TikTok's analytics moved when Creator Tools became TikTok Studio, which is why most instructions you find are out of date. Here is the current path on both mobile and desktop, checked in August 2026, followed by what each number means and where the dashboard stops.
How to check TikTok analytics on mobile
- 1Open TikTok and tap Profile - Tap the Profile tab in the bottom-right of the app.
- 2Open the menu - Tap the menu icon (three lines) in the top right of your profile.
- 3Open TikTok Studio - Tap TikTok Studio. On a Business account this reads Business suite instead; both lead to analytics.
- 4Open Analytics - Under the Tools section, tap View all in the Analytics card.
- 5Pick a tab and a date range - Switch between Overview, Content, Viewers, Followers and LIVE. The date picker offers 7, 28, 60 and 365 days, or a custom range.
If you do not see TikTok Studio, update the app. The old route through Settings and privacy, then Creator tools, still lands in the same place on some builds.
How to check TikTok analytics on desktop
- 1Go to TikTok on the web - Open tiktok.com and sign in to the account you want to check.
- 2Open the Business Suite insights page - Go to tiktok.com/business-suite/insight/overview, or pick Business Suite from your profile menu.
- 3Choose your report - Use the Overview, Content and Followers views, and set the date range at the top.
- 4Export if you need it - Desktop is the only place you can download the data, which matters because TikTok only keeps about a year.
What each TikTok metric means
| Metric | What it counts | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Video views | Times the video started playing | Reach, nothing about quality. A high number with poor watch time means the thumbnail worked and the video did not. |
| Total watch time | All viewing time added up | Scales with views, so it flatters big videos. Use it for totals, not diagnosis. |
| Average watch time | Watch time divided by views | The honest attention number. Compare it to your video's length, not to other creators. |
| Watched full video | Share who reached the end | Completion. The single strongest quality signal in the dashboard. |
| Traffic source | Where views came from - For You, profile, search, following | A high For You share means the algorithm is distributing it. A profile-heavy split means mostly your existing audience saw it. |
| Retention / viewers kept | How many were still watching over time | The closest native gets to a drop-off curve, but it will not tell you what was on screen when they left. |
| Follower activity | When your followers are online | Useful for scheduling, weak as a growth lever. |
How far back does TikTok analytics go?
Up to 365 days. The date picker offers 7, 28, 60 and 365-day presets plus a custom range, and TikTok stores roughly a year of analytics - past that, the data is gone. The widely repeated "60 days" figure is one of the presets, not the ceiling. If you need multi-year reporting, export from desktop while the data is still there.
Is TikTok analytics free?
Yes, completely, and on every account type. TikTok removed the Pro-account requirement some time ago, so personal accounts see the same core analytics through TikTok Studio that Business accounts see through Business Suite. There is no paid tier of native TikTok analytics to upgrade to.
What TikTok's native analytics doesn't show you
Three things, and they are structural rather than oversights:
- Anyone else's account. There is no way to see another creator's watch time or retention, so you cannot benchmark against your niche from inside the app.
- Anything older than about a year. Fine for most creators, a real problem if you are reporting to a client or tracking a multi-year trend.
- Why a moment lost viewers. The dashboard shows the shape of the drop; it never looks at the footage, so it cannot tell you that the cut at second five broke the pacing.
The first two are what third-party dashboards sell. The third is a different kind of tool entirely - see third-party vs native TikTok analytics for where the line sits, or the TikTok analytics checker from Reelyze (getreelyze.com), which reads the video itself rather than the numbers it produced.