# How often do videos actually go viral?

A study of 564,297 TikTok and Instagram videos from 2,003 creators: the odds of a breakout, how many videos new creators make before their first big one, and how long a video keeps getting views. Published 2026-11-08 by Yap & Done. Videos posted January 2025 to October 2026.

Canonical page: https://www.yapanddone.com/studies/going-viral/ · Data: https://www.yapanddone.com/studies/going-viral/data.json · https://www.yapanddone.com/studies/going-viral/data.csv · License: CC BY 4.0

## The top lessons

- Make enough videos to get your shots. About 1 in 17 TikToks gets 10 times the creator's usual views, and those few videos bring in most of the views.
- Don't judge yourself by one video. For the typical creator, the top 10% of their videos brought in 65% of all their views.
- If you're starting out, give it at least 30 to 50 videos. New creators who reached 100,000 views on a video got there on their 23rd video (the median), and only 19% did it within their first 10.
- Don't delete videos that start slow. A typical TikTok gets about 51% of its first-year views after its first week, and 81% of videos over 3 months old were still gaining views.
- On Instagram, the first week matters more: a typical Reel gets about 70% of its first-year views in its first week.

## Key findings

- **About 1 in 17 TikToks gets 10× the creator's usual views.** We compared each video with the same creator's typical views from the surrounding month. 23% got at least double, 11% at least 5 times and 5.9% at least 10 times. 0.6% got 100 times their usual (about 1 in 167). On the other side, 17% got half or less.
- **Most of your views come from a few videos.** For the typical creator, the top 10% of their videos brought in 65% of all their views since January 2025, and their single best video alone 12%. That's why posting more gives you more chances: you can't tell in advance which video will be the one.
- **New creators reached 100k views on their 23rd video.** We followed 775 creators who started posting in 2025 or later, from their very first video. Those who got a video to 10,000 views did it on their 9th video (median); to 100,000 views, their 23rd video, about 35 days in; to a million, their 50th video. Within their first 10 videos, 40% had reached 10,000 views and 19% 100,000.
- **A TikTok keeps getting views for months.** We measured how fast videos of every age were still gaining views over the same day. A typical TikTok had about 40% of its first-year views after one day, 49% after a week and 58% after a month, so about half came after the first week. 81% of videos over 3 months old were still gaining views.
- **Instagram Reels peak sooner.** On Instagram, a typical Reel had about 70% of its first-year views after a week and 80% after a month, so the first days matter more than on TikTok.

## Share of TikToks beating the creator's usual views, by follower count

- All creators (1498 creators): 2× 23.4%, 5× 10.5%, 10× 5.9%, 100× 0.60%
- Under 1k (205 creators): 2× 17.9%, 5× 5.2%, 10× 2.2%, 100× 0.14%
- 1k–10k (383 creators): 2× 20.2%, 5× 9.0%, 10× 5.2%, 100× 0.57%
- 10k–100k (522 creators): 2× 24.9%, 5× 11.9%, 10× 6.9%, 100× 0.79%
- 100k–1M (320 creators): 2× 27.4%, 5× 13.3%, 10× 7.5%, 100× 0.68%
- 1M+ (68 creators): 2× 27.8%, 5× 11.9%, 10× 5.7%, 100× 0.29%

## Share of first-year views by age

- Day 0.5: TikTok 37%, Instagram 54%
- Day 1: TikTok 40%, Instagram 58%
- Day 2: TikTok 44%, Instagram 62%
- Day 3: TikTok 46%, Instagram 64%
- Day 7: TikTok 49%, Instagram 70%
- Day 14: TikTok 53%, Instagram 76%
- Day 30: TikTok 58%, Instagram 80%
- Day 60: TikTok 63%, Instagram 86%
- Day 90: TikTok 66%, Instagram 90%
- Day 120: TikTok 69%, Instagram 93%
- Day 150: TikTok 72%, Instagram 94%
- Day 180: TikTok 76%, Instagram 95%
- Day 210: TikTok 81%, Instagram 95%
- Day 240: TikTok 85%, Instagram 95%
- Day 270: TikTok 90%, Instagram 96%
- Day 300: TikTok 93%, Instagram 97%
- Day 330: TikTok 96%, Instagram 98%

## Method

- Creators and videos: the same 1,700 TikTok and 303 Instagram creators as our follower and posting studies, in 10 niches, with their posts from January 2025 (Instagram: their latest 100 or so Reels). We left out videos under 14 days old, pinned videos, and the video we first found each creator through.
- Breakouts: each video against the median views of the same creator's other videos within ±30 days (at least 5 of them). The odds are averaged across creators with at least 30 such videos, so every creator counts once.
- Share of views: for creators with at least 30 videos, the share of their total views from their top 10% of videos and from their single best.
- New creators: 775 TikTok creators whose whole catalogue we collected (at least 90% of the videos on their profile) and whose first video went up in February 2025 or later. We counted their videos in order until the first that reached 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 views (as of November 2026).
- Lifespan: 88,571 TikToks and 3,089 Reels whose views we recorded twice, about a day apart, in November 2026. For each age (from 6 hours to 18 months), the typical daily growth; adding those up from any age to one year gives the share of first-year views a typical video has by then.

## Limitations

- We found these creators through videos that showed up in searches, so they're creators who got at least some traction. The new-creator numbers describe creators who broke through, not the odds for everyone who starts.
- View counts for recent videos are still growing, so a video posted in October 2026 may yet pass a milestone.
- The lifespan curve is built from many videos of different ages measured over the same day, not by following single videos for a year.
- English-language talking-head creators in 10 niches; other kinds of accounts may differ.

Cite as: Yap & Done (2026). How often do videos actually go viral? https://www.yapanddone.com/studies/going-viral/