Hook Rate

Hook rate sits at the top of the funnel. Before completion, before likes, before comments, the platform counts how many people were still there at second three. If most of them swiped, the clip gets read as a miss for that audience and distribution throttles. If hook rate holds — above roughly 30–35% is generally treated as strong in short-form — the clip moves to the next tier.

Which makes the first three seconds the most consequential edit in the whole clip. What reliably helps: starting mid-sentence instead of at the top of a thought, so the viewer arrives in the middle of something already happening. Opening on a frame that implies motion or conflict rather than a static talking head. Putting caption text on screen that poses a question or leaves a sentence unfinished. And cutting any dead air — half a second of silence before someone speaks is enough to lose people who were already leaning toward the next video.

Norms move by platform and by material. TikTok hook rates run lower on average than Shorts because the scroll behavior is more aggressive. Gaming clips opening on a loud reaction routinely clear 40%. Interview clips opening on a contradiction do well. Clips that open with 'here's how to' do worse, because the viewer now knows they are being taught something and can defer it. Grouping your own hook rates by clip format is more useful than chasing a universal benchmark.

Worth saying plainly: hook rate is over-weighted in most clipping advice. It gates distribution, but it does not decide whether a clip is any good — a clip can hook 45% and still lose everyone by second eight because there is no payoff. Read it next to [completion rate](/glossary/completion-rate), and see [why 3-second hooks are overrated](/blog/why-3-second-hooks-are-overrated) for the other side of the argument.