How do I get the view count of a YouTube Short through an API?

A skincare brand paid eight creators for 25 Shorts and wants a daily table of views until the campaign ends. The links all look like youtube.com/shorts/abc123XYZ00. The reporting APIs only cover channels you own, and the creators will not share their logins. What you can read is the public count, the same number anyone sees under the Short.

Shorts links work as they are

YouTube video detail accepts the /shorts/ link directly, so there is no need to rewrite it into a watch URL:

curl -s -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/youtube/videos/get" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://www.youtube.com/shorts/abc123XYZ00" \
  -d fields=id,title,author.name,published_at,metrics.views,metrics.likes,metrics.comments

Add view=full and ext.duration_ms tells you the length. A Short is a regular video record underneath, so all the same fields come back.

What people say under the Shorts

The same 11-character ID goes into YouTube video comments to read comments, top or latest first, with likes and reply counts. Shorts comment sections are often where you learn whether viewers noticed the product at all.

Campaign costs

Job	Calls	Cost
One Short, one check	1	$0.004
25 Shorts, daily for 7 days	175	$0.70
First 2 comment pages on each of the 25	50	$0.20

Reading the numbers fairly

• YouTube changed how Shorts views are counted in 2025, so plays and replays count. Shorts numbers run high next to long videos; compare Shorts with Shorts.
• There is no history endpoint. Each call is a snapshot; keep meta.fetched_at with every row and build the curve yourself.
• Subscriber counts of the creators are not returned (author.followers is null), so take reach from views, not channel size.
• Search does not mark which results are Shorts. A short ext.length_s in search results is a hint, not proof.

When to use something else

• Your own channel or one you manage. YouTube Analytics gives Shorts metrics viewers never see, such as engaged views and retention. Nothing public can match it.
• Many Shorts, one Google project. The official videos.list returns viewCount for up to 50 IDs per quota unit, so it is cheaper if you are happy to run a Google Cloud project.
• A handful of Shorts once. Open them and read the number.

To track the same campaign on TikTok and X too, see the competitor monitoring solution page.