With over 2.70 billion monthly active users, YouTube has become the second-biggest social media platform. Through high engagement rates and niche audiences, YouTube influencers can become key players in brands’ marketing efforts. However, there’s one aspect that can undermine these campaigns: fake YouTube subscribers.
While an influencer's audience size holds some importance, metrics like engagement rates, audience authenticity, and niche relevance are far more critical for impactful campaigns. Macro influencers may have larger followings, but without genuine engagement, their effectiveness is limited.
To maximize results—whether it’s boosting brand awareness, driving conversions, or achieving other goals—it’s essential that you thoroughly analyze an influencer’s audience and YouTube analytics.
In this article, we’ll explore how to spot fake YouTube subscribers, revealing key red flags and guiding you with actionable strategies to identify influencers with authentic audiences, ensuring your campaigns drive meaningful results.
One of the reasons why YouTube influencer marketing is successful is because of authenticity. But what happens when an influencer’s audience is mostly fake? In what ways can these harm your business? Let’s explore the reasons why fake YouTube subscribers are a risk for your brand.
The most important thing to know about fake YouTube subscribers is that they are not fans of an influencer’s content. They are often generated through bots or automated systems. Some key characteristics include:
Let’s see how these characteristics are key to determine and spot fake YouTube subscribers.
Unfortunately, buying subscribers is a common issue on YouTube. While YouTube works to regulate such activity, the platform can’t always prevent bad actors—or even competitors—from harming your channel by purchasing fake subscribers on your behalf without your knowledge.
So, how can you evaluate potential brand partnerships effectively?
The key lies in analyzing patterns over time. While there are immediate signs of fake subscribers (discussed below), a long-term approach provides clearer insight:
By taking a data-driven and patient approach, you can ensure that your brand aligns with influencers who have genuine, engaged audiences.
Fake subscribers can mislead brands into overestimating an influencer’s value, wasting time and resources. Let’s explore key strategies that are useful for spotting fake YouTube subscribers:
One of the easiest ways to identify if a YouTube account has fake subscribers is through engagement. A channel that has thousands of subscribers but low engagement (likes, comments, shares) on videos is suspicious.
Genuine YouTube channels have a relatively steady and predictable engagement.
Check engagement metrics such as:
Let’s take Mina Lee’s channel as an example. Mina is a fashion YouTuber who enjoys making YouTube videos related to fashion and trends and also related to movies. She has 1.64 million followers, and if you see her recent videos there’s a pattern between views and engagement, which leads to think she has an authentic audience.
To analyze more in detail, you can calculate the engagement rate. A healthy engagement (while it varies depending on the size of the influencer) is 2%.
Engagement Rate formula: Avg. number of likes + comments per post / total number of followers.
You can also easily calculate it using our free YouTube engagement rate calculator. In this case, to see Mina Lee’s engagement rate all we need to do is add her YouTube handle. Here, we can see that she has an ER of 2.07% which falls within the range of a healthy engagement rate, indicating strong audience interaction.
If you’re considering partnering with a YouTube creator, make sure to evaluate their audience by checking their comments. A good way to spot fake subscribers is if the comments are random or don’t have anything to do with the video, as most likely these are bots.
There are two signs for fake subscribers and bots:
Genuine subscribers leave comments that are relevant to the video's content. For instance, in this skincare routine video, you’ll notice that the majority of the comments directly relate to the topic.
If you see that there’s a significant difference between views vs subscribers this may indicate that a YouTuber has fake subscribers. A channel that has a high number of subscribers but consistently low video views (ex: 10,000 subscribers but only 200 views per video) is often a sign of manipulation. If the viewer count is less than 5% of the subscriber count this is a red flag to keep in mind.
Make sure to check for various videos not just one, as the number of views may depend on the type of content.
For example, Alix Earle, host of the podcast Hot Mess where she shares insights into her life, also features interview segments that can drive viewership depending on the guest. With over 250K subscribers, most of her videos consistently garner around 100K views, showcasing strong audience engagement.
Recently an interview with Brianna Chickenfry reached 490K, however, this is considered normal as Brianna is also an influencer with 2 million of followers on TikTok.
If an influencer's subscriber count shows erratic growth without any clear reason, it could be a sign they’ve purchased followers. Sudden subscriber spikes are usually linked to viral content—if a video reaches millions of viewers and drives a surge in subscriptions, that’s typically normal.
However, if their audience grows unexpectedly and without any visible cause, it’s likely unnatural. To better understand follower growth, audience analytics can be incredibly helpful.
With Influencer Hero’s Free YouTube Audience Analytics, you can gain insights into a YouTuber’s subscriber growth patterns and determine whether their growth appears organic or suspicious.
Analyzing Tana Mongeau’s channel growth reveals a +0.26% increase, which is typical for a creator with a large audience of 5.5 million subscribers.
A normal subscriber growth rate on YouTube varies depending on the size of the channel, the content niche, and the creator's consistency and engagement. However, here are some general benchmarks:
Content creators, especially those that are growing posts regularly. They are consistent with their content, as that allows them to engage more with their audience as well as reach other audiences.
If a channel has long periods of inactivity followed by sudden bursts of uploads and subscriber gains that can be an indicator of bot activity or purchased subscribers.
Another way to analyze more in-depth a content creator’s YouTube audience is through their viewer traffic sources for videos and subscriber traffic sources, as well as their location.
Traffic sources allow you to understand where viewers find your videos. These include:
If you notice that there are traffic sources that you don’t recognize or don’t add up, this may be a red flag. It’s always useful to double-check this through a quick Google search.
Make sure to analyze subscribers IP addresses and locations:
Watch time hours are key in YouTube. For this, you need to consider the length of the video. For example, if a 10-minute video has an average watch time of 30 seconds, this often indicates bots.
Bots and fake subscribers may watch a channel’s video to contribute to their viewer count but as they are likely not interested in the content, won’t watch the entire video.
When considering partnering up with a YouTube content creator, ask for watch time metrics so you can verify that the audience is engaged and watching videos in full.
Influencers often maintain a diversified presence across multiple social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. While they may have a primary platform with a significant following, their other accounts typically also show a healthy level of followers and engagement.
Authentic influencers usually demonstrate consistent follower counts and engagement across platforms. For instance, if an influencer has 50,000 YouTube subscribers but shows very low follower counts or engagement on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter, it might raise a red flag.
Take Captain Potter, for example—a YouTuber who focuses on travel content and raising awareness about Hawaii. He has 121,000 subscribers on YouTube and 229,000 followers on Instagram, reflecting strong consistency in his audience across platforms.
YouTube Analytics can help you evaluate the authenticity of an influencer’s audience and performance. By analyzing their metrics, you can identify potential red flags, like those mentioned above, such as:
Regularly reviewing an influencer’s YouTube Analytics helps you spot inconsistencies and determine whether their audience is authentic and aligned with your brand's target market.
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YouTube actively works to identify and remove fake subscribers. The platform’s algorithm uses a variety of methods to detect suspicious activities, such as:
If an influencer’s subscriber growth seems too good to be true, it may be flagged by YouTube, leading to penalties like de-ranking or removal of fake subscribers.
There are different reasons why influencers may manipulate their YouTube account by buying subscribers, and often these include:
No brand will sign influencers who don’t have any subscribers. And while debating between micro vs macro influencers is a common debate for brands, many consider key metrics such as subscriber count when evaluating potential YouTube partnerships.
Additionally, a larger subscriber base can justify charging higher rates for sponsored content, so influencers tend to buy subscriptions so they can convince brands to work with them.
Having a higher subscriber count can be a sign of credibility and popularity, which may lead new viewers to subscribe. Commonly, people are often drawn to content creators who appear widely followed.
Particularly for those content creators who are just starting out and are struggling to build an audience, buying subscribers can make them stand out in a faster way than slowly growing their channels.
YouTube’s algorithm considers factors like engagement and subscriber growth to recommend videos. Manipulating subscribers can potentially trick algorithms into promoting an influencer’s content more frequently.
Additionally, to monetize their channel, creators need to meet requirements such as 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch time, so by inflating these numbers they can meet these criteria faster.
While these tactics may work for content creators at first who are looking for a quick solution, keep in mind that YouTube actively monitors channels, ensuring they are not using bots. Those caught can face severe penalties like the termination of their channel or account.
Once an account is flagged, a channel’s algorithmic visibility is drastically reduced, limiting its growth ability.
While there are different ways to detect fake subscribers, as we mentioned above, an easier way is through tools, such as:
Influencer Hero delivers a powerful solution for brands and influencers to manage and analyze their social media presence effectively. Among its standout free features is its fake subscriber detection tool, tailored to ensure your audience is authentic and engaged.
For more sophisticated features like Influencer Finder, Outreach Management, UGC, and more, brands can sign up for Influencer Hero’s CRM where they get access to an all-in-one influencer marketing software that allows them to manage their campaigns smoothly.
Social Blade tracks the growth and performance of influencers on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch.
HypeAuditor analyzes an influencer’s audience quality, engagement rate, and follower authenticity across platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
You can access it for free its YouTube Subscriber Count checker, however, this will only show you the total subscribers and the growth percentage in the last month. For further information, you need to sign up and pay.
Fake YouTube subscribers may create an illusion of success, but they ultimately harm both influencers and brands in the long run. While artificially inflating subscriber counts might seem like an easy way to gain credibility, it often leads to lower engagement rates, diminished trust, and potential penalties from YouTube.
For brands, taking the time to vet influencers thoroughly ensures collaborations deliver real value and reach the right audience. Remember, that ultimately, success on YouTube isn’t about numbers—it’s about the quality of your audience and the impact of your message.
Indicators of fake subscribers include a high subscriber count with low engagement (views, likes, comments), sudden spikes in subscriber numbers without corresponding content activity, generic or irrelevant comments, and inconsistent audience demographics.
Acquiring fake subscribers can harm your channel by skewing analytics, reducing engagement rates, and potentially violating YouTube's terms of service, which may lead to penalties or account suspension.
Yes, YouTube periodically audits accounts and removes fake or inactive subscribers to maintain platform integrity.
To remove fake subscribers, regularly monitor your subscriber list, identify suspicious accounts, and use YouTube's "Remove" or "Block" features to eliminate them. Additionally, report any suspicious activity to YouTube for further investigation.
Some channels purchase fake subscribers to artificially inflate their popularity, aiming to attract real viewers, sponsors, or advertisers. However, this practice is against YouTube's policies and can lead to negative consequences.
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