Free tool · no sign-up
YouTube face/text balance grid
Overlay a rule-of-thirds and face-placement grid on your thumbnail draft to check the composition before you publish.
Nothing is uploaded. The grid renders entirely in your browser.
A face and a headline dropped in the middle of the frame fight over the same square inch, and at feed size neither one wins. The fix is the same one photographers have used forever: put the subject on a third, not dead centre, and give the rest of the frame to whatever else needs to read. In a thumbnail’s case, that’s almost always the text.
This overlays that grid on your actual draft. The two zones show where the face and the text each get clean room without stepping on each other. The dots mark the four points a subject’s eyes usually land on. The last two guides catch the parts of the frame you don’t control: YouTube’s own duration badge in the corner, and the margin that gets cropped off on mobile and in the rounded-corner grid view.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the grid actually show?
- A rule-of-thirds grid (the two vertical and two horizontal lines photographers use to place a subject off-centre), a shaded third for where to put a face, a shaded zone for text, an outline for where YouTube draws the duration badge, and a dashed safe margin for what gets cropped on mobile and in the rounded-corner grid view.
- Why does the face need to go on a third instead of the centre?
- A centred face and centred text fight for the same space and neither wins. Putting the face on one side leaves a clean two-thirds for the title or hook text, and an off-centre subject reads faster at feed size than a centred one.
- Why avoid the bottom-right corner?
- YouTube draws the video-length badge there on every surface, over whatever you put underneath it. Text or a face partly hidden behind that badge is a common, easy-to-miss mistake.
- Is my thumbnail uploaded anywhere?
- No. The grid renders entirely in your browser; the image never leaves your device.
This tool lives inside Chewbr
Chewbr does a thumbnail score that checks composition well beyond this grid, plus the other 46 jobs between filmed and published.
The full app is the finishing system for YouTubers: every video gets a 47-step checklist from Plan to Promote, with tools like this one built into the step where you need them. It has not launched yet, so join the waitlist and you will be first through the door.