When you’re starting out on YouTube, you’re always looking to find ways to gain more visibility for your videos. Good SEO practices can help with that.
As YouTube has the potential to reach 2.56 billion users, it is still not too late to get started with it.
Tubebuddy and vidIQ are two renowned tools that can help you manage your YouTube channel SEO.
In this post, we’re going to compare both so you can decide which one is right for you.
We’re going to take a look at pricing plans, analytics, customer support, app integration, and more.
By the end of this post, a lot of you will already have made up your mind on which tool is appropriate for your channel needs. So let’s dive in.
Pricing plans
Both of the tools offer free plans with limited features. Paid plans will unlock more features.
vidIQ’s free plan will give you basic analytics, keyword suggestions, competitor ranking, and a live stats bar.
The paid plans are Pro, Boost, and Max. Compare prices below.
Tubebuddy also offers a free plan with basic features such as video embedding, comment formatting, channelytics, and search insights.
The four paid plans are Pro, Star, Legend, and Enterprise. Take a look at the prices below.
VidIQ’s pro plans cost more compared to Tubebuddy, which might persuade first-timers to opt for the latter.
Verdict: Tubebuddy wins
Video analytics and data
vidIQ’s analytics showcase your video’s stats along with your competitors, such as views, likes, subscribers, and YouTube ranking.
It also highlights the historical timeline of the video’s performance from the minute it was uploaded and gives an SEO score.
You can also check if your videos are trending. This can give you some insight into whether or not your video is resonating with the audience.
Tubebuddy’s ‘channelytics’ feature also displays usual performance stats. Additionally, it shows social media metrics, and channel tags of different videos and analyzes retention.
You can also connect your channel to Social Bluebook to get an idea of your brand and content valuation.
Both tools offer important analytics about your video content, but Tubebuddy beats vidIQ in this section thanks to a few unorthodox features.
Verdict: Tubebuddy wins
Bulk updates
As your channel grows, it becomes tougher to edit and re-edit your videos. That is when the bulk updates feature comes in handy
Tubebuddy’s bulk editing does not only restrict to cards and end screens but also, playlists and metadata. For instance, you can change a social media link in the descriptions of all of your videos in one go.
While vidIQ’s bulk editing only works in cards and end screens.
So, Tubebuddy gains an advantage over vidIQ in this section on the basis of providing more ways to bulk edit the videos.
Verdict: Tubebuddy wins
Read more: Vimeo vs Wistia for Professionals
Keyword Research and SEO
Keyword research tool holds the utmost importance when it comes to managing your YouTube channel.
Tubebuddy’s keyword research and tracker lets you find out search volume, searches per month, and overall competition score. You can also track your competitors’ ranking across YouTube and Google trends.
It also suggests keywords and tags that can provide more visibility for your videos via its SEO research tool.
vidIQ’s keyword research tool also provides most of the information you’ll need to understand how well your video is doing in terms of its visibility on YouTube and Google.
So, both video management tools are on the same page and offer features with robust capabilities.
Verdict: draw
Demonetization alerts
Both Tubebuddy and vidIQ offer features that can alert users about demonetized videos.
Tubebuddy’s demonetization audit tool can automatically evaluate which video could get flagged or taken along. It will also tell you why this might happen for a particular video so you can make adjustments.
vidIQ’s controversial keywords feature probes your videos for phrases and words that might be inappropriate and may get demonetized.
Verdict: draw
Also read: Dtube vs. YouTube: What’s the Difference and Is DTube Better?
Support
Both tools offer customer support for web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
You can also get virtual assistance via their websites. These tools can also be downloaded as browser extensions. Mobile apps are available as well.
Once you download them in any capacity, they are easy to use. There are countless tutorials available that can help you get started with any one of them.
Verdict: draw
Check out this video tutorial to get started with vidIQ.
You can also check out this video tutorial from Tubebuddy’s official YouTube channel.
App Integration
Tubebuddy offers app integrations with Patreon, Twitter, MagicLinks, Social Bluebook, Facebook, and Amazon.
vidIQ, on the other hand, only provides integration with Facebook.
Verdict: Tubebuddy wins
Tag Management
As soon as you upload a video, both of the tools recommend and rank tags for it. Most of the suggestions are researched and SEO-optimized.
The tag recommendations are also efficient. You can drag, drop and re-order according to the ranks.
Verdict: draw
Other unique features
Tubebuddy offers a few features that vidIQ does not.
You can get translations of titles, descriptions, and tags into multiple languages. You can also A/B test thumbnails, titles, and descriptions to understand what works best.
Also, you can add transcripts for the videos and get a breakdown of which language most of your viewers speak.
Click magnet is another feature that can help with insights on what type of videos you can create in the future. it also shows the kind of content your audience expects from you.
Both of the tools have a few features in common, such as sharing milestones on social media, promoting videos in descriptions, and trend alerts.
Verdict: Tubebuddy wins
Final thoughts
Tubebuddy and vidIQ are the tools that offer considerable features that can help you get started on YouTube. You could try both out and see which one is more suitable.
vidIQ falls short in some categories, but it does have cool features like historical analysis and trend alerts.
Overall, Tubebuddy takes the lead. It offers decent features and cost-effective plans.
