Buy YouTube Watch Hours

At the time of writing, YouTube's long-form eligibility bar is 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 valid public watch hours over the previous 12 months. YouTube has announced that from 1 February 2027 new applicants will need 8,000 hours instead, while channels already in the programme keep their place, and a lower tier available in some countries asks for, among other things, 500 subscribers and 3,000 hours. These figures change, so check YouTube's own eligibility page before relying on any of them.

Reaching a number is not the same as getting in. Applications are reviewed by automated systems and by people, who look at the channel as a whole, and inauthentic activity is a stated reason for rejecting an application or for removing a channel from the programme later. Artificially inflating watch time falls under YouTube's fake engagement policy like any other metric, and YouTube can discount viewing it judges artificial.

So here is our position, stated before you buy rather than after: we make no promise about monetisation, and we would not sell watch hours as a way through a Partner Programme review. Our largest package is 4,000 hours, the same figure as the current threshold, and that is not an invitation. If your plan is to cross the line with bought hours, this is the wrong purchase.

Watch time is the total time viewers spend watching your videos, and YouTube Studio reports it in hours. For the Partner Programme only part of it qualifies: hours watched on public long-form videos, including public live streams kept on the channel as videos, within a rolling window of the last 12 months. Older hours drop out as the window moves, so a total built up more than a year ago counts for nothing towards eligibility today.

Several kinds of viewing never qualify. Time spent on Shorts in the Shorts feed is excluded, as are hours on private, unlisted or deleted videos and viewing that came from ad campaigns. Deletion is the one people overlook: remove a video, or make it private, and the hours it earned stop counting towards the total, even hours watched months earlier.

Watch time appears in YouTube Studio's analytics under the label Watch time (hours), for the channel as a whole and on each video's own analytics page. Progress towards the Partner Programme sits in the Earn area of YouTube Studio, which also offers to notify you once the channel is eligible. None of it is visible to viewers, subscribers or anyone browsing your channel.

What the public can see is the view count. Watch time only accrues through plays, so the video's view count rises alongside the hours as they arrive. That makes the visible effect of this service smaller than many buyers expect: a video with more views on it. If a busier-looking video is all you want, a views order does that more simply; watch hours only make sense if you specifically want long plays on a long video.

An hour of watch time is sixty minutes of viewing however it is made up, and the length of the video decides how many plays that takes. On a four-minute video, even viewers who watch every second need fifteen plays to produce one hour, so a thousand hours needs at least fifteen thousand plays. On a forty-minute video watched to the end, the same thousand hours needs about fifteen hundred.

That is why we suggest a longer video, and it is our advice rather than a rule: the hours can build without the view count racing to a figure that looks implausible next to the rest of your channel. A short video could take the same order, but the plays needed would dwarf everything else you have posted.

Good fit

Stream replays, podcast episodes, long tutorials and documentaries, where long viewing is normal.

Poor fit

Clips and music videos, where the plays needed would outrun the rest of the channel.

No fit

Shorts. Viewing in the Shorts feed is excluded from the hours YouTube counts.

The clearest case is the one already covered: hoping bought hours will carry a Partner Programme application. Beyond that, the service needs a public long-form video that will stay public, on a channel in good standing, and a buyer who wants long viewing for its own sake rather than a number to show someone else.

If none of the cases below apply, choose the video with care. It is the one decision that cannot be changed once the hours start arriving, and the video you pick should be one you expect to keep public for as long as the hours matter to you.

Chasing monetisation

Reviewers look for inauthentic watch time, and we make no promise about the outcome.

Shorts-only channels

Shorts-feed viewing never counts towards the total, and there is no long video to deliver to.

Unlisted videos

Their hours are excluded from the total, and delivery needs a public video in any case.

A channel with a strike

YouTube requires no active Community Guidelines strikes for the programme, and extra activity invites a closer look.

Sponsor or network reports

Never on a video whose watch time a partner pays for or audits. That would mislead them, and we will not be part of it.

Videos you may remove

Delete the video or make it private and its hours leave the total.

Most of what we sell is a standing count that can be topped back up when it slips. Watch time is different. It is counted once, as the viewing happens, and there is no standing figure to restore afterwards: the minutes were either watched or they were not. So watch hours carry no refill, and we say so plainly rather than attaching a promise that could not apply.

Delivery follows from the same nature. The start window for this service is one to six hours after payment clears, later than our other services, and the hours are then added gradually rather than in one block. If YouTube's checks later discount some of the viewing, that loss is not re-delivered, which is one more reason to choose a video and a size that sit comfortably with your channel.

The size that looks plausible depends on the video's runtime more than on the channel. None of these sizes is a monetisation plan, and all of them are our suggestion rather than anything YouTube sets.

Videos under 20 minutes

500 hours at most, and consider views instead; any more and the plays needed outrun the rest of the channel.

Videos of 20 to 60 minutes

1,000 to 2,000 hours can build without an unusual jump in plays.

Replays and episodes over an hour

3,000 to 4,000 hours, where long sessions are normal. Choosing 4,000 because it matches YouTube's threshold is the wrong reason.

Watch hours stay private; the likes and comments on the same video do not. These keep the public side of a long video in step.

• LikesA long video with plenty of plays and few thumbs-up looks as if people sat through it without enjoying it.from $3.99
• CommentsLong videos draw comments about specific moments. A handful gives a stream replay or a podcast episode some visible conversation.from $3.49

Something else? Write to support or read the help centre.