If your click-through rate is low, your thumbnail text is a common cause. Text that looks fine on your editing screen can turn into a gray smear in a phone feed. Here's how to fix it, one problem at a time.
You're designing for a screen you aren't looking at
If you edit on a large monitor, you see your thumbnail many times larger than most viewers will. A lot of YouTube viewing happens on phones, where a thumbnail is roughly the size of a postage stamp. Text that reads fine at editing size can be unreadable at feed size.
The fix is to check at the size viewers actually see. Zoom your canvas out, or export a small version, before you judge readability. You can also use our thumbnail preview tool to see it in a feed layout.
Use three or four words, not a sentence
Thumbnail text shouldn't repeat the title. The title is already right next to it. Use the text for one sharp hook: a number, a contradiction, or a stake. "I Tried This For 30 Days" becomes "30 DAYS."
If you need more than four words to make the point, the point probably isn't sharp enough yet.
Contrast matters more than the font
Bold text with a thick dark outline or shadow beats an elegant font that blends into the image. Legibility is a contrast problem first and a typography problem second. If your text and background are close in brightness, no font will fix it. For font ideas, see the best fonts for YouTube thumbnails.
Common text problems and quick fixes
- Text too small: make it at least as big as the subject's face, or cut the words.
- Thin letters: switch to a bold or black weight.
- Text over a busy area: add a solid box, a stroke, or a shadow, or move the text.
- Too many colors in the text: use one main color and, at most, one accent word.
- Text touching the edge: leave a margin so nothing gets cropped on different screens.
- Two lines of tiny text: pick one line and make it larger.
Keep clear of the timestamp corner
YouTube shows the video length in a small dark box in the bottom-right corner. Any text or key detail placed there can be partly covered. Keep important words and your focal subject away from that corner. It's one of the most common and easiest thumbnail mistakes to fix.
A five-second text test
- Shrink the thumbnail to about the size of a thumbnail in a phone feed.
- Look at it for five seconds, then look away.
- Write down what the text said.
- If you can't remember it, or it was hard to read, simplify it.
Frequently asked questions
How much text should a YouTube thumbnail have?
Three or four words is a good limit. One strong word or number can work even better.
Does thumbnail text affect CTR?
It can. Readable, specific text can make a thumbnail clearer and more interesting, while cluttered or tiny text makes it easier to scroll past.
What size should thumbnail text be?
Big enough to read on a phone. As a rough guide, if you can't read it at about the size of a postage stamp, it's too small.
Not sure your text survives a small feed? Preview your thumbnail in a feed-style layout before you upload. Or learn how to write thumbnail text that doesn't sound like clickbait.
