# The Faceless Shorts Benchmark 2026 > Original data from 4,604 TikTok posts by 442 teams running automated faceless channels: the formats, lengths and posting times that got the most views, and what 3,424 creators make. Canonical: https://faceless.so/research/faceless-shorts-benchmark Last updated: 2026-09-25 Original research What 3,424 faceless creators made in the last 12 months, and how 4,604 of their TikTok posts performed one week after going live. Last updated September 25, 2026 · By Faceless · Data from the Faceless.so platform ## Key findings 1. Stick & Meme Explainer posts (127 posts from 23 teams) got 2.4x the median TikTok views of Narrated AI Story, the most-posted format, seven days after posting. 2. Posts published in the evening (channel local time) had the highest median views, 35% above the next best time of day. 3. Video length barely changed views: the best length band beat the worst by only 24%. 4. Faceless creators started 54,318 video projects in 12 months, and monthly volume grew from 275 in October 2025 to 11,391 in August 2026. Performance sample: 4,604 TikTok posts from 442 teams, published between August 29, 2026 and September 18, 2026. Usage sample: 54,318 video projects from 3,424 teams, September 25, 2025 to September 24, 2026. [How we measured this](https://faceless.so/research/faceless-shorts-benchmark#methodology). ## How do you read the views index? Every view figure on this page is an index: the median TikTok views of a group seven days after posting, divided by the median of all 4,604 posts and multiplied by 100. A format with an index of 200 got twice the views of a typical post. 99.4% of these posts came from teams in their first 90 days on Faceless, so compare groups with each other rather than with your own channel. ## Which faceless video formats get the most TikTok views? Stick & Meme Explainer led with a views index of 212, while Narrated AI Story, which makes up 2,451 of the posts, sat at 88. Only formats posted by at least 20 teams are shown. TikTok views 7 days after posting, by video format (median of 4,604 posts) Format Bar Views index Posts Teams Stick & Meme Explainer 212 127 23 Story Slides 164 283 46 Narrated AI Story 88 2,451 305 Reddit Stories 65 513 46 Organ Superfoods 63 96 25 A check on the ranking: using the median of each team's own median, Stick & Meme Explainer still gets 2.1x the views of Narrated AI Story, so the gap is not the work of one prolific team. ## Does video length change how many views a faceless short gets? Not by much. The views index by video length ranged from 88 (45 to 59 s) to 110 (under 30 s). Length is measured on the finished video. TikTok views 7 days after posting, by finished video length Length Bar Views index Posts Teams Under 30 s 110 845 147 30 to 44 s 99 548 155 45 to 59 s 88 1,047 209 60 to 89 s 91 1,119 200 90 s or longer 104 256 71 ## Which story niches get the most views? For narrated AI story channels, Random AI Story had the highest views index (96) and Scary Stories the lowest (64). Only 4 niches had at least 20 teams posting to TikTok in the window, so the rest are not shown. TikTok views 7 days after posting, by series niche (story series only) Niche Bar Views index Posts Teams Random AI Story 96 963 131 Interesting History 90 133 26 True Crime 79 238 45 Scary Stories 64 507 65 ## What is the best time to post faceless shorts? Posting time is converted to each channel's own timezone. Evening posts had the highest views index at 134. Day of the week mattered less: the index ranged from 91 (Saturday) to 113 (Wednesday). TikTok views 7 days after posting, by local time of day Time of day Bar Views index Posts Teams Morning (6:00 to 11:59) 84 1,248 188 Afternoon (12:00 to 16:59) 87 1,576 224 Evening (17:00 to 23:59) 134 1,471 234 Night (0:00 to 5:59) 99 208 48 TikTok views 7 days after posting, by local weekday Weekday Bar Views index Posts Teams Sunday 94 659 260 Monday 98 624 259 Tuesday 95 662 260 Wednesday 113 699 284 Thursday 102 641 250 Friday 93 657 279 Saturday 91 561 244 ## Do on-screen hook titles help faceless shorts? Not measurably on median views. Series with a hook title overlay had a views index of 98, against 99 without one. TikTok views 7 days after posting, by hook title setting on the series Hook title Bar Views index Posts Teams Hook title on 98 1,337 188 Hook title off 99 3,166 308 ## What are faceless creators making? In the 12 months to September 24, 2026, 3,424 teams started 54,318 video projects and set up 6,720 automated series. 1,297 teams published 74,984 posts to social platforms, the largest share (35.3%) to TikTok. English was the language of 92.8% of series. Video projects started per month Month Bar Projects Teams October 2025 275 22 November 2025 490 25 December 2025 1,037 79 January 2026 2,682 264 February 2026 2,924 329 March 2026 3,283 450 April 2026 3,348 420 May 2026 3,381 330 June 2026 4,980 451 July 2026 5,008 440 August 2026 11,391 806 September 2026 (partial) 15,472 965 Share of video projects by format Format Bar Share Teams Narrated AI Story 59.4% 1,542 Reddit Stories 8.5% 341 Fake Texts 6.4% 957 ChatGPT Video 5% 1,050 Story Slides 3.2% 244 Slideshows 1.9% 112 Stick & Meme Explainer 1.4% 92 Veo 3.1 1.2% 81 AI Music Video 1.1% 95 Seedance 2.0 1% 59 Organ Superfoods 0.8% 82 Character Vlog 0.7% 74 Share of story series by niche Niche Bar Share Teams Random AI Story (the default) 36.6% 618 Scary Stories 13.8% 329 Interesting History 7.5% 182 True Crime 6.6% 174 Motivational 4.9% 142 Mystery & Thriller 3.6% 106 Wealth & Success 3.1% 90 Fun Facts 2.7% 77 Science & Tech 2.2% 59 Conspiracy Theories 1.9% 61 Unsolved Mysteries 1.7% 54 Bedtime Stories 1.4% 45 Share of series by art style Art style Bar Share Teams Auto 38.4% 815 Photorealism 23.8% 590 Realistic 11.6% 410 Cartoon 3.6% 149 Intense Anime 3% 107 Film Noir 3% 119 Dark Cartoon 2.6% 110 Dark Fantasy 2% 93 90s Anime 1.8% 76 Graphic Novel 1.4% 66 Share of series by target length Target length Bar Share Teams 30 seconds 44.2% 999 60 seconds 34.9% 1,028 90 seconds 20.5% 525 Share of series by scheduled posting time (local) Posting time Bar Share Teams Afternoon (12:00 to 16:59) 43.6% 999 Evening (17:00 to 23:59) 30.4% 823 Morning (6:00 to 11:59) 23.2% 657 Night (0:00 to 5:59) 2.8% 90 Share of series by caption style Caption style Bar Share Teams MrBeast1 27.6% 635 Iman 23.6% 591 David 5.1% 205 MrBeast2 4.6% 134 Hormozi1 4.1% 168 Slick1 3.5% 141 Midnight 3.2% 139 Hormozi2 3.1% 133 Share of series by language Language Bar Share Teams English 92.8% 1,609 Spanish 2.1% 40 French 1.1% 46 German 0.8% 21 Hindi 0.6% 23 Share of series destinations by platform Platform Bar Share Teams TikTok 38.5% 1,433 YouTube 31.1% 1,118 Instagram 18.1% 762 Facebook 7.3% 350 X 2.4% 123 Threads 1.9% 95 LinkedIn 0.7% 50 Share of published posts by platform Platform Bar Share Teams TikTok 35.3% 1,014 YouTube 35% 923 Instagram 21.7% 569 Facebook 4.9% 178 Threads 1.5% 49 X 1.2% 51 LinkedIn 0.4% 22 ## How was this benchmark measured? - Source: the Faceless.so production database, read with read-only queries by the open script src/scripts/research/faceless-benchmark.mjs. - Usage figures cover every project, series and published post created in the 12-month window, across all formats. - Performance figures use TikTok view counts returned by the TikTok API and stored as daily snapshots. Each post is read once, at 7 days after it was published (the first measured snapshot between day 7 and day 9), so posts of different ages compare fairly. - We report medians, not averages, because a few viral posts would drag an average far above what a typical post gets. - Posting time and weekday are converted to the timezone set on the series that published the post. - Privacy: only aggregates are published. Any group backed by fewer than 20 distinct teams is removed. No team, channel, video or user can be identified. - Teams with a Faceless staff or app-review account (6 teams) are excluded. Usage window September 25, 2025 to September 24, 2026 Performance window (posting dates) August 29, 2026 to September 18, 2026 TikTok posts measured 4,604 from 442 teams Video projects counted 54,318 from 3,424 teams Minimum teams per reported group 20 Internal teams excluded 6 ### Limitations - This is observational data, not a controlled experiment. Creators choose their own formats, niches and posting times, so a difference between two groups can come from who picks them, not from the choice itself. - The TikTok performance window is short: posts published between 2026-08-29 and 2026-09-18. Measured daily snapshots only began in September 2026. - YouTube statistics are left out on purpose: YouTube's API Services policies restrict publishing metrics derived from them. Instagram and Facebook returned view counts for only a small share of posts, too few to treat as representative, so they are left out too. - 99.4% of the measured posts came from teams whose first Faceless project was less than 90 days old at posting time, so the numbers describe creators in their first months of automated posting, not TikTok as a whole. - Usage shares include the setup wizard's preselected defaults (for example the Random AI Story niche and the Auto art style), so they measure what creators ship, not only what they actively picked. ## How should you use these findings? 1. **Test the format first.** Format produced the widest spread of any breakdown in this data. Try [Stick & Meme Explainer](https://faceless.so/faceless/stick-meme) next to your current format for two weeks and compare day-7 views. 2. **Schedule for the evening.** Set your series posting time in your audience's timezone and give each slot at least a week before judging it. Series on Faceless post on their own, so moving the slot costs nothing. 3. **Judge a post at day 7, against your own channel's median.** Compare like with like rather than with a viral post you saw on the [For You page](https://faceless.so/glossary/for-you-page). 4. **Pick a niche you can post in every day.** Use the [faceless niche finder](https://faceless.so/tools/faceless-niche-finder) and see the [TikTok video maker](https://faceless.so/use-cases/tiktok-video-maker) for a posting plan, or [start a faceless YouTube channel](https://faceless.so/use-cases/faceless-youtube-channel) with the same videos. 5. **Automate the posting.** [Start a faceless video series](https://faceless.so/faceless/video) and Faceless writes, voices, edits and publishes to TikTok, YouTube and Instagram on your schedule. See [pricing](https://faceless.so/pricing). ## Frequently asked questions ### What is the best faceless video format for TikTok? Among formats with enough channels to report, Stick & Meme Explainer had the highest median views at day 7, 2.4x the most-posted format. Creators choose their own formats, so treat this as a strong hint worth testing on your own channel, not a guarantee. ### What is the best time to post faceless shorts? Posts published in the evening of the channel's own timezone had the highest median views. By weekday, Wednesday was best and Saturday weakest, 24% apart. ### Should faceless shorts be 30 or 60 seconds? Length made little difference to views in this sample: every length band landed within 24% of the others on median views. 30 seconds was the most common target (44.2% of series). ### Why are there no YouTube Shorts numbers? YouTube's API Services policies restrict publishing metrics derived from YouTube API data, so YouTube statistics are left out of every performance figure. The usage section still counts how many videos were posted to YouTube. ### Can I cite this benchmark? Yes. Cite it as "The Faceless Shorts Benchmark 2026, Faceless.so" and link to https://faceless.so/research/faceless-shorts-benchmark. The numbers are refreshed by re-running the same script, and the date at the top of the page shows when they were last computed. ## Ready to Create Your Own Videos? Start creating amazing AI-powered faceless videos in minutes with Faceless [Start my channel](https://faceless.so/projects)[View Pricing](https://faceless.so/pricing) Free to sign upPlans from $29/moCancel anytime