What counts as “watched”? Measuring video completion for training
“Completion rate” sounds precise, but most video tools measure something looser than you’d think. If your training, compliance or onboarding depends on people actually watching, it’s worth knowing what each metric really counts.
Four ways to measure “watched”
A play
Someone pressed play. That’s all. A play rate tells you a thumbnail and title worked, not that anyone watched.
The video ended
The player reached the last second. Dragging the playhead to the end counts, and so does leaving a tab playing on mute.
Percentage of time watched
Total time spent playing divided by the video’s length. Rewatching one minute ten times can add up to “100%”.
Unique seconds watched
Which seconds of the video this person has actually played, across every sitting, each second counted once. Skipping doesn’t add anything; rewatching doesn’t double-count. This is the only one of the four that answers “did they see the whole thing?”
Why it matters for training
- Completion should be earned. If a lesson can be completed by skipping, completion rates overstate engagement, and certificates lose their meaning.
- Regulated training needs evidence. Auditors ask who watched what, when, and how you know. A record built on unique seconds, kept in a tamper-evident log, answers that.
- Content changes. When a safety video is updated, people who watched the old one haven’t seen the new one. Completion should follow the version.
How Pellio measures it
Pellio records unique seconds per viewer for every video, shown as a heatmap per person (once they’re identified by filling in a form or logging in to your site). LMS lessons complete on that measure, not on a button click; with “no skipping”, viewers can’t jump past what they’ve watched; and on Advanced, every verification goes into a learner log you can export, send as xAPI or package as SCORM.