not comparable with long-form views. (7) Scores describe view counts relative to the channel's recent Shorts at read time; they do not explain why a Short performed and say nothing about retention or watch time. (8) No number of results per run is implied. (9) Request caps are hard; byte caps are pre-check budgets that a run can exceed by up to the responses in flight; actual requests and bytes are reported.

Output example

Illustrative rows (live values change constantly):

{"rank": 1, "videoId": "FH5SoaRx2TA", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH5SoaRx2TA", "title": "There’s a Secret (Better) Netflix for Millionaires", "channelId": "UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw", "channelName": "Linus Tech Tips", "channelHandle": "@LinusTechTips", "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips", "publishedAt": "2026-10-22T17:00:06Z", "publishedDate": "2026-10-22", "publishedDatePrecision": "exact", "publishedText": "4 days ago", "ageDays": 4.91, "viewCount": 4658690, "channelMedianViews": 1900000, "outlierScore": 2.45, "viewsPerDay": 948269.2, "duration": 1079, "durationText": "17:59", "baselineVideos": 30, "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FH5SoaRx2TA/hqdefault.jpg", "source": "channel", "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips", "searchQuery": null, "scrapedAt": "2026-10-27T14:54:43Z"}
{"rank": 3, "videoId": "t28bEMboL9Y", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t28bEMboL9Y", "title": "The All COSTCO Gaming Setup", "channelId": "UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw", "channelName": "Linus Tech Tips", "channelHandle": "@LinusTechTips", "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips", "publishedAt": null, "publishedDate": "2026-10-06", "publishedDatePrecision": "day", "publishedText": "2 weeks ago", "ageDays": 21.62, "viewCount": 2648717, "channelMedianViews": 1900000, "outlierScore": 1.39, "viewsPerDay": 122497.4, "duration": 1538, "durationText": "25:38", "baselineVideos": 30, "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/t28bEMboL9Y/hqdefault.jpg", "source": "channel", "input": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips", "searchQuery": null, "scrapedAt": "2026-10-27T14:54:43Z"}
{"rank": 1, "videoId": "GGvrd35fXbI", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGvrd35fXbI", "title": "The Ultimate Home Espresso Machines Under £2,000 ☕ 4 Machines Compared!", "channelId": "UCWaZ48TYzu_DX-s8ceMmHJA", "channelName": "Bella Barista", "channelHandle": "@bellabaristauk1", "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@bellabaristauk1", "publishedAt": "2026-10-25T23:17:25Z", "publishedDate": "2026-10-25", "publishedDatePrecision": "exact", "publishedText": "1 day ago", "ageDays": 1.65, "viewCount": 11783, "channelMedianViews": 3050, "outlierScore": 3.86, "viewsPerDay": 7131.7, "duration": 2715, "durationText": "45:15", "baselineVideos": 30, "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GGvrd35fXbI/hqdefault.jpg", "source": "search", "input": "home espresso", "searchQuery": "home espresso", "scrapedAt": "2026-10-27T14:59:38Z"}
{"contractVersion": "shorts-mode/1", "contractRevision": 3, "contentType": "shorts", "isShort": true, "shortsIdentity": "shortsTab", "rank": 1, "videoId": "XXXXXXXXXXX", "title": "An illustrative Short", "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XXXXXXXXXXX/hqdefault.jpg", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XXXXXXXXXXX", "tabPosition": 1, "channelId": "UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw", "channelName": "Linus Tech Tips", "channelHandle": "@LinusTechTips", "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips", "viewCount": 4215873, "viewCountPrecision": "exact", "viewLabel": "4.2M views", "publishedDate": "2026-11-01", "publishedDatePrecision": "day", "publishedAt": null, "ageDays": 3, "channelMedianViews": 210000, "shortsMedianViews": 210000, "medianViewsUpperBound": 220000, "outlierScore": 20.08, "scoreLowerBound": 19.16, "baselineVideos": 29, "leaveOneOut": false, "baselineNewestAgeDays": 3, "baselineOldestAgeDays": 61, "viewsPerDay": 1405291.0, "duration": null, "durationText": null, "scrapedAt": "2026-11-04T12:00:00Z"}

Limits and caveats

• In the default long-form mode, scores cover long-form uploads from each channel's Videos tab. Shorts, live streams and upcoming premieres are left out of both the scores and the medians, in channel and search mode alike. Shorts mode scores Shorts only (see Shorts mode).
• The median is taken over each channel's latest 30 long-form uploads by default (baselineVideos). A channel whose latest uploads were unusual (a viral run, a long break) gets a skewed baseline.
• View counts of a channel's older uploads are rounded the way YouTube shows them (for example 1.9M), so channelMedianViews can be a rounded figure. The views of the most recent uploads and of every returned row are exact.
• Small channels give noisy scores: a video with 134 views on a channel with a median of 8 scores 16.75. Filter on channelMedianViews if you only want established channels.
• Older videos have had more time to collect views. Compare viewsPerDay when ages differ a lot, or use a shorter lookbackDays.
• A channel needs at least 3 public uploads with views to get a median; others are listed in OUTPUT.errors as TOO_FEW_VIDEOS.
• A run that scores channels but finds nothing at or above minOutlierScore succeeds with an empty dataset. A run where no channel could be scored ends with an error.
• Close to the run's timeout, the run stops reading new pages, ranks what it has and saves it. The run still succeeds, with the status "Stopped before the run timeout; saved N videos". OUTPUT then has timedOut: true and lists the inputs it did not finish as OUT_OF_TIME. For big channel lists, raise the run timeout.
• Use this actor only where you have the necessary permissions and a lawful basis; YouTube's terms restrict automated access.

Error codes you may see in OUTPUT.errors: INVALID_INPUT, CHANNEL_NOT_FOUND, CHANNEL_UNAVAILABLE, TOO_FEW_VIDEOS, NO_RESULTS, PARTIAL, OUT_OF_TIME, EMPTY_RESPONSE, RATE_LIMITED, BLOCKED, UPSTREAM_ERROR, NETWORK_ERROR and SOURCE_CHANGED. Shorts mode adds TOO_FEW_SHORTS, DATE_BOUNDARY_UNRESOLVED, ORDER_INCONSISTENT and BUDGET_EXHAUSTED.

FAQ

How is the outlier score worked out? For each channel, the run takes the median views of its latest baselineVideos uploads. Each recent upload's views are divided by that median. The median is used rather than the average, so one viral video does not raise the bar for the rest. There is a longer explanation with a worked example under How the outlier score works.

What happens if I leave the input empty? The run scores the latest uploads of @mkbhd and @LinusTechTips, returns up to 10 rows, and marks OUTPUT.usedExample as true. Add your own channels or a search term to score those instead.

Can I check many channels at once? Yes, up to 500 channels per run. Duplicate channels are read once, and every upload in the window is scored before the best rows are returned. Split very large lists across runs.

Can I get outliers per channel instead of overall? The ranking covers the whole run. Run one channel at a time, or group the rows by channelId.

Why are there no rows? The run found recent uploads but none reached minOutlierScore, or the channels had too few uploads to build a baseline. Lower the score or widen lookbackDays. Channels that could not be scored are named in OUTPUT.errors.

How do I keep the cost predictable? Set maxResults; the run returns at most that many rows, and only delivered rows are charged.

Price

$0.001 per delivered ranked video row ($1 per 1,000 rows), plus $0.005 per run start. The run-start event is charged per GB of memory; the default 512 MB run is one start event. The start is charged even if the run saves no results. Only the ranked rows you receive are charged: videos that are scored but not returned, and channels or searches that fail, cost nothing. Shorts mode uses the same prices: only returned Shorts rows are charged, and the uncertain Shorts and the summary are free. A Shorts run reads more pages per channel than a long-form run, and it may return no rows at all. Platform usage is included in the price.

Delivered rows	Event cost
10 (the no-input example)	$0.015
100	$0.105
1,000	$1.005

A run that returns fewer rows costs less; a run that returns nothing still costs the $0.005 start.

Support

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