The top YouTuber in the U.S., MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) co-founded the new analytics platform ViewStats, which is now available in beta. Similar to tools like Social Blade, ViewStats uses the YouTube API to unveil detailed stats about channels that both creators and their fans can see.
MrBeast didn’t become one of the highest-earning creators of all time by accident. He is meticulous about every last detail of his videos — he recently A/B tested to see if his videos perform better with a thumbnail where his mouth is open, or a thumbnail where it’s not open (apparently, closed mouth thumbnails win). So, if he thinks certain metrics are a must-have for an analytics platform, they’re probably important.
Founded alongside Chucky Appleby, a creator who works with MrBeast, ViewStats is differentiating itself with this star power. Celebrity-backed startups aren’t always as big of a slam dunk as they may seem, but in this case, star power should not be underestimated. I witnessed the phenomenon myself, when I attended a panel hosted by MrBeast about understanding the YouTube algorithm. The seats filled up so quickly, with so many people turned away at the door, that VidCon probably could’ve assigned him a room twice the size and still had an overflow line — any creator, no matter their genre, wanted to hear what the king of the algorithm had to say.
Like Social Blade, ViewStats displays basic information like subscriber numbers, estimated monthly ad revenue, video views and how those figures fluctuate over a given period of time. ViewStats is also available as a Chrome extension. Appleby said that the platform will add more tools in the future, including thumbnail analytics tools. As of now, it’s not clear how the platform plans to monetize, but Social Blade monetizes by paywalling certain more-advanced analytics.
According to Tubefilter, ViewStats is a separate company from MrBeast, LLC. Both MrBeast and Appleby, who is CEO, have funded the endeavor with their own money.