Which are the best brand YouTube channels, and what can your brand learn from them? To answer that properly we did not rely on old listicles. On 30 October 2026 we read the public data for 28 brand owned channels directly from YouTube: subscribers, total views, video counts and what each channel actually publishes. We then set those numbers against the latest research on how brands perform on YouTube compared with creators.
The headline is simple. The brands that win on YouTube behave like media companies. They run formats, not campaigns. They teach or entertain rather than sell. And they use Shorts for reach while keeping long form for the living room screen, where more and more YouTube viewing now happens.
The short version
- Scale belongs to entertainers. LEGO (28.2bn views), Netflix (33.8m subscribers) and Google lead because they publish things people choose to watch, not adverts.
- Two models work. Apple averages about 5.2m views per video from just 229 videos; LEGO has 51,551 videos averaging about 548k. Launch pad or library, both win when the model is clear.
- Shorts bring reach, long form brings depth. Short videos take 82.2% of US brand views, but brand long form still averages about three times the views per video of brand Shorts in Dash Social's data.
- Brands still trail creators. Creators average about 96K views per Short against 66K for brands, and almost double the views on 20 minute videos.
- The opportunity is open. Only 4% of brand and retailer professionals said a large share of budget went to YouTube in early 2025, down from 17% a year before.
How we chose the best brand YouTube channels
We started with 40 well known brands across consumer goods, tech, retail, fashion, travel and software, plus UK names, and kept the 28 whose official channels we could verify. For each one we read the channel's About panel on 30 October 2026, which shows subscribers, lifetime views, video count and join date. We also looked at each channel's most viewed videos and the series it currently runs.
Three caveats matter. First, YouTube rounds public subscriber counts to three significant figures. Second, lifetime views include views from paid ads, so a channel that runs its adverts through YouTube will look bigger than its organic audience. Third, this is a sample, not a census. With that in mind, the ranking below is a fair picture of which brands have built real audiences on the platform.
The best brand YouTube channels in 2026, ranked by views
Total views tell you which brands have built the biggest libraries of watched content. LEGO is in a league of its own, with more than double the views of any other brand in our sample. Its channel is effectively a children's entertainment network: animated mini movies and series across its toy lines, published constantly since 2005.
Total channel views, top 12 brand channels in our sample (30 October 2026)
| # | Channel | Subscribers | Total views | Videos | Views per video | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LEGO | 21.9m | 28.2bn | 51,551 | 548k | Animated mini movies and series across its toy lines; Shows and Podcasts tabs |
| 2 | Netflix | 33.8m | 11.8bn | 9,523 | 1.24m | Trailers, clips and music from its originals, posted almost daily |
| 3 | 14.7m | 6.8bn | 2,790 | 2.42m | Yearly Year in Search films and product explainers | |
| 4 | Nintendo of America | 10.2m | 4.2bn | 7,758 | 540k | Game trailers, presentations and animated shorts |
| 5 | GoPro | 11.3m | 4.1bn | 3,209 | 1.29m | Athlete and customer footage, plus long running community awards |
| 6 | Duolingo | 7.05m | 2.6bn | 1,168 | 2.21m | Character led comedy built around its mascot, Duo, including DuoTV |
| 7 | Samsung | 10.2m | 2.0bn | 2,488 | 812k | Launch event highlights and a Voices of Galaxy story series |
| 8 | Chanel | 2.94m | 1.4bn | 2,388 | 580k | Cinematic fragrance and fashion films |
| 9 | Apple | 21.1m | 1.2bn | 229 | 5.20m | A small number of high budget launch and brand films |
| 10 | Dior | 4.26m | 1.1bn | 2,046 | 517k | Fragrance campaigns, runway shows and beauty films |
| 11 | Canva | 919k | 849m | 1,498 | 566k | Short product launch films plus free design courses |
| 12 | Porsche | 1.64m | 748m | 3,040 | 246k | Films, road trips, how to videos and heritage series |
| 13 | Mercedes Benz | 2.45m | 707m | 944 | 749k | A Tech Explained series on vehicle features |
| 14 | Tesla | 3.09m | 420m | 545 | 771k | Product unveils and feature demos |
| 15 | Airbnb | 684k | 393m | 654 | 600k | Localised campaign films for different markets |
| 16 | Nike | 2.28m | 372m | 650 | 573k | Behind the Design product stories and sport series |
| 17 | Patagonia | 659k | 205m | 1,977 | 104k | Feature length documentaries under Patagonia Films |
| 18 | Notion | 350k | 154m | 744 | 207k | Launch recaps and a Quick Tip tutorial series |
| 19 | Shopify | 492k | 59m | 319 | 185k | My Shopify Business Story merchant documentaries |
| 20 | HubSpot Marketing | 645k | 45m | 1,253 | 36k | Free marketing tutorials and courses |
Ranked by total channel views. All figures read from each channel's About panel on 30 October 2026. Views per video is our calculation.
Notice who is missing from the top of the views chart. Car brands, fashion houses and fintechs have loyal followings, but their channels are mostly launches and campaigns. The brands at the top have something people would watch even if they never bought the product.
Which brand has the most subscribers on YouTube?
Of the brand channels we checked, Netflix has the most subscribers at 33.8m, followed by LEGO (21.9m) and Apple (21.1m). Subscribers are the metric most brands quote, but they are a weaker signal than views. Apple has nearly as many subscribers as LEGO but around one twenty fourth of its lifetime views, because it publishes rarely and treats YouTube as a launch stage.
Subscribers, the 10 most subscribed brand channels in our sample (millions)
The growth over time is striking. In 2020 LEGO was already the most viewed brand on YouTube with about 10.4bn views. Today it has 28.2bn. Fashion and auto brands have grown their subscriber bases several times over since 2018, which shows that brand audiences on YouTube compound when a channel keeps publishing.
| Channel | Then | October 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEGO (views) | about 10.4bn (June 2020) | 28.2bn | about 2.7x |
| Dior (subscribers) | 540k (2018) | 4.26m | about 7.9x |
| Mercedes Benz (subscribers) | 820k (2018) | 2.45m | about 3.0x |
| Nike (subscribers) | 880k (2018) | 2.28m | about 2.6x |
Then: B&T, July 2020, using Buy Shares data and Tubefilter, December 2018, Divimove study. Now: YouTube About panels, 30 October 2026.
Views per video: launch pads vs libraries
Views per video is the most useful single number for comparing brand channels, because it adjusts for how much each brand publishes. It reveals two distinct models.
The launch pad
Apple, Google and Tesla publish relatively few videos, each one a major product moment, and average millions of views per upload. Apple's 229 videos average about 5.2m views. Google's most viewed video, an explainer for its AI Mode search feature, has 447m views. This model only works for brands whose launches are news in their own right, usually backed by big paid media budgets.
The library
LEGO, Netflix, Nintendo and Porsche publish thousands of videos. Each one averages less, but together they build an enormous back catalogue that keeps getting found through search and recommendations. Marks and Spencer's most viewed video is still its 2016 Christmas advert, with 10m views. A library compounds; a launch pad has to be rebuilt every time.
Average views per video: launch pads vs libraries
Duolingo sits in an interesting middle ground: 1,168 videos averaging about 2.2m views each, from a learning app. It gets there with character comedy around its mascot rather than lessons. Its most viewed upload, Duo's Work Day, has 32m views.
What do the best brand YouTube channels do differently?
Looking across the 28 channels and the wider research, six habits separate the best brand YouTube channels from the rest.
1. They run formats, not campaigns
Almost every strong channel has named, repeatable series. Google's Year in Search films return every year, and several editions are among its most viewed. Mercedes Benz runs Tech Explained. Shopify runs My Shopify Business Story, a series of merchant documentaries. Patagonia releases feature length documentaries under Patagonia Films. A format gives viewers a reason to come back and gives the brand a production template it can repeat. We cover how to plan one in our guide to branded content series.
2. They teach
Software brands have built some of the most efficient channels on YouTube by being genuinely useful. Ahrefs' Complete SEO Course for Beginners has 4.2m views. HubSpot, Canva, Figma and Semrush all run free courses on their channels. Tesco's most viewed video is a recipe, not an advert. Education earns search traffic for years after it is published.
3. They have a character or a point of view
Duolingo built a personality around Duo, its owl. Patagonia films are unmistakably about the environment. Lush's biggest video is a campaign film against animal testing with 12m views. Viewers subscribe to a voice, not a logo.
“Set expectations with your audience about what your content is going to be, and then deliver.” Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube
4. They use Shorts for reach and long form for depth
Short videos now dominate brand reach. Tubular Labs data for US brands in 2025 shows videos of 60 seconds or less were 47% of brand uploads but 82.2% of brand views. Videos of 20 minutes or longer were 15.1% of uploads but just 3.02% of views. Yet per video, long form still travels further for brands that do it well: Dash Social's study of 616 brands found long form averaged 229.4K views per video against 75.6K for Shorts, while Shorts drew slightly more interactions (502 vs 400). The best channels use both, cutting Shorts from long videos and pointing viewers back. Our YouTube Shorts strategy report goes deeper.
5. They are built for the TV screen
Google says that as of 2025 more than 50 of YouTube's global top 100 channels by watch time have TV as their most watched screen. Research by Spotter on about 6,600 US channels it calls Creator TV found 52% of their viewing happened on connected TVs in 2025, with a median of 39 episodes a year and an average length of 35 minutes (vendor research). Channels that look and sound like programmes win that screen. We explain why in is TV advertising worth it.
6. They let the back catalogue work
LEGO's channel has 51,551 videos, Porsche's 3,040 and Patagonia's 1,977. Every useful or entertaining video is another door into the channel. That is also why YouTube matters for AI search: answers from AI assistants regularly cite YouTube videos, so a deep library of helpful content increases the chance your brand is mentioned. Our generative engine optimisation guide explains how that works.
Brands vs creators: how big is the gap?
For all their scale, brand channels still underperform creators on a like for like basis. Tubular Labs found that in the US in 2025 creators averaged nearly 96K views per video of 60 seconds or less, against 66K for brands. On videos of 20 minutes or more, creators averaged 14.7K and brands just 7.6K, while media companies averaged 52.6K.
Average views per US video in 2025: brands vs creators vs media companies
There are exceptions. Tubular's data shows NVIDIA's 20 videos over 20 minutes averaged 4.5m views each in 2025, helped by long keynote presentations. But the general lesson is that audiences reward people and stories over corporate output. That is why so many brands now pair their own channel with creator partnerships, which we cover in our creator marketing report.
The audience data backs this up. In Google research with SmithGeiger, 75% of fans surveyed agreed they are more likely to consider a brand that creates or sponsors content they are a fan of (n=10,088 aged 14 to 44 in 12 markets, May 2024). In the UK, Google and Kantar found viewers rank YouTube as the number one platform for watching creator content.
YouTube benchmarks for brand channels by industry
If you want to judge your own channel, compare it with brands in your category, not with LEGO. Dash Social's benchmark of 616 global brands from July to December 2025 shows average views per video ranging from 313.1K in food and beverage to 36.2K in publishing.
Average views per YouTube video by industry, July to December 2025 (thousands)
Posting habits vary just as much. Media and entertainment brands averaged 16 videos a week and publishing brands 14, while CPG and home goods brands averaged two. Across all brands the average was six a week, with monthly subscriber growth of 1.3%.
| Brand size (subscribers) | Average subscribers | Videos a week | Monthly growth | Share of video watched | Views per video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growing (0 to 20K) | 6.7K | 3 | 1.4% | 97% | 80.4K |
| Established (20K to 150K) | 70.1K | 5 | 1.4% | 95% | 141.7K |
| Large (150K+) | 3.2M | 8 | 1.0% | 75% | 155.3K |
| All brands | 1.2M | 6 | 1.3% | 90% | 126.7K |
Source: Dash Social 2026 Social Media Benchmark Report, YouTube (616 brands, July to December 2025; vendor research; share watched is from customer data only).
Two things stand out. Smaller brand channels grow faster in percentage terms and hold attention better, with viewers watching 97% of their videos on average against 75% for large brands. And large brands post more than twice as often as small ones. For guidance on rhythm, see how often to post on YouTube.
Are brands investing enough in YouTube?
Probably not. Digiday+ Research found 63% of brand and retailer professionals said their company used YouTube in the first quarter of 2025, down from 71% in the third quarter of 2024. Only 4% said a large or very large share of their marketing budget went to YouTube, down from 17% a year earlier.
Brand and retailer pros whose company uses YouTube, and who put a large share of budget there
That sits awkwardly with what marketers say they believe. Kantar's Media Reactions 2025 study, covering more than 21,000 consumers in 30 markets and about 1,000 senior marketers, found YouTube ranked first among media platforms for marketers. Spend on creators is rising fast too: the IAB projected US creator ad spend at $37bn for 2025, up 26%. Brands are paying to appear on other people's channels while underinvesting in their own.
Neal Mohan has been clear that building an audience takes patience. Speaking in May 2025, he described growth on YouTube as “a slow burn” and said anyone whose only goal is to sell had better also care about the content. That is the core challenge for brands: a channel is a commitment, not a campaign.
