Guide
How long is UPSC preparation on YouTube? 14 free courses, measured
Updated 2026-10-27 · 8 min read
One free course per GS subject for UPSC on YouTube takes 430 hours to watch. We measured the fourteen courses on our UPSC list on 27 October 2026, counting every video to the last: ten GS courses, one for each subject, come to 430 hours 23 minutes over 293 lectures, and UPSC Wallah's CSAT course adds 33 hours, so prelims and the GS papers together are 464 hours of video.
At 1.5× speed that is 309 hours: three hours of lectures a day for about three and a half months, or an hour a day for ten. Indian Polity is the longest single subject at 111 hours, a quarter of the GS set and more than ancient, medieval and modern history together. And that is lectures only, before current affairs, answer writing, ethics or an optional subject.
Every course, measured
Ranked by total. UW is UPSC Wallah, Physics Wallah's UPSC channel. "1.5×" is the total watched at one and a half times speed, and "Avg" the average video.
| Course | Videos | Total | 1.5× | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polity, UW | 92 | 111 h | 74 h | 73m |
| Ancient, UW | 29 | 51 h | 34 h | 105m |
| Geography 11, UW | 20 | 48 h | 32 h | 144m |
| Economy, UW | 27 | 48 h | 32 h | 106m |
| World affairs, UW | 29 | 40 h | 27 h | 83m |
| Science, UW | 16 | 35 h | 23 h | 131m |
| Physical geo, UW | 21 | 34 h | 23 h | 98m |
| CSAT, UW | 24 | 33 h | 22 h | 83m |
| Modern, StudyIQ | 35 | 29 h | 19 h | 49m |
| Environment, UW | 16 | 28 h | 18 h | 103m |
| Medieval, UW | 20 | 27 h | 18 h | 80m |
| Art, culture, UW | 9 | 15 h | 10 h | 99m |
| Reasoning, Drishti | 38 | 14 h | 9 h | 22m |
| CSAT maths, Drishti | 37 | 13 h | 9 h | 22m |
Totals are rounded to the hour; the polity course is 111 hours 22 minutes exactly. "World affairs" is UPSC Wallah's International Relations course, and "Science" its Science and Technology. None of the fourteen has a private or deleted video, and none has more than 100 videos, so any playlist tool should show the same totals. Each course name opens its live page, where the total is current and you can tick off what you have watched. The same courses are on our list of free UPSC courses, with what each covers.
By GS paper
The ten GS courses grouped by the mains paper each subject belongs to, with Class 11 Geography as the one geography course. Prelims GS paper 1 draws on all of them.
| Paper | Videos | Total | 1.5× |
|---|---|---|---|
| GS1: history, art, geography | 113 | 169 h | 113 h |
| GS2: polity, world affairs | 121 | 151 h | 101 h |
| GS3: economy, science, environment | 59 | 110 h | 73 h |
| All ten GS courses | 293 | 430 h | 287 h |
| CSAT (GS paper 2 in prelims) | 24 | 33 h | 22 h |
GS1 is the longest because it holds four subjects: three history courses (106 hours together), art and culture, and geography. GS2 is nearly as long with only two, because the polity course alone is 111 hours: 92 lectures, one per chapter, from the historical background to other countries' constitutions. GS4, ethics, is not on the list, and neither is the essay or an optional subject, so mains takes more than these hours.
CSAT is qualifying, and only 33% is needed, so how long to give it depends on you. UPSC Wallah's 33-hour course teaches it from the basics of numbers; Drishti IAS's two playlists, 27 hours together in videos of about 22 minutes, are for practice by topic once you know the methods.
Hours a day until prelims
The lecture time a day the ten GS courses and the CSAT course need, 464 hours, watching every day, by how long you have left:
| Time left | 1× | 1.5× | 2× |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 months | 38 m | 25 m | 19 m |
| 18 months | 50 m | 33 m | 25 m |
| 12 months | 1 h 16 m | 50 m | 38 m |
| 9 months | 1 h 41 m | 1 h 7 m | 50 m |
| 6 months | 2 h 32 m | 1 h 41 m | 1 h 16 m |
| 3 months | 5 h 4 m | 3 h 23 m | 2 h 32 m |
Read across from the row you are in. With a year to go, the whole set is under an hour a day at 1.5×. That is less than it sounds like for UPSC, and on purpose: the lectures are the smaller part. Reading the standard books, the daily newspaper and current affairs, revision and mock tests take the rest of the day, and current affairs alone has no fixed length; UPSC Wallah's daily newspaper analysis runs to hundreds of videos. So put the lectures in the first months and leave the last three for revision and tests, when lectures at five hours a day would crowd everything else out. Polity and economy lectures hold up well at 1.5×; maps and diagrams in geography are easier at 1×. What each speed costs →
Two-hour lectures, and a six-hour one
UPSC courses on YouTube are a few long videos, not many short ones. The ten GS courses average 88 minutes a lecture, against about 10 minutes for a beginner programming course. 57 of their 293 lectures run two hours or more, and those 57 hold 172 of the 430 hours, two fifths of the set. The longest is the economy course's "Money and Banking", 6 hours 46 minutes in one video; the class 11 geography course's lecture on atmospheric circulation is 6 hours 4 minutes, and polity's chapter on Parliament 5 hours 37.
So plan by the hour, not by the lecture. "One lecture a day" is 20 minutes on some days and six hours on others. Set your daily minutes in the planner instead, and it splits a long lecture across days so each day is the same length.
A shorter route
Two swaps take the GS set from 430 hours to 343, 228 at 1.5×:
- Polity: UPSC Wallah's shorter Indian Polity course, part of its free Sambhav series, is 37 hours over 22 lectures against 111 for the full one. It saves 74 hours, the largest single saving here.
- Geography: the Physical Geography course, 34 hours, covers much of the same ground as the class 11 NCERT course's 48, so one of the two is enough.
The other way round, if you are starting from zero: the NCERT Polity course, 60 hours over 44 lectures, and the class 11 geography course come to 109 hours of school-level basics before the full courses. That makes the route longer, not shorter, but the full courses go faster with the basics in place.
One gap to know about: StudyIQ's modern history course is still being added to. Its 35 lectures run from the arrival of the Portuguese to the Simon Commission of 1927, so the last twenty years of the freedom struggle are not in it yet, and its total will grow.
Plan the whole syllabus
Paste a course's link on the home page, or click its name in the first table, and set your speed and daily time in the planner: it gives you a finish date and the videos for each day, and you can put the sessions in your calendar. Four of these playlists run newest first: StudyIQ's modern history, the International Relations course and Drishti IAS's two CSAT playlists put the first lesson at the bottom, so start ticking from there. Tick each video as you finish it and the time left updates; the course stays in your list on the home page, to pick up where you stopped. The exam date guide works back from prelims day, and how long a free YouTube course is puts UPSC next to 23 other subjects.
Frequently asked
How many hours of video is UPSC preparation on YouTube?
One free course per GS subject, ten courses, is 430 hours 23 minutes over 293 lectures, measured on 27 October 2026. With UPSC Wallah's CSAT course it is 464 hours, and 309 at 1.5×. Current affairs, ethics and the optional subject come on top.
How long is UPSC Wallah's polity course?
The Complete Indian Polity course is 111 hours 22 minutes over 92 lectures of about 73 minutes each, measured on 27 October 2026. At 1.5× it is 74 hours. UPSC Wallah's shorter Sambhav polity course is 37 hours.
How many hours a day should I watch UPSC lectures?
To finish the GS and CSAT courses at 1.5× watching every day: 50 minutes a day over a year, 1 hour 41 minutes over six months, and 3 hours 23 minutes over three months. Reading, current affairs and tests take the rest of the day.
Which UPSC subject takes the longest?
Polity, at 111 hours, is the longest single course. By mains paper, GS1 is the longest at 169 hours, because it holds three history courses, art and culture, and geography.
How long is the CSAT course?
UPSC Wallah's Complete CSAT course is 33 hours 19 minutes over 24 lectures. Drishti IAS's reasoning and maths playlists are 14 and 13 hours, in short videos for practice by topic.
Why might a total differ from the playlist today?
These totals were measured on 27 October 2026. Channels add and remove videos, and videos go private; StudyIQ's modern history course is still growing. Each course's page here, and the UPSC list, shows the total as it is now.