Post format · Teaching posts
The numbers: real viral examples and how it's built
A real figure stops the scroll, and the decisions behind it are what readers save. 20 viral posts on X from 20 creators used this format between May and October 2026. Their median views were 258K, and their median reach 11.9 times the creator's follower count.
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Real examples
The 5 most viewed posts, one per creator.
Vinay Jain
@vinayjain404
1.1Mviews
last week max turned off the best-performing ad in one of our customers' accounts. it was still above target when he paused it. any human would have let it run. three things he saw that the team hadn't: → he read the numbers that move first, not the one that reports last → he…
5.2K followers · Aug 11, 2026 · Photo
Wasteland Capital
@ecommerceshares
894.1Kviews
You only need three 10-baggers in order to go from $1 million to $1 billion. $1m to $10m $10m to $100m $100m to $1bn If you’re starting with $10k, you only need five.
134.4K followers · May 11, 2026
Ben Cera
@Bencera
647.1Kviews
Uber had a $500M Anthropic bill in a single month. Mine was over $1M. So I rented GPUs and now use open-source models. 100x cheaper. The future of AI is Open-source.
62.1K followers · Jun 24, 2026 · Video
Ira Bodnar
@irabukht
405.1Kviews
Jev dropped the price of SEO/GEO fixes by 90% Agents that audit and fix a client's SEO/GEO used to cost us ~$250 Here's where the savings come from: 1/ 30x faster reads of Search Console and PostHog/Mixpanel data 2/ 30x faster checks of what ChatGPT searches on Bing 3/ 30x…
20.6K followers · Sep 18, 2026 · Video
Xiaoyin Qu
@quxiaoyin
399.9Kviews
I Went From $3,000/Month on Claude to $5/Week on DeepSeek And honestly? 80% of my work is identical. For the past two months, I was burning $3-5K monthly on Claude Code. Every idea from design to development to testing - full end-to-end automation, even simulating users to…
39.4K followers · May 27, 2026
How it's built
Answer this first: What's a number from your work you'd stand behind? For example: “40 demo calls in October, all from replying to posts, about 20 minutes a day”. Then write one line or paragraph per bracket, in this order:
[A real figure from your work] [What it took, or what it tells you] [The one thing the reader can copy]
The median viral post in this format was 469 characters long, and 50% had a photo or video. Use it to share a lesson, build in public and get clients.
Formats like it
- The mistake and the fixNaming the mistake the reader is making earns the right to give the fix.
- The playbookA promised outcome with steps in order is the post people bookmark.
- The receiptsAn itemised list speaks for itself and reads fast on a phone.
- The explainerA term everyone uses and few can explain is a post people save.
All formats, as fill-in outlines: tweet templates and LinkedIn post templates. What's going viral right now: this week on X.
Questions
What is the numbers post format?
A real figure stops the scroll, and the decisions behind it are what readers save. It goes in this order: a real figure from your work; then what it took, or what it tells you; then the one thing the reader can copy.
Does it work on LinkedIn as well as X?
Yes. The examples on this page are X posts, and the same shape works on LinkedIn: Postel's own list of LinkedIn openings that beat their creator's usual engagement includes one in this format. On LinkedIn, put the first beat in the first two lines, before "see more".
Where do these examples come from?
From Postel's library of individual creators on X. Each day, posts from the last two weeks by creators with at least 1,000 followers that have reached 5 times their follower count in views are checked once: a model sorts each by format, and a stronger model approves it as a clear example. 20 posts from May to October 2026 were tagged with this format; the page shows the most viewed one from each of up to five creators.
How do I write a post in this format in my own voice?
Answer one question first: What's a number from your work you'd stand behind? Then fill the template on this page with your answer, one beat at a time. In Postel, pick this format under Viral posts › Formats and it writes the post for X, LinkedIn or both from your answer, in the way you write (one AI credit per network).
I'm one of the examples. Can I have my post removed?
Yes. Send the post's link through the contact form at postel.app/contact and it comes off this page within a few days.