Watch Time Calculator
Watch hours are the currency of YouTube monetization. This turns your views and average view duration into total hours and shows how close you are to the 4,000-hour bar.
Threshold reached — nice work.
Watch time is views times average view duration. 500 views at 6 minutes each is 3,000 minutes, or 50 hours. YouTube's Partner Program needs 4,000 public watch hours in the past 12 months alongside 1,000 subscribers, so the bar tracks how close you are to that gate. Only public, long-form watch time counts toward it.
How it works
The formula is simple: views times average view duration gives total minutes, which you divide by 60 for hours. Five hundred views at six minutes each is 3,000 minutes, or exactly 50 watch hours.
Set the threshold to whatever goal you're chasing — YouTube's Partner Program needs 4,000 public watch hours in the trailing 12 months, so that's the default. The progress bar fills as your hours climb toward it and tells you how many are left.
It all calculates in your browser with nothing sent away. Keep in mind that only public, long-form watch time counts toward the Partner Program, and Shorts follow a separate views-based rule, so tally your regular videos here.
Frequently asked questions
How many watch hours does YouTube require?
The main path to the Partner Program needs 4,000 valid public watch hours over the previous 12 months, plus 1,000 subscribers. There's also a Shorts route based on 10 million Shorts views in 90 days, which this tool doesn't cover.
Does watch time from Shorts count?
Not toward the 4,000-hour requirement. That threshold counts public watch time from your long-form videos only. Shorts have their own separate qualification based on view counts, so keep the two mentally separate as you track progress.
What average view duration should I use?
Pull it straight from your YouTube Analytics under the Engagement tab — it's shown per video and channel-wide. Using your real average gives a far more accurate hours estimate than guessing, since a minute or two swing adds up fast across many views.