“Your contrast score is 78. Add a face. Use red.”
Generic best-practices, regurgitated against the same checklist for every channel. Useful — but if your audience already loves clean cinematic stills with no faces, this advice fights your own brand.
Free · grounded in your channel · 60 seconds
Check your thumbnail against your channel.
Every other thumbnail checker grades against generic YouTube best practices. CheckMyThumbnail grades against your actual last 10 uploads — does this thumbnail fit the audience you've already built? That's the question that matters.
- Deep-dive on title, thumbnail, palette + composition
- Channel-fit narrative grounded in your last 10 uploads
- Specific, prioritized recommendations — not vibes
Built by Vidstew — the producer dashboard for serious YouTubers.
Why this is different
Channel-fit beats best-practices.
A thumbnail that follows every “rule” can still flop if it doesn't match the pattern your audience already learned to click on. So we grade against that pattern.
“Your last 5 uploads all featured cinematic wides with no faces — adding one here breaks the pattern your audience clicks on.”
Specific. Grounded. Cites the actual videos your audience already chose. The kind of feedback a producer who knows your channel would give you.
What you get
Six blocks of analysis. Sixty seconds.
Same Vidstew AI that powers the in-app deep-dive — except this one also reads your channel and grounds every observation in your actual recent uploads.
Audience verdict
One question, answered honestly: would a recent viewer of YOUR channel watch this over everything else in their feed? Yes / maybe / no with three concrete reasons.
Title breakdown
Curiosity gap, specificity, hook strength — each scored 0–100 with a short note. Plus the power-words doing the heavy lifting in your headline.
Thumbnail composition
Focal point, visual hierarchy, face presence, text overlay, negative space — what's working and what's not, judged by what's actually in the image.
Palette + accessibility
Dominant colours (with hex codes), contrast score, niche-fit on palette, accessibility flags. The visual layer that defines your channel's brand.
Channel fit (the wedge)
2-3 paragraphs of narrative grounded in your last 10 uploads. Plus per-video signals — does this candidate align, diverge, or sit neutral against each one?
Prioritized fixes
3-5 specific, actionable changes ranked by impact and effort. Not vibes — concrete enough that a producer could act on each in under 10 minutes.
Frequently asked
Questions, answered.
Why do I need to sign in?+
Two reasons. (1) The analysis isn't cheap to run — auth lets us cap free use at 5 per day per user so we can keep the surface free for everyone. (2) We email you the result + the occasional follow-up about Vidstew. Unsubscribe in one click.
Do you store my thumbnail?+
Yes — we store your uploaded thumbnail, the analysis output, and which channel you ran it against. You can request deletion anytime by emailing hello@vidstew.com (we'll honour it within 7 days). The thumbnail itself is private; only you and Vidstew staff see it.
Do you connect to my YouTube account?+
No. We only read PUBLIC YouTube data — your last 10 uploaded videos, view counts, titles. The Google sign-in is for identity (your email) only, not for any YouTube scope. We can't post videos, change settings, or read anything that isn't already public.
Will my thumbnail be shared anywhere?+
Only if you choose to share it via the public share link on the result page (which strips your email and full handle). Otherwise it stays in your private result page.
What's Vidstew?+
Vidstew is the producer dashboard CheckMyThumbnail is built by — a workspace where YouTubers brainstorm topics, package videos, run live recording with timestamped notes, QA, A/B test, and learn from every upload. CheckMyThumbnail uses one of Vidstew's AI surfaces (the deep-dive analyzer). 30-day free trial, no card.
How does the rate limit work?+
5 analyses per day, 2 per hour, per user. That's plenty for tweaking a thumbnail; it's a soft cap to keep the AI bill manageable. If you hit it, come back tomorrow.
Want this on every video, pre-launch?
CheckMyThumbnail is one feature of Vidstew — the producer dashboard with topic brainstorming, packaging analysis, live recording with timecoded notes, QA review, A/B testing, and performance insights. All in one place.
No card required for the trial · Cancel anytime