Reading Your Score

The difficulty score

Every keyword produces a 0–100 difficulty score personalized to your channel. Lower is easier.

Score	Band	What it means
0–39	Winnable	You stack up well against what's ranking. A real opportunity.
40–64	Moderate	Competitive but achievable with strong, well-matched content.
65–100	Tough	The top results are hard to displace from where your channel sits today.

The explainability panel

A score is never a black box. Below it, the "Why this score?" panel breaks the number down by factor and shows you vs. the top 10 on each:

• Creator Authority — your subscribers vs. the typical top-ranking channel
• Engagement Gap — your engagement rate vs. theirs
• Content Freshness — how recent the top results are
• Format Match — how consistent the winning video length is

Each factor shows a verdict — Advantage, Even, or Disadvantage — so you can see why a keyword is winnable or tough, and what would need to change.

Confidence

Each score also shows a confidence (low / medium / high) based on how much real data backed the factors. A high-confidence "Tough" is a strong signal; a low-confidence one is a rougher estimate.

"Derived by Tuner — not a YouTube metric"

You'll see this badge next to every computed number. It means exactly what it says: the score is calculated by tuner.social from YouTube API data — YouTube doesn't publish difficulty scores or engagement rates. It's there for transparency (and because YouTube's API policies require it): measured data and our math, clearly separated.

Does the score feel right?

Every score has a 👍 / 👎. If a number doesn't match your gut, tell us — that feedback directly calibrates the algorithm.

What the score doesn't tell you

Difficulty measures the competitive bar, not your content quality. A Tough keyword can still be won with an exceptional video. Use the score to prioritize, not to rule things out.