Question 1

What is ThumbnailPeak.com?

Accepted Answer

ThumbnailPeak.com is a set of tools for YouTube thumbnails. Preview a thumbnail before you upload — inside real search results, on the homepage, in the sidebar, on mobile, tablet and TV, and on your own channel page. Get an AI critique with a 0-100 score and concrete fixes, compare two thumbnails head-to-head, have the AI improve the thumbnail you already have, make one change you type to it with AI Edit, or have it design a new one from the video itself. Breakouts finds thumbnails that massively outperformed their own channel so you can study what worked, and Projects keeps every thumbnail for one upload in one place. There are also free utilities for downloading and resizing thumbnails.

Question 2

How do I use ThumbnailPeak.com?

Accepted Answer

Drag and drop (or select) up to nine thumbnail images on the Preview page, type your video title, and click Preview. We search YouTube for your title and place your thumbnails among the real top results. Up to two of your thumbnails are shown at a time; the picker at the bottom of the results switches between them. From the same dock you can send a thumbnail to the AI critic or compare two — or head to Critic, Improve, Generate or Breakouts in the navigation to start there instead.

Question 3

Why would I want to preview my thumbnails?

Accepted Answer

By previewing your thumbnails among actual YouTube search results, you can gauge how well they stand out against the competition before you commit. That is the cheapest possible test of click-through rate: if your thumbnail disappears next to the videos it will actually compete with, you find out before publishing rather than after.

Question 4

What can I change about how the preview looks?

Accepted Answer

Quite a lot, and none of it costs anything. Edit details sets the views, upload date, duration and verified badge on your own tile so it looks like a real video rather than a placeholder. A secondary title lets you preview two titles at once — tiles mix in both, while search and critique use the main one (Swap switches them). Shuffle re-deals your thumbnails to different positions in the feed. The color vision picker shows the whole page as viewers with red-, green- or blue-deficient color vision would see it, or in grayscale — useful when a design leans on one contrast. Shorts are filtered out of the feed, since your thumbnail will not compete against them in search.

Question 5

Can I preview a thumbnail on my own channel page?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Enter your @handle on the Preview page and click Open under Channel page in Advanced preview tools: we fetch your channel's real banner, avatar and Videos grid and pin your thumbnail at the top of it, so you see the new upload exactly where subscribers will. Sign in and click your profile picture to save your handle for next time.

Question 6

What is the AI Critic, and what does it actually score?

Accepted Answer

The AI Critic judges your thumbnail the way viewers really meet it: small, in a crowded feed, for a fraction of a second. It scores seven visual dimensions — legibility, hierarchy, subject clarity, contrast, curiosity, distinctiveness and polish — and, if you add a title and description, three more covering how well the thumbnail fits and reinforces them. You get a 0-100 overall score with a plain-words band (Weak through Exceptional), the evidence behind each dimension, and up to three prioritized fixes: each one a specific change with the effect you can expect, not generic advice. Every critique is the average of seven independent passes, so a single odd judgement doesn't decide your score. Edit your thumbnail, run it again, and watch the score move.

Question 7

Do I need an account, and what do I get for free?

Accepted Answer

Preview, download and resize are free and unlimited, with no account (competitor preview needs a free sign-in). The AI tools — critique, compare, improve, edit and generate — and Breakouts' search and channel sweeps need a free account, which you make by signing in with Google. A free account comes with 12 credits, and they never expire. A critique uses 1 credit, a comparison 2, an improve 3, an edit 3, a generated thumbnail 3 (a batch of three 6), and a breakout search or channel sweep 1. A comparison's 2 credits include the critiques of both thumbnails, and an improve's 3 include the critique that picks its fixes and the plan. Browsing breakouts by category needs no account and costs nothing.

Question 8

What does Pro add, and how much is it?

Accepted Answer

Pro is $20 a month and adds 300 credits every month, clean downloads with no ThumbnailPeak mark on AI images, and kept AI images: since October 20, 2026, the images you improve, edit or generate while you're on Pro aren't deleted after 60 days. Unused monthly credits don't roll over. If you need more on any plan, a credit pack is $10 for 100 credits that never expire, and buying one makes your downloads clean too. Preview, download and resize stay free and unlimited on both plans, and Projects and your Library of faces, templates and components are free with any account. See the Pricing page for the plans side by side.

Question 9

How do credits work?

Accepted Answer

Every AI tool spends from one credit balance, and each button says what it costs. A free account starts with 12 credits. Pro adds 300 every month, renewed at 00:00 UTC on the day of the month you subscribed (or on the 1st of the next month when a month is too short), and unused monthly credits don't roll over. A credit pack adds 100 credits for $10, on any plan. Free and pack credits never expire, and your monthly credits are always spent first. If you have enough for one generated concept but not a batch of three, Generate makes one.

Question 10

How do I cancel Pro?

Accepted Answer

On the Pricing page, where the upgrade button becomes a cancel button while you're subscribed; the plan card on your Settings page links there. Cancelling stops the next charge, and Pro keeps working until the end of the billing period you've already paid for; you can resume at any point before then. Settings also opens your Stripe billing portal for the card on file and invoices. If a payment fails, Pro stays on while Stripe retries the card, and a banner asks you to update it. When Pro ends, its monthly credits end with it; credits from your free start and from packs stay on your account.

Question 11

Can the AI compare two thumbnails head-to-head?

Accepted Answer

Yes. With two thumbnails active, the compare view critiques both and returns a direct verdict — which one wins, on which dimensions, and why — rather than leaving you to read two reports side by side. It's useful for settling an A/B choice before you commit, and for checking whether an AI-improved version actually beats your original. From the verdict you can send either thumbnail straight to Improve.

Question 12

What does AI Improve do?

Accepted Answer

AI Improve fixes the thumbnail you already have. Upload it or paste a link to the video it belongs to, and the critic analyzes it first — so you see the score and the reasoning before anything is generated. Then you choose how far it goes: Keep my design applies the critique's fixes you tick to the design you have, and a fix may change the words it is about, while Bigger changes plans new words, a new layout or even a new idea, and you approve each change before it's made. Either way you can add one request of your own. The AI then edits your actual image at 1280x720, keeping the people in it recognizably themselves, and you can download the result, compare it against the original, or drop it into the search-results preview. Improve needs a free account and uses 3 credits, spent when you press Improve; the critique that picks the fixes, the plan and the score of the improved version are included.

Question 13

What does AI Edit do?

Accepted Answer

AI Edit makes the one change you type to a thumbnail you already have. Upload it, bring it from Preview, or paste a link to its video, then write the change — the words, a colour, a glow or outline on one element, the background, a small added object — and AI edits that image at 1280x720. There's no critique first and no score: Improve critiques first and suggests fixes, and you can send any version to Critique for a score. Every version stays in a strip with your original first; tap one and your next edit starts from it. The AI redraws the whole picture, so fine text and small details can shift, which is why before and after sit side by side. Edit needs a free account, and each edit uses 3 credits.

Question 14

What does AI Generate do?

Accepted Answer

AI Generate designs a thumbnail from scratch, from the video itself rather than from a prompt you have to write. There are two ways to start. Paste the video's YouTube link — unlisted works, no upload needed — and the AI reads its title and description and studies frames pulled from the footage. Or, if the video isn't uploaded anywhere yet, choose Describe your video and tell it in a few sentences what happens. You can make one concept or three: one uses 3 credits and a batch of three uses 6 rather than 9 (with enough credits for one but not three, Generate makes one), and the three aim for different reasons to click instead of three versions of one idea. Every thumbnail is rendered at 1280x720 and scored 0–100 by the AI Critic, the same critique you can run on any thumbnail, which reads it at full size and at 168x94, the size YouTube shows in the sidebar. Generate never edits a result by itself: if you want one improved, Improve this one opens AI Improve on that critique, at an improve's 3 credits. Add a short guidance note to steer it, and Generate another plans a fresh concept that avoids the angles already tried. From there, critique it, compare it against your current thumbnail or an earlier generation, preview it in Instant Preview, or download it. Generate needs a free account; your runs are kept in your history, where you can share them.

Question 15

How is AI Generate different from other AI thumbnail generators?

Accepted Answer

Most AI thumbnail generators start from a text prompt: you describe a picture and get that picture, so deciding what the thumbnail should be is still your job. ThumbnailPeak's AI thumbnail generator starts from the video. It studies frames pulled from your footage along with the title and description, plans each concept around a reason to click, and only uses a layout when the video actually shows every piece it needs, so nothing is invented to fill a slot. When a person from the video is in the shot, a likeness check compares their face with the frame it came from and flags a mismatch on the result. Every thumbnail is scored 0–100 by the AI Critic at full size and at 168x94, the size YouTube shows in the sidebar, and improving one is your choice, never an automatic pass. The result also sits next to the rest of the tools: critique it, compare it against your current thumbnail, or preview it in real YouTube search results before you publish.

Question 16

Can Generate match my channel's style, or use my logo?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with two optional reference images. A style template is a thumbnail whose look you want to carry over — you choose which properties to borrow: layout and composition, color grade, lighting and mood, and optionally text style. The template's pixels are never copied; the AI extracts those properties and designs a new image to them. A component is an image whose main subject should appear in the thumbnail — your logo, a product, a graphic. Any signed-in account can keep templates (up to 12) and components (up to 20) in its Library and pick them in the form, so a channel's recurring layout or logo is set up once rather than uploaded every time. Images you add to your Library are checked when you add them. To put yourself in the thumbnail, use the face library — see the next question.

Question 17

Can I put my own face in a generated thumbnail?

Accepted Answer

Yes, through your face library. Open Library from the account menu, then on its Faces tab add a person with up to 6 photos (up to 3 people per account), then pick that person in the Generate form. The photos supply identity only: the AI decides the expression, pose and gesture for each concept, picks the photo whose head angle suits it best, and puts that person in every concept of the run. Photos are moderated when you upload them, and are kept, private to your account, until you delete them. With no face picked, a link run works from the people in the video's own frames, and a described run draws generic people — it never draws a named real person.

Question 18

Do I have to publish my video before I can generate a thumbnail for it?

Accepted Answer

No — and publishing first is usually the wrong order. Upload the finished video to YouTube as unlisted, paste that link into Generate, and have your thumbnail ready before you hit publish; an unlisted link works exactly like a public one here. If the video isn't on YouTube at all yet, choose Describe your video instead: a few sentences on what happens, plus a working title if you have one, is enough to start. With no frames to work from, pick a person from your face library if you want yourself in it.

Question 19

What is Breakouts?

Accepted Answer

Breakouts finds videos that massively outperformed their own channel — views divided by that channel's typical views, so a 10x from a small channel outranks a big channel's normal day. It asks that question three ways. Categories needs no account; Search and Channels need a free one. Search takes any topic (it starts from the title in your workspace). Categories shows breakouts from the last few weeks across YouTube's categories, updated automatically once a week and shared with everyone. Channels is your own watchlist of up to 30 channels, each judged against its own median. You can add your own channels and your competitors from Settings in one click — adding is free, and each sweep uses 1 credit. A dash means the channel has too few uploads to measure. Send any result to the AI critic to find out why the thumbnail worked, then borrow the technique rather than the image.

Question 20

What does Breakouts cost?

Accepted Answer

A typed search and a channel sweep each use 1 credit. Repeating a search you've already run is free. Browsing categories is free for everyone: each category updates itself once a week, so there is nothing to refresh.

Question 21

What are Projects?

Accepted Answer

A project is one video: the thumbnails you're weighing for that upload, their critiques and improves, the titles you're considering, and your notes, all in one place. Anything you critique or improve files itself into the right project, each thumbnail keeps its version history, every thumbnail-and-title pairing you've critiqued is ranked by its score, and the card shows how much better you've made it since you started. Projects come free with any account, and so does your Library of faces, templates and components. Images you upload to a project are checked when you add them and stored at thumbnail size. Improved, edited and generated images in a project follow the same rule as everywhere else: they're deleted about 60 days after they were made, unless you made them on Pro since October 20, 2026.

Question 22

What images does the AI accept?

Accepted Answer

Any image YouTube accepts as a thumbnail: at least 640px wide and up to 50 MB — the same ceiling as YouTube's own desktop upload. JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF are supported. 16:9 at 1280x720 or larger is best. Any other shape, a vertical or Shorts-shaped image included, is shown the way YouTube shows it — shrunk into the 16:9 frame with black bars — and the preview and the AI see it with those bars too. The free Thumbnail Resizer crops an image to 16:9 if you'd rather fill the frame.

Question 23

Where do my critiques, improves and generates go?

Accepted Answer

Signed-in users get a history page with separate tabs for critiques, improves, edits and generates, so you can come back to a verdict, pick up an edit from any version, or re-download a generated image later. Critiques are saved when you choose to save them; improves, edits and generates are kept automatically, and are private to your account.

Question 24

Can I share a result?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every critique, comparison, improve and generate result has a Share button that publishes a public page — the score, the verdict, and for an improve the before and after — at a short thumbnailpeak.com link. Shared pages stay up for as long as the link circulates. Only what you share is public; the rest of your history is not.

Question 25

Is a high AI score a guarantee of more views?

Accepted Answer

No. The critic scores craft — whether your thumbnail is legible, clear and distinctive at feed size — not the appeal of the topic, your audience, or YouTube's recommendation system. Treat the score as a fast, consistent second opinion on the things you can actually fix in the image, and the fixes as the useful part. What performs is still decided by real viewers.

Question 26

How does ThumbnailPeak.com ensure the privacy of my uploaded thumbnails?

Accepted Answer

The preview itself runs entirely in your own browser — those thumbnails never leave your device. The AI tools are the exception: they have to send the image to our server to work on it. A critique keeps a 1280x720 working copy so you can start an improve from it later, and an edit keeps one of the picture it started from; those copies, and the images AI Improve, AI Edit and AI Generate produce, are deleted about 60 days after they were made. Since October 20, 2026, the ones made while you're on Pro are kept instead, until you ask us to delete them or delete your account. Everything is reachable only through links nobody can guess, and your results are private to your account. A saved critique keeps a small 480x270 preview next to its verdict, which you can delete from the history page at any time. Images you upload to a project are checked and stored at thumbnail size; they, and the faces, templates and components in your Library, are kept until you delete them. Only what you publish with the Share button becomes public.

Question 27

How do I delete my account?

Accepted Answer

Open Settings and press Delete account at the bottom. Your account closes at once: you're signed out everywhere, a Pro plan ends with no refund for the rest of the month, and your credits end. Your history, projects, Library, channels and every image you made are deleted within 30 days, and links you shared stop working. Billing records stay, as tax law requires. Once it's done you can sign up again with the same Google account, starting with no free credits.

Question 28

I have feedback/suggestions for ThumbnailPeak.com. How can I reach out?

Accepted Answer

We appreciate user feedback! Please contact us at ethan@thumbnailpeak.com with any suggestions or comments.

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