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. 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.

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
}

Use cases

• Content ideas: see which topics and titles broke out for creators in your niche, judged against each channel's own audience rather than raw views.
• Competitor tracking: schedule a weekly run on a list of competitor channels and get their over-performing uploads.
• Trend spotting: search a topic and find the small channels whose recent video took off.
• Thumbnail and title research: export the top outliers with their thumbnails for review.

Input

Input	Type	Default	Meaning
channels	array	—	Channel links, @handles or UC… channel IDs. Every upload in the window is scored.
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.
maxResults	integer	20	How many top-ranked videos the whole run returns (1-1,000).
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.
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. With neither, the run checks two example channels (@mkbhd and @LinusTechTips). A search scores up to three times maxResults recent results.

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. Both modes date videos the same way. Each channel's newest 15 uploads get an exact publish time. An older upload starts from the age YouTube shows ("2 weeks ago"). Before such a row is returned, the run opens the video's page for its publish day and current views (day). A row stays estimated only when that page could not be read (counted in OUTPUT.unconfirmedDates) or showed an age instead of a date, as it does for a video a few hours old. A row whose real date falls outside lookbackDays is dropped, and the next best video takes its place.

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.

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"}

Limits and caveats

• 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.
• 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.

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.

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.

How do I keep the cost predictable? Set maxResults; the run returns at most that many rows.

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. Platform usage is included in the price.

Support

For questions or issues, contact us from the Actor page.