Subscriber counts

The number of users subscribed to your YouTube channel is a metric that reflects how many people are following your channel. It’s important that these numbers stay meaningful to ensure that, when your sub count grows, it’s because you’re building a community of real fans who will keep watching and supporting you.

Removing spammy subscribers

We regularly verify the legitimacy of the accounts that are subscribed to your YouTube channel. This is part of a process to ensure that our site metrics are free of spam and abuse and to keep YouTube a fair playing field for everyone.

Suspended accounts and subscribers that are identified as spam will not count toward your total number of subscribers and won't show in your subscriber list. These are not active viewers, so their removal shouldn’t impact your views or watch time.

These users will not be unsubscribed from your channel. To the user, it will still appear that they're subscribed, and they'll continue to receive your videos in their Subscriptions feed.

Using third-party services

Services that attempt to boost YouTube subscriber numbers through automated means or via a marketplace violate our Terms of Service, such as:

• Purchasing subscribers from third-party websites
• "Sub4sub" exchanges and services from third-party websites that subscribe you to multiple channels which then subscribe to you back

Changes to subscriber count

Learn more about why your subscriber count may change.