Is the YouTube API free?

YouTube Data API v3: No price published; limited by quota (10,000 units a day, plus 100 searches and 100 uploads a day). The InsightSocial YouTube API is pay-per-call: calls start at 10 credits, your first 10 calls up to 100 credits each are free, and failed calls cost nothing.

How do I get YouTube data without the official API?

Use a public-data API. InsightSocial has 26 YouTube endpoints for public data, with one API key and no YouTube app review. A YouTube channel lookup costs 10 credits; Pro's 10,000 monthly credits cover about 1,000 of them.

Is it legal to collect public YouTube data?

Collecting publicly available data is generally treated differently from accessing private data, but the answer depends on your jurisdiction, YouTube's terms and what you do with personal data afterwards. The InsightSocial API reads public data only. Talk to a lawyer for anything commercial.

Does YouTube have an API?

Yes. The YouTube Data API v3 reads public channels, videos, playlists, comments and search results and manages your own channel, within a daily quota that can be raised on request.

To read public YouTube data you do not own, a public-data API is the usual route. InsightSocial has 26 YouTube endpoints from 10 credits a call, with one key and no app review.

Official documentation checked 2026-10-05.

The official YouTube APIs

API	What it covers	Who can get it	Cost
YouTube Data API v3	Channels, videos, playlists, comment threads, search, uploads and channel management.	Any Google Cloud project that enables the API; more quota through a quota extension request.	No price published; limited by quota (10,000 units a day, plus 100 searches and 100 uploads a day)

What the official API does not do

The default quota is 10,000 units a day plus separate buckets of 100 searches and 100 uploads, and every extra page of results costs quota. source
Subscriber counts are rounded down to three significant figures, and channels can hide them. source

Public YouTube data without the official API

Every YouTube endpoint has a published price, and failed calls cost nothing. A few of the 26:

Get a free API key All YouTube API endpoints Use it from Claude or ChatGPT

YouTube API: frequently asked questions