CRAFT SCORING BLOG / 9 MIN READ

How do I get my video scored from 0 to 100?

A 0 to 100 score turns a vague "is this good?" into a number you can trust, because it comes from measurements, not mood. Here is what the number means, how it is built, and the fastest way to get one.

0 to 100single craft score
13families measured
−14 LUFSa measured signal
1pass, with the fixes

By Thomas, founder of CutScore · Updated June 2026

CRAFT SCORE · final_cut.mp4
A clapperboard resting on an editing workspace, the moment a finished cut is handed over to be scored from 0 to 100 before it goes out.
CRAFT SCORE
FIXES ADVISED
one number, with the receipts
Picture clean · +27 to the score
Audio dragging it down · costs 11 pts00:42
Hook holds · strong first 3s
The 30-second answer To get your video scored from 0 to 100, hand the file or a link to a video quality coach and let it measure the craft for you. It reads the signals that actually decide quality, picture (exposure, focus, colour, stability), sound (loudness near −14 LUFS, peaks under −1 dBTP, voice over music), editing and pacing, your first three seconds, on-screen text, and the export settings, then rolls them into one number with timestamped evidence and the exact fixes. You do not guess the score by feel. It is built from measurements, which is why two people scoring the same video land in the same place. That is the job CutScore does in one pass.
WHY A NUMBER AT ALL

"Is this good?" is a terrible question, and I say that as someone who asked it about every video I shipped for years. The answer you get back is always the same: "yeah, looks great." Friends are kind, comment sections are random, and your own gut is compromised because you have watched the thing forty times. None of those give you anything you can act on. A score does. It replaces a shrug with a number, and a number you can move.

A 0 to 100 score works because most of video quality is measurable. Loudness is a number. True peak is a number. How long your shots hold before a cut, how dark the shadows have gone, whether the captions sit inside the safe zone, all measurable. Stack those measurements up and you get a craft score: a single figure that says how well the video is built, separate from whether the topic is interesting or the algorithm is feeling generous today.

The part people get wrong is what the score is for. It scores the craft, not the views. A 90 does not promise a million plays, and a 60 does not mean nobody will watch. What the number does is remove the reasons a viewer bails in the first ten seconds, the quiet audio, the muddy picture, the slow open, so the work has a fair shot. Here is how that number gets built.

HOW THE NUMBER IS BUILT

What a 0 to 100 video score is made of.

The score is not one judgement. It is a stack of measurements across the things a viewer actually reacts to, each with a target you can hit or miss.

What it scoresThe target it checks againstWhat drags the number down
Loudness≈ −14 LUFSToo quiet and the video feels weak the second it starts playing.
True peak≤ −1 dBTPHot peaks crackle after the platform re-encodes the file.
Voice vs musicvoice on topMusic burying the speech is the most common amateur tell there is.
Exposure + colourneutral, not clippedDark or green footage reads as a raw clip nobody finished.
Focus + stabilitysharp, no wobbleSoft or shaky shots read as a mistake, not a choice.
Pacing · shot lengthfits the genreToo slow and the scroll wins; too frantic and the viewer tires.
First 3 secondsone reason to stayMost of your early drop-off is decided right here.
Captions + safe zonesreadable, in-frameRoughly half watch on mute, so unreadable text is dead weight.
Export + compliancematches the platformA clean edit can still upload soft if the settings are wrong.
So where does the single number come fromEach family is measured against the right target for your genre, scored, then weighted: the things viewers notice fastest (audio, the hook) carry more than the things they forgive (a slightly soft b-roll shot). Add it up and you get one figure out of 100, plus the per-family breakdown so you can see exactly which part is costing you points. See the full list of what gets measured.
GET THE NUMBER

Measuring all of this by hand takes longer than the edit did. CutScore runs every check in one pass and hands back your 0 to 100 score with the fixes, ranked by how many points each one buys back.

Join the waitlist
HOW TO GET YOURS SCORED

Three ways to score a video, honestly.

1. Score it by feel (free, and not really a score)

You can sit down, watch your video, and give it a number out of 100. People do this constantly. The problem is that "feel" is not repeatable: watch it tired and it is a 70, watch it after coffee and it is an 85, nothing changed but you. A by-feel score is fine as a gut check, useless as a measurement. If you want to go this route, at least review your own video objectively against fixed targets instead of vibes, and watch it on someone else's phone, not your editing monitor at full brightness.

2. Score it with meters and scopes (accurate, slow)

This is how a colourist or audio engineer actually does it. A loudness meter tells you where you sit against −14 LUFS for YouTube. A true peak meter catches anything over −1 dBTP before the platform makes it crackle. A waveform and a scope tell you whether the exposure is clipped or the colour has drifted. It is honest and precise. The catch is that there is no single "out of 100" at the end, just a pile of readings you have to interpret, for every video, every time. Great if you love this. Most creators do not.

Charts and metrics laid out across a desk, the kind of measured signals that get rolled into a single 0 to 100 craft score instead of being read one meter at a time.
A score is a pile of measurements, rolled into one number you can move. Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels.

3. Score it with a coach in one pass (the point of all this)

Hand the file, or just a link, to CutScore. It runs every measurement above against the right standard for your genre, weights them, and gives you one number from 0 to 100 with timestamped evidence behind it. No three tools open at once, no remembering that a Short wants a tighter average shot length than a tutorial. You get the score, the breakdown by family, and a ranked list of fixes. If you want to know whether an AI tool can actually rate your video in a way you can trust, this is the version that shows its working.

WANT TO SEE A REAL SCORE?

Here is a full CutScore report for an everyday vlog: the 0 to 100 number, the family-by-family breakdown, the timestamps, and the fixes that buy back the missing points.

See a sample report
READING THE NUMBER

What your score actually means.

A number with no context is just a number. Here is how I read a craft score, and the band you actually want to be in before you publish.

A
85 TO 100PUBLISH
Publish-ready, fix the last few points if you have time
Everything measurable is clean. The remaining gap to 100 is usually polish a viewer will never consciously notice: a shot held a beat too long, a caption a touch low. Ship it. Coming back for those last points is optional, not urgent.
What to do Upload, then watch the published version on the actual app to confirm the export survived compression.
B
70 TO 84ONE REAL FIX
One thing is dragging you down, usually audio
A score in the 70s almost always means a single family is bleeding points. Nine times out of ten it is sound: too quiet, or the music sitting on top of the voice. Find the family with the biggest deduction, fix that one thing, and the whole number jumps.
What to do Open the breakdown, sort by points lost, and fix the top item before you touch anything else.
C
BELOW 70STOP, FIX
Something a viewer would notice in the first ten seconds
Below 70 there is normally a problem that hits early and hard: blown-out exposure, a wall of room noise, a hook that never arrives. This is not a "ship it and learn" situation. The fix is cheaper than the lost first impression, so do it before you upload.
What to do Treat the lowest two families as blockers. Re-export, re-score, then decide.
The honest caveatA score is a measurement of craft, not a verdict on whether the idea is good. A perfectly built video about nothing still scores high and still flops. Use the number to remove the technical reasons people leave, then let the content do its job.
How CutScore turns your video into one number CutScore is an AI video quality coach. It computes the measurable craft deterministically (loudness with an EBU R128 meter, true peak, exposure, focus, shot length and the rest) and reserves AI for the genuinely subjective parts, then weights every family and rolls it into a single 0 to 100 score. You get the number, the evidence behind it, and a prioritised list of fixes ranked by points recovered, before anyone else sees the video. It scores the craft of the video itself, so it sits next to a growth tool rather than competing with one. More on the method and the standards.
QUESTIONS

Frequently asked.

Give the file or a link to a video quality coach like CutScore. It measures the craft signals that decide quality, picture, sound, editing, on-screen text and platform compliance, then rolls them into a single 0 to 100 score with timestamped evidence and the fixes. You do not score it by feel. The number comes from measurements you can check.
It is a craft score, not a popularity score. 100 would mean every measurable thing is clean: loudness near −14 LUFS, peaks under −1 dBTP, sharp focus, neutral colour, pacing that fits the genre, a hook that lands, readable captions and a correct export. A number in the 80s usually means publish-ready with a couple of small fixes.
No, and anyone promising that is selling you something. A craft score measures how well the video is made, not how the algorithm will treat it. Good craft removes the reasons people click away early, but views also depend on topic, thumbnail, timing and luck. The score fixes what is in your control.
In our experience anything in the 80s is comfortably publish-ready, with the remaining points being polish rather than problems. The 70s usually means one real issue, often audio, worth fixing first. Below 70 there is normally something a viewer would notice in the first ten seconds, so fix that before you upload.
EARLY ACCESS

Turn "is this good?" into a number.

CutScore measures your video, scores it from 0 to 100, and tells you exactly which fixes buy back the most points. Join the waitlist for early access.

Join the waitlist