YT Sub Counter displays a YouTube “Subscribe” button with your channel’s live subscriber count, powered by the official YouTube subscribe button embed.
Add the button with the “YouTube Subscribe” block in the editor, or with the [ytsub] shortcode. The block works in posts, pages and the Site Editor, so you can drop it into a header, footer or sidebar template, or sit it in a Row next to core’s Social Icons block as one more social button.
Site-wide defaults are configured under Settings > YT Sub Counter:
- Channel ID
- Layout (default or full)
- Theme (default or dark)
- Subscriber count visibility (shown or hidden)
Every option on the block starts at “Use site default” and can be overridden on an individual block, or per shortcode: [ytsub theme="dark" count="hidden"].
The “Youtube Subscribers” widget is still included and existing widgets keep working, but it is legacy. Block themes have no widget areas at all, so the block is the way to place the button there.
External services
This plugin relies on Google’s YouTube subscribe button embed to render the live subscriber count and “Subscribe” button. This is a third-party/external service provided by Google.
On front-end pages that display a subscribe button, the plugin enqueues Google’s platform.js script from https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js. Pages with no block, shortcode or widget on them do not load it. Once loaded, that script (running in the visitor’s browser, not on your server) connects to YouTube/Google servers to render the subscribe button and fetch the channel’s live subscriber count. As with any embedded third-party script, this transmits the visitor’s IP address and standard browser/request data (such as the user agent and referring page) to Google, and may set Google cookies, in accordance with Google’s own policies.
No data is sent to Google from your server, and the plugin itself does not collect, store or transmit any personal data.
This service is provided by Google LLC:
* Terms of Service: https://policies.google.com/terms
* Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
* YouTube Terms of Service: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms
The script is required for the subscribe button to work, so there is no setting to disable it. Removing the block, shortcode and widget, or deactivating the plugin, stops it from loading.
Screenshots
The subscribe button with its live subscriber count on the front end.
Site-wide defaults under Settings > YT Sub Counter, with a preview of the button.
The "YouTube Subscribe" block in the editor, previewing the button, with every option set to "Use site default".
The block in a Row alongside the Social Icons block, as one more social button.