Animated metric

When you need it

An animated metric is one number on screen: it counts up to its value, a small chart shows where it came from, and then it stays still long enough to read. It's 6 to 8 seconds, the right size for a milestone post, a slide in an investor update, or one beat inside a longer recap.

Use it when one number is the news: downloads this month, revenue after a launch, a benchmark result. When you have three or four numbers to show, make the 20-second monthly numbers video instead; this recipe is one scene of it.

Before you start

• Your brand. Fill it in once in Settings › Project › Brand: logos, colors and fonts. The agent reads it for every video in the project, so the prompt doesn't have to repeat it.
• The data as text. Paste it straight into the message as CSV, one row per period. A few rows are enough; a chart with forty points is too dense to read in a few seconds.
• One label. What the number is, in two or three words: "Downloads in October", "Monthly revenue".

The prompt

The numbers below are example data. Replace them with yours.

Make a 7-second animated metric, 16:9, using our brand. The data:

month,downloads
May,120
Jun,210
Jul,260
Aug,310
Sep,780
Oct,1240

Show the label "Downloads in October" first. Then the October value, 1,240, big in the middle, counting up from 0 and rolling to a stop. Under it, a line chart of all six months draws on from left to right, finishing at the same moment the number lands. Then hold everything still for the last two seconds. Calm and precise: ease out, no bounce, one accent color for the line.

What matters in the prompt:

• The data in the message. The agent charts what you paste, so the chart and the number can't disagree. Round the number you show: 1,240 reads, 1,237.4 doesn't.
• The number lands with the chart. Saying they finish together makes the count and the line one movement instead of two competing ones.
• The hold. A number that is still moving when the video ends was never read. Two still seconds also give you a clean point to trim when you drop the scene into a longer video.

More rules for numbers that people actually read are in Your monthly numbers as a 20-second video.

What a count-up is, and when it helps or hurts: Number count-up.

Components that fit

• Rolling Number: an odometer where every digit rolls at its own speed and settles exactly on the value. Made for a large whole number on a stats slide.
• Number Wheel: a simpler odometer roll from one whole number to another, for a smaller count.
• Slot Machine Roll: for a value with a symbol in it, like $4,200 or +38%, which the two odometers above don't take.
• Animated Line Chart: the line draws on from left to right. For growth or a trend over time.
• Animated Bar Chart: bars spring up from the baseline in a staggered cascade. For comparing separate values side by side.
• Hand Count: the number is rewritten by hand in stop-motion poses, for a metric in a hand-made, paper-style video rather than a dashboard look.

Variations

Bars instead of a line

When the periods are separate buckets rather than a continuous trend, such as releases per month or signups per plan, bars read better than a line:

Same metric, but show the six months as a bar chart instead of a line. The October bar uses the accent color, the others are muted.

Two periods side by side

To show a change, compare two values instead of charting a series. The numbers below are example data.

Same style, 16:9. Compare two periods: September 780 downloads, October 1,240. Two bars side by side, September first and muted, then October in the accent color. The October number counts up above its bar. End on "+59%" under it, then hold still for two seconds.

Work out the percentage yourself and put it in the prompt, so the video shows exactly the number you checked.

Vertical

Create a new video in the same project with the 9:16 ratio and send the main prompt with "9:16" instead of "16:9". Stack the number above the chart and keep both in the middle third, away from the captions and buttons that Reels and TikTok put over the top and bottom edges:

Put the number above the chart, both in the middle of the frame. Make the chart narrower and taller so it fills the width.

More on what changes when a video goes vertical: One video, three formats.

Save it for next time

The look stays the same from month to month; only the data changes. Save the scene once:

Save this metric scene as a component with the entry role. It should take the label, the value and the data as inputs.

It then appears in the Components view of every project, under Entry. Next month's video is a new CSV and one line:

Use our metric scene for "Downloads in November". The data: [paste the CSV].

The same component is the headline beat of a monthly numbers video.