Thumb-Stop Rate

social media metric

01 Definition

Thumb-Stop Rate meaning: The share of people who pause scrolling to actually watch or view your content.

Thumb-stop rate measures how well content stops the scroll, usually shown as the percentage of impressions that turn into a qualifying view, such as a three-second video play. It is an informal industry metric, not an official platform figure, so definitions of a qualifying view vary by team and tool.

Also called

hook ratethumb stop ratio

Why it matters

How Thumb-Stop Rate fits the work

This metric focuses attention on the first moment of a post, the point where most people decide to keep scrolling or stop, making it useful for testing hooks.

In context

The video earned 50,000 impressions and 6,000 three-second plays, giving a thumb-stop rate of 12 percent.

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Practical note

Because there is no single agreed definition, teams count the qualifying view differently. Fix your own formula first so comparisons stay consistent across posts.