How do you calculate engagement rate on YouTube?

Likes and comments over views, times 100. Use views not subscribers, since YouTube shows videos to far more people than your sub count.

Engagement rate is a weak YouTube signal on its own. Watch time and retention tell you far more about whether a video landed.

On YouTube, the simple engagement rate adds likes and comments on a video, divides by views and multiplies by 100. Views work better than subscribers as the denominator because, like TikTok, YouTube serves videos to people who have not subscribed, so subscriber count understates the real audience of a given video.

The honest caveat is that engagement rate is a weaker signal on YouTube than on Instagram or TikTok. The metrics that actually decide whether a video worked are watch time and audience retention, how long people stay, not just whether they tapped like. A high like rate on a video nobody finishes is not the win it looks like.

So use engagement rate as one input and weight watch-through alongside it. Flinque covers YouTube creators with engagement and audience data, which helps you judge a channel beyond the headline subscriber count that means the least.

Subscriber count is the vanity number on YouTube. Judge a channel on views and how long people actually watch.