How to Get More Subscribers on YouTube: 9 Tactics for 2026

How to get more subscribers on YouTube: 9 tactics at a glance

All nine run on tools already in YouTube Studio or the YouTube app. The last column is the limit most likely to trip you up.

End screens and the watermark: use the last 20 seconds

Every video 25 seconds or longer can carry an end screen in its last 5–20 seconds, the one subscribe prompt that appears exactly when a viewer finishes. You get up to four elements, chosen from a video or playlist, a subscribe button, another channel, and external links if you’re in the Partner Program.

1. Leave the final 15–20 seconds visually plain in the edit, so the elements don’t cover anything that matters.
2. Add a subscribe element and one video element pointing at the most logical next video (often not your newest upload). Then say it out loud: “Part two, the freezer meals, is on the left.”

The watermark is the other passive prompt. Upload it under Customization in YouTube Studio (square, at least 150×150 pixels, under 1 MB) and show it for the last 15 seconds, from a set time or throughout. Viewers can click it on a computer, not on mobile.

When to ask viewers to subscribe, and how to word it

Ask after the payoff, not before it. In the first 30 seconds the viewer hasn’t gotten anything yet, and a subscribe request there competes with the opening’s one job, which is keeping them watching.

On a 12-minute meal-prep video, the right spot is when the third recipe comes out of the oven. Tie the ask to the next video: “Next week is the same idea on a $30 budget. Subscribe if you want that one.” Now the viewer knows what they’re signing up for.

The audience retention report shows where the payoff lands. Split it into subscribers and non-subscribers, then place the ask after a peak in the non-subscriber line, before it drops.

• Pin a comment that links the next episode. It keeps asking after the video ends.
• Ask for “the bell” only from regulars. New subscribers get personalized notifications by default; only those who choose All hear about every long-form upload and live stream.

Series and playlists give a subscription something to promise

A subscription is a bet on future videos, so make the future visible. A channel of unrelated one-offs asks the viewer to guess what’s next. A numbered series (“Budget Meal Prep, Week 7”) tells them.

1. Pick one format you can make at least twice a month and give it a fixed name and a fixed day.
2. Make a playlist with every episode in sequence. Point each episode’s end screen at the next one, or at the playlist for viewers who arrive mid-series.
3. Give the series its own section near the top of your channel’s Home tab, which holds up to 12 sections.
4. Set a channel trailer for people who haven’t subscribed. YouTube shows it to new visitors and stops once they’ve watched it, so a short clip on what the channel is and when it posts is enough.

Take a 300-subscriber Minecraft channel that posts random builds. It has nothing to promise. The same channel posting “Hardcore Day 12” every Tuesday gives a new viewer a reason to be back next Tuesday.

Send Shorts viewers to your long videos with the related video link

Link every Short to one long video with the related video link, which sits below your channel handle on the Short. You need it because YouTube says its audiences are often highly segmented, and some viewers only ever watch Shorts.

In YouTube Studio, go to Content, click the Short, choose Related video and pick the video. It needs advanced feature access, and the linked video has to be public or unlisted. Shorts cut with YouTube’s clip tool link their source video automatically unless private, unlisted or made for kids.

YouTube suggests using the last 5 seconds of the Short to tell viewers to tap the link, pointing down at it or flashing the long video’s thumbnail. The long video should then deliver what the Short promised in its first 5–10 seconds, with no channel intro in the way.

Match the link to the Short’s intent. A 40-second Short showing one knife trick should link to the full knife-skills video, not your latest vlog.

Posts (formerly Community posts): set up your next upload

A post is the cheapest way to make people want a video before it exists. Posts can be polls, quizzes, GIFs, text, music, images or video, and they reach viewers’ homepage and Subscriptions feed, not only your channel.

Two days before next week’s $30 episode, post a photo of the grocery haul with the receipt. Subscribers see what’s coming, and because image posts can also show in the Shorts feed, so can people who haven’t subscribed yet.

Collaborations put you in front of someone else’s subscribers

A collaboration is the most direct way to reach people who already subscribe to channels like yours. Pitch creators in your niche at roughly your size. They have the same problem you do, so the trade is easy to agree to.

• Make two videos, one per channel, and put the other channel in each end screen and pinned comment. If your channel has the Collaborations tool YouTube announced in September 2025, use it as well.
• Guest on each other’s streams. Go Live Together puts one guest on screen beside you in a mobile stream, which suits a 20-minute Q&A slot.

Live streams: answer viewers by name, then ask them to subscribe

On a live stream you can answer a viewer’s question by name and ask them to subscribe a minute later, while they’re still in chat. YouTube said more than 30% of daily logged-in viewers watched live content on average in the second quarter of 2025, so the audience is there.

You need a verified channel with no live streaming restrictions in the past 90 days, and streaming from a phone also takes 50 subscribers. Our guide on how to go live on YouTube covers the rest of the setup.

• Add a Live section to your channel so upcoming and current streams show on the Home tab.
• Keep the archive public afterwards. YouTube says public archives can increase the reach of your future streams.

An empty chat is the hardest part of a small stream. Socialbot’s YouTube live viewers start within 15 minutes and stay for the length you pick (30 minutes to 6 hours), and our AI chat bot for YouTube live posts 2–5 English messages a minute that react to what you say and do. That gives you a room to talk to. The subscribers still come from the viewers who found you and chose to stay.

Find which videos earn subscribers, then make more like them

YouTube Studio reports subscribers gained per video, so you can see which uploads convert and copy them.

1. Open Analytics in YouTube Studio, click Advanced mode and sort your videos by subscribers for the last 90 days.
2. Compare subscribers with views. A tutorial with 2,000 views and 60 new subscribers (3%) is doing more for the channel than a vlog with 10,000 views and 20 (0.2%).
3. Look at what the top converters share (topic, format, length, where the ask sits) and make your next few videos in that shape.
4. Do the same for Shorts using the subscriber numbers on the Content tab, and link your best-converting Shorts to your best long video.

Bought subscribers and the YouTube Partner Program

Bought subscribers raise the number on your channel page but add no watch time, and the Partner Program wants watch hours or Shorts views on top of subscribers.

The 2027 bar applies only to new applicants. Channels already in the program keep their status, and fan funding thresholds don’t change.

Buying isn’t illegal, but it breaks YouTube’s fake engagement policy. YouTube’s help page on subscriber counts names buying from a third-party service as a source of spam subscribers, which it removes from your total. In practice some bought subscribers can drop off the count; action against the channel itself is rare but possible.

If you want a starting count anyway, so a new channel doesn’t sit at 11 subscribers while you build a catalog, Socialbot sells YouTube subscribers. The first ones arrive within 12 hours and the rest at 100–200 a day, so 200 take one to two days, and there’s a 30-day top-up: drops in the first 30 days are topped back up. We need your @handle, never your password. Your subscriber count must be public and the channel needs at least one video over 5 minutes, so Shorts-only channels don’t qualify.

Starter monthly ($44.99) includes 200 subscribers a month, Elite monthly includes 2,000, and the $4 trial has 50; the other plans are on our YouTube growth service page. Those accounts won’t watch your videos, so they add nothing toward 4,000 watch hours, and we don’t promise Partner Program approval. For how YouTube treats bought metrics, see our answer on whether you can buy YouTube views and subscribers.