What is an outlier score?
A post's views divided by the median views of that same creator's recent posts. A 6× means it pulled six times what they normally get. It is the single most useful number for finding what to make next, and Sortflare shows it on every post, for free.
Why not just sort by views?
Raw view counts mostly tell you how big the account is. A creator with two million followers gets a million views on a Tuesday; that is not a breakout, it is their baseline. A creator with eight thousand followers who gets 300,000 views on one Reel has found something — a hook, a format, a topic — that the algorithm pushed far past their audience. The view count buries the second story under the first. The outlier score does the opposite: it makes the small account's breakout the loudest row on the page.
How Sortflare computes it
- Take the creator's recent posts on the page — the same ones you are sorting.
- Find the median of their view counts. The median, not the average, so one giant hit does not drag the baseline up and hide the next one.
- Divide each post's views by that median. 1.0× is a normal day; 3× is worth a look; 10× is the post to study frame by frame.
The score is computed in your browser from the posts on screen. Nothing is sent anywhere.
When the score is blank
Sortflare shows a dash instead of a number when a number would be noise: a creator with too few posts on the page to form a median, a post less than two days old that is still collecting views, or a surface such as a hashtag or a search where every creator appears once and there is no baseline to compare against. In those cases, sort by views or likes.
What to do with it
Open five creators in your niche, sort each by outlier score, and read the top three posts of each: the hook, the first three seconds, the format, the length. Transcribe them if the words matter. Fifteen posts that beat their own baseline tell you more about what the audience wants right now than a thousand posts sorted by date.
Questions
Is the outlier score the same as engagement rate?
No. Engagement rate is likes plus comments divided by views or followers; it measures how the audience reacted. The outlier score measures reach relative to the creator's own normal, which is what tells you the algorithm pushed a post.
Which platforms show it?
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, on any profile or channel with enough posts to form a baseline.
Is it free?
Yes. The outlier score is part of the free plan on every platform.
Free to install. No account to start.
The free plan sorts the latest 25 posts or the last 7 days, exports everything and downloads without limits — and, signed in, runs one Pro scan a day. Pro is $29 once, for life.