What Loudness Should a YouTube Video Be? LUFS Explained Simply
YouTube plays everything at about -14 LUFS. What that means, why quiet uploads stay quiet, and how to check and fix your own video in a minute.
If your video sounds quieter than the one before it, viewers reach for the volume button, and some of them just leave. The fix is not "make it as loud as possible". It's to hit the level the platforms expect.
LUFS in one paragraph
LUFS (loudness units relative to full scale) measures how loud audio sounds over the whole video, not just how high the peaks go. It's defined by the ITU-R BS.1770 standard and used by broadcasters (EBU R128) and streaming platforms alike. Numbers are negative: -14 LUFS is louder than -23 LUFS.
The targets that matter
| Where it plays | Typical target |
|---|---|
| YouTube, Spotify, TikTok, Instagram | about -14 LUFS |
| Apple Podcasts and most podcast apps | about -16 LUFS |
| European broadcast (EBU R128) | -23 LUFS |
| US broadcast (ATSC A/85) | -24 LKFS |
Platforms turn loud uploads down to their target. Most do not turn quiet uploads up. That's why a video mixed at -22 LUFS sounds weak next to everything else on YouTube, while one mixed at -9 LUFS gains nothing: it's just turned down, often with its dynamics already squashed.
Peaks: the other number
Raising the level raises the peaks too. Keep true peaks below about -1 dBTP, so the audio doesn't clip when platforms convert it to their own formats.
Check your video in a minute
- Drop the finished video into the loudness checker. It never leaves your computer.
- Pick the target for where it will be published.
- Read the result: how far off you are, and how much gain fits before the peaks would clip.
If the full correction fits, download the normalized audio or apply the same gain in your editor. If it doesn't fit, the honest answer is a limiter or compressor in your editor first. The checker tells you so instead of distorting your audio.