What is a YouTube end screen?

Clickable elements over the last seconds

End screens are not part of the video file. They are added afterwards in YouTube, laid over the final stretch of an uploaded video, and they only work on YouTube itself, where a viewer can click them. YouTube's help centre sets the rules: end screens can be added to the last 5 to 20 seconds, the video has to be at least 25 seconds long, and a video in the standard 16:9 shape can carry up to four elements. The same file posted anywhere else plays without them, which is why the last scene should still make sense when the elements are absent.

The element types

There are five kinds. A video element can show your most recent upload, a video YouTube chooses as best for that viewer, or one specific video. A playlist element sends the viewer into a sequence. A subscribe element shows the channel's subscribe prompt. A channel element promotes another channel. A link element points to an approved external website, and it is only available to channels in the YouTube Partner Program. Each element is positioned and timed individually within the end window, so they can arrive one after another rather than all at once, and the most important one can appear first.

Where they appear and where they do not

End screens are not shown everywhere a video plays. YouTube lists the exceptions: videos set as made for kids, the YouTube Music app, mobile web browsers and 360 degree videos. Viewers can also hide end screens while watching. So an end screen is a strong nudge for people watching on a computer, in the phone app or on a television, not a guaranteed click target. The call to action that matters most should also be spoken or shown in the video itself, where it survives every player, every embed and every repost.

When an end screen earns its place

They matter most for channels building a library, where each video should hand the viewer to the next one: a series of tutorials, a course split into parts, a run of product guides. They matter least for a single video embedded on your own site, where the next step is already on the page around the player. Wistia's 2026 State of Video report, drawn from more than 13 million videos, found calls to action were the most used interactive element on its platform and that the end of a video was the best place for them, which matches the logic of the end screen: ask once the viewer has finished watching.

Common mistakes

Burying important text under the elements is the most common, such as an address or offer code in the corner where a video element later lands. The second is a video too short to qualify, which quietly removes the option altogether. The third is four competing elements when one would actually be followed; a single next video plus a subscribe prompt is usually clearer. The fourth is ending the edit abruptly, so the elements appear over a frozen or black frame. The fifth is forgetting that the elements vanish outside YouTube, leaving the uploaded file with a closing scene that points at nothing.

Where it shows up in the product

The video builder here exports an MP4 and does not add end screen elements, which are placed afterwards in YouTube Studio once the file is uploaded. What the builder controls is the closing scene underneath them. The four closer roles, cta, outro, contact and ugc_close, are the scenes built for that position, and the corner watermark fades out before the closer so the frame is clear. Length is the catch. The short setting targets about 10 seconds and the standard setting about 18, both under YouTube's 25 second minimum, so a video meant to carry an end screen needs the long setting, which targets about 30 seconds, or a tutorial, whose steps of 5 to 9 seconds each usually take it past the limit. Landscape exports at 1920 by 1080, the 16:9 shape that takes four elements.

Questions people ask