VidIQ Vs TubeBuddy: Head to Head Comparison

Key Takeaways

hey Channel makers we have been vid IQ Affiliates for a really long time but we thought it was time to do a Face-Off between vid IQ and tubebuddy so that we can be sure we are giving you the right information on which one you should be using so we looked at all the different features categorize the features into nine different categories and then ranked each one of them on a scale of one through five and so in this really in-depth video we are going to tell you which one wins on each of those categories okay I have an idea Juliet okay okay I know we were planning on saving like the big reveal to the end can we just tell them now let's do it okay honestly guys after doing a ton of testing and research we really just think you should use the free versions of both tools both vid IQ and tubebuddy have really helpful features but they're just a little bit different and we were so shocked to find out how helpful the free verses of each of these tools were now there are some paid features that we do think could be helpful in specific circumstances so we are going to be talking about that and in the rest of this video we're going to be covering why we came to the conclusion only to use the free version to start out so we have links to both of them because we are Affiliates now for both of them but this video is not sponsored we're not very biased because we're telling you to get the free version so we're not going to get a huge affiliate income off of you getting the free versions of these tools let's get into it all right so I did most of the research on vid IQ Nathan did the tubebuddy research and then we compared notes the first thing we're going to talk about is pricing so they're pretty similar but I think tubebuddy obviously wins because the lowest here is the same price on these the second one fit IQ is slightly more expensive and vidiq also has a third category it's it's so different because what this one is is it's their personal coaching um and so it's not like you're not really getting some features unless you get this most expensive one aside from the coaching which tubebuddy doesn't have if you guys want to see a video on that sometime maybe we could sign up not tell them that we're a channel you know make it a little bit sneaky so that we don't get special treatment and then like let you know how that goes but overall tubebuddy does win on the pricing all right next up we have keyword research tools and now both tools did have some keyword research but for two Bay specifically their keyword tool primarily focused on keyword volume competition optimization and keyword strength so overall I gave it a 3.5 out of 5. it was a pretty decent well-rounded keyword tool just based on the other tools that I've seen but it wasn't anything like amazing which is why it got the 3.5 yeah so for me I gave it 2.5 out of 5 and it was actually missing a couple features that the tubebuddy one does have it a lot of them were the same almost all of them were exactly the same except vid IQ does not have the number of videos in search or related searches which I think those would actually be pretty significant ones at least compared to the other the others so to me that was a big deal and it gets a point less than two buddies so I'd say tubebuddy wins this one as well okay the next one is competitor analysis this one's interesting because it is one of the few features and I mean few that we have actually used here since having that IQ for a long time it's something we do look at on occasion with the paid version you can look at how your competitors are doing and honestly we don't care a lot how our competitors are doing we care how we're doing we compete with ourselves but it is nice to know especially if we're going through a little bit of a rough period of low views it's nice to be able to look and say oh okay it moves at the time of year everyone in the industry is a little bit down right now it's not a big deal things like that now I still ranked this one pretty low I ranked it two out of five because one of their big features that they advertise is that you can see what which of your competitors videos your audience is watching well when you specifically compare the competitors in your Niche with other competitors that's pretty helpful but with those videos a lot of it was just showing like your audience they love this Mr Beast video or in this really random crime video I'll put a screenshot of the videos that it says our audience is watching and it's not relevant like most of the videos they have nothing to do with anything we'd ever show on this channel even trending things like they're just not relevant and so would we use it not really and even the competitor feature like we look at it maybe once every three to six months it's not a huge part we've used it but it's not a huge part of our strategy here on the tubebuddy side I saw some very similar things it was kind of nice to be able to see what my competitors channels were looking like at the time really just to see like to gauge like is this is this a me problem that's going on in my Channel or is it an industry problem I really did like that about the tool overall I gave this one a 2.5 out of 5. and the reason for that is just that all of the information that I saw I could have easily just gone to my competitor's Channel and found myself it was just kind of you know their most recent video views you know there were a couple things that it was just nice to have all in one place packaged up on the tubebuddy dashboard but overall it just didn't seem to be that necessary I guess yeah so convenient but not really something you can't get for free definitely all right that brings us to the support documentation category here and I maybe this one's a little bit of a funny category to add but I was really really impressed with tubebuddy's support documentation as I went to learn about all the different features you know I was opening tab after tab after tab of features and it was so nice to be able to see like this is what the feature is this is what it does this is where to find it I was just really really impressed I gave him a four out of five there was maybe a couple spelling errors or something and maybe that's why I gave them a little bit lower but overall really really well done just made it so much easier for me to use the tool when you first mentioned this category I thought what why are we doing it but I'm really glad you did because when you're using a new tool like this the biggest risk I think is that you pay for it or just download the free version and then you don't end up using it because you don't know what the features do or how to use them so I'm glad we're diving into this that we did dive into this vid IQ I was less impressed though because when you're trying they have like the little information bubble and it's super vague on each thing really really vague and then they they have like this whole separate feels like a separate website called vid IQ Academy and then they have videos on how everything works which is very in-depth but for me I wouldn't want to take the time to watch a full video on each feature and sift through it just felt too time consuming and I would rather them have been a little bit more specific on the platform itself but they did have a lot of video content so it seemed fair to give them a three out of five on that one all right let's talk a little bit about the analytics for your own channel on tubebuddy's side so I have to admit when I signed up for tubebuddy I was really excited about this this was kind of like the core of what I thought would be the most helpful portion of the tool I guess you could say and I was just a little bit underwhelmed it's not that it wasn't helpful it was just that a lot of the data or numbers that I saw kind of added to my dashboard or kind of in the sidebar it was just stuff that I could pretty easily access anyway and so it's not that it was bad I would say that it was just helpful generally speaking but it wasn't anything that I couldn't live without and you know like if I clicked on to a video on my channel I could you know I could see my video pull up and then it would have some little analytics onto the side that I would have had to go into my channel dashboard or my analytics tab to get so it was nice to have them right there on the video but I would have just called it more of a convenience factor overall than I would anything else and that's probably just a personal preference there's probably some people who just really really love having all that there and I should say to give them some credit tubebuddy definitely does take some of the analytics from the YouTube dashboard and they do some additional number crunching for you but again it was just stuff that I feel like I probably could have done myself so under the free plan 100 like it's good because it's just helpful and convenient but to pay for it I probably wouldn't yeah so I was feeling the same way with vet IQ initially I think I even wrote the exact same thing I know it's like what is here that I can't get from the regular YouTube analytics maybe that's a little harsh because like you said it is more convenient than the way you have to click through the YouTube analytics but then I noticed a feature that bid IQ has that we haven't used here but I think I might actually start trying to use it and what it is is that it shows you the top Search terms that people are using to find your video so the videos you already have published and that's almost a keyword research sort of thing but I put it in this category because it's specific to your channel and it's awesome to see even though we don't focus on search a lot it is good to see which videos of ours people are finding and what Search terms are helping them find those videos because sometimes it's not as direct as we would expect so I gave that one a four out of five what did you I gave mine a three out of five cool so they were close um but yeah I'd say but like you definitely went out on that one and now let's talk about the AI features this is one that everyone wants to know about right AI is just going crazy in this industry so on the tubebuddy side they really had two main tools that utilize Ai and one was the title generator and then their other one was a thumbnail analyzer good features overall I think that again helpful with uh the thumbnail analyzer kind of gives you some ideas maybe a little bit of direct with your thumbnails and then the title generator I tested it kind of just versus chat GPT kind of like your run-of-the-mill AI type stuff and it was just very similar so overall I gave them a three out of five here it's not that I thought that the AI tools were bad it's just that I maybe expected a little bit more yeah that makes sense so for vid IQ I'm excited I've got some juicy stuff on this one but we also have and one of them is tubebuddy specifics that we can go like really in depth on all of the tubebuddy features and then one of them is vid IQ specific so we can go super in depth on that instead of like this comparison battle video so stick around for those videos but and I'm going to share more about this and that because there were some there was two really interesting things so one of them I'm gonna tell you now which is that they have this like this whole AI like Suite they're really going full in on the AI and they'll give you like full video ideas and then you can kind of just keep going deeper like okay well you know give me Community post ideas give me video outlines then they'll give you not just the outline but a title they'll almost like make every aspect of the video for you and it wasn't bad but there's a catch it was a little bit bad I'll tell you about that in the other video but one funny thing I tested was I said okay make me a video outline about vid IQ versus tubebuddy and which tool is better so it gave me this really really long outline but here is the summary at the end it said so which one should you choose well it depends on your specific needs if you're focused on keyword research and analytics vidiq might be your best bet but if you want an All-In-One Toolbox that streamlines your YouTube journey tubebuddy is second to none and the end is not about choosing between vid IQ and tubebuddy both tools can take your YouTube game to the next level try them both to see which one suits your style I like this AI I gave the AI two out of five because there was just a catch that I wasn't too happy about but it's robust it's for sure robust they're testing out a lot of stuff and it might get better cool all right next the next category was single platform features so this is just a feature that one platform had that the other didn't on the tubebuddy side of course as everyone would probably guess it was the a b thumbnail tester and this is one that tubebuddy is very well known for we did some testing with it and I did a bunch of research on it and it was really interesting to see how how they did the a b testing which is essentially you upload your regular video with a regular thumbnail and then you go into tubebuddy and you upload a second thumbnail and the way that they test it is they run one for 24 hours and then they run the next one for 24 hours and then you can set a period of time like up to 14 days or something maybe even longer I think it's a great idea I love the idea of being able to a B test thumbnails I think most of us really want that I mean we've been waiting on YouTube for years to come out with this feature I think that the way they're approaching it is probably the best they can but I think it's a little bit um what do you say like Stone Age I guess like to only be able to test it for 24 hours and then switch it out that's not a true a B test you know the first 24 hours of a thumbnail is going to look very different than the second 24 hours after you post your video and so anyway I think like good for them for having it out there just since nobody else is really offering that but I wish that it was just a little bit better yeah it would be great if YouTube would help us out a little bit or even help the tools out so that they can offer something better and of course I forgot I gave women three out of five for this a cool fee teacher probably could use some improvement but it's probably just not something that they could do right now realistically so me the more in-depth analytics is basically the only thing that vid IQ seems to have that I could find let me know if you know something else that tubebuddy doesn't the AI features are another one but we compared that like tubebuddy technically has AI features they just don't have as much so I guess this is kind of similar to that honestly it doesn't feel like vid IQ has any like really unique thing that tubebuddy doesn't accept except the big one the biggest one that there is this is the only feature we've like really consistently used all the time since we've had vet IQ and that is that you can see the thumbnail on the side once you click into the video helpful that is for the average creator for us we use it all the time because we're like looking at a video we're analyzing the thumbnail we're trying to remember what thumbnail we had things like that it comes in handy all the time it's also part of the free version so you don't need to pay for it the free version I know it's great so that's like our favorite feature here that's the first thing I notice if I am on like a browser or an account that doesn't have vid IQ that's the first thing I noticed like where's my thumbnail I need to see the thumbnail on the side all right next up was user interface and kind of like overall helpfulness friendliness three out of five for tubebuddy right off the bat it was not super intuitive to use now you know they had their little icons all over that I could click on it would open a menu and I'd you know click on a menu item and it would take me back to a website some would take me to my my dashboard it wasn't completely intuitive I will say that the support documentation saved me here um so I gave them a three out of five here just because it wasn't terrible as I clicked around I was able to find different things but there were some things that I did need the support docs to be able to find okay so as I'm listening to you say that I was thinking well I must have given it a four or five or a five out of five because the vid IQ had some pretty solid leg user interface and then I looked I gave it a three out of five so I guess I'm just way more harsh with my ranking system than you either like adjust the numbers of maybe a little bit up for you and a little bit down for me I think that I tend to maybe be a little bit overly nice about it maybe you're a little bit more harsh so it'll probably all balance out that's funny yeah so I gave it a three out of five but IQ seemed very good to me easy to use Easy to navigate I wasn't too cluttered like felt pretty clear about about where to find everything the information the only thing I didn't like which is more about the support documentation like I said is just that they kind of it was vague like they would say something like oh this is what this feature means but then you look into it and you're like well how are you getting that information things like that but overall like it looked good easy to use I like it a lot next up we had tagging and I wish I could just show like a screenshot maybe I will of just our notes Here tagging and then on our vid IQ and tubebuddy calm it just says stupid maybe you'd like to explain that for us so they have all that very robust tagging tools to start with to be fair a lot of really helpful things like vid IQ you can go look at the tags easily and copy and paste them that other channels have used which we've done in the past for our own videos the problem the problem with all these wonderful tagging features is that YouTube has recently it's been a while actually now has said that tags don't matter and several creators have run experiments that also seem to strongly suggest that tags do not matter descriptions even the keywords in your description appears to matter the kinds of tests they've done is that they'll tag a video with some like random string of letters and numbers and the tag doesn't make it show up anymore if they put that random string letters and numbers in the description it does so if tags you know in YouTube says like it only matters if something's commonly misspelled and if it's commonly misspelled then you know you don't have to like use any fancy tool to figure out what tags to use just type any other version of the spelling and the tag so yeah okay they have a lot of robots features but we don't really think it matters just seems like almost a little bit misleading and maybe not intentionally I would assume not intentionally but just like when I look at a YouTube growth tool I would hope that all the features would just do their best to help me get to success right and at some point maybe when tagging was more important that was the case here but I would just hate to see people spend a lot of time working on that if it just didn't really help them at all so that's why we wrote stupid yeah and to be fair when they develop these tools YouTube I think was treating tags a lot differently so it makes sense they wouldn't want to get rid of them but yeah you don't want to waste your time on something that doesn't matter all right and here we go last but not least we have the overall helpfulness score so on the tubebuddy side My overall conclusion was just that this is a tool of convenience there are so many tools or features in here that I thought were really helpful and as a Creator I could definitely see myself adding them onto all of my channels the only thing that I would be concerned about is if me as a Creator started to use the tool as a crutch and if I built them all in if I built these tools into my processes early on I'm just going to become reliant on them so I would say like it's a good thing to have I'd say tubebuddy is a great tool to have we've found so much value especially in the free version we found that there was just the most value opportunity there and so I would say use it but just make sure that your systems and everything that you do isn't reliant on it and if it can save you some time along the way then that's awesome I think that that's the Big Goal here is it's a Time saver fit IQ I gave them two out of five that might be a little harsh especially the free version like hey if it's free I'll take two out of five any day it's still better than nothing it's it's very much better than nothing I would put it on any any browser any channel I had um the thumbnail viewer is great the daily ideas are convenient they're similar to chat gbt but it's more convenient and to be able to save them and on the platform the competitor features are kind of cool there's a few features that are kind of cool overall nothing that you like can't do without vid IQ really aside from maybe the thumbnail thing you can still get to see the thumbnail without it that's the thing with fit Ikea it's very convenient but there was almost nothing even tubebuddy has some features that you cannot do without it that IQ almost everything you can just do on the YouTube platform itself and I think that's another overall thing to remember is that there is no like secret thing in these tools that is going to be the difference because YouTube also wants you to succeed right so they're trying to give you as many resources as you need like these tools both had charts of the best times to publish well so does YouTube because YouTube wants you to know when the best time to publish is so I mean I guess for the price if we're talking about value for the price then five out of five for the free but two out of five probably for any of the paid versions guys thank you so much for watching this video hopefully it's been really helpful for you we put a lot of time in testing these tools we as Julia mentioned we have individual videos talking about tubebuddy itself and vid IQ separately not as a comparison so go check out those videos hopefully you'll find those helpful as well get signed up for the free versions of these tools they are helpful they are convenient they will save you time good luck with your crating and we'll see you guys next time thanks