Can I get the transcript of any YouTube video?

Yes, for public videos. /v1/youtube/video/transcript returns the spoken text, and /v1/youtube/video/subtitles returns caption tracks. The official API only downloads captions for videos you own.

Can I get a YouTube channel's email?

Where the channel makes one public. /v1/youtube/channel returns an email written in the channel description, and contact_email=1 picks the one given for contact when several are listed. /v1/youtube/channel/about returns the public business contact info the channel lists on its About tab, where available. When a channel publishes none, the field is null.

How much does a YouTube call cost?

A channel lookup is 10 credits, and so is a page of video comments. Search and channel video lists are metered and charge what the call read. Calls that fail or find nothing are free.

Do I need a YouTube developer account?

No. There is no YouTube app, OAuth flow or review. One API key in the x-api-key header works for YouTube and the other 24 platforms.

Is there a free tier?

Yes. Your first 10 calls priced at 100 credits or less are free, and the free plan includes 500 credits every month. No credit card is needed to get a key.

What are the YouTube API rate limits?

60 requests a minute and 10 requests in flight at once, per API key. Going over either returns a 429 with a Retry-After header, and a rejected request costs nothing. There is no daily quota: past those two limits, your credit balance is what bounds volume.

How does pagination work on YouTube list endpoints?

List endpoints return rows in data.items and a pagination object with next_cursor and has_more. Send next_cursor back unchanged as the cursor parameter for the next page, and stop when has_more is false. A handful of endpoints page with their own parameter instead; their reference pages name it.

Am I charged for failed calls?

No. A call that errors or finds nothing costs 0 credits. A live fetch costs the endpoint's price, or for a metered endpoint what it actually read. An answer served from the shared cache costs 2 credits. Repeating a call is charged like the first time, because it can return newer data.

How fresh is the YouTube data?

A call fetches live unless a recent copy is in the shared cache, and every response says which with the cached field; a cached answer costs 2 credits. Add fresh=1 or send Cache-Control: no-cache to skip the cache; that call is charged at the normal price.

Is it legal to scrape YouTube?

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 API reads public data only. Talk to a lawyer for anything commercial.

YouTube scraper API

The YouTube scraper API for channels, videos, shorts, comments and transcripts, as JSON. No daily quota to ration and no Google Cloud project.

Get a free API key YouTube API docs

26 endpoints · from 10 credits a call · 10 free calls up to 100 credits each · no credit card

curl "https://api.insightsocial.app/v1/youtube/channel?handle=ExampleChannel" \
-H "x-api-key: $INSIGHTSOCIAL_API_KEY"

200 OKJSON

{
"success": true,
"platform": "youtube",
"endpoint": "/v1/youtube/channel",
"schema_version": "2",
"data": {
"author": {
"id": "UC0000000000000000000000",
"username": "@examplechannel",
"display_name": "Example Channel",
"avatar_url": "https://cdn.example.com/avatars/example_channel.jpg",
"bio": "Weekly deep dives on home espresso. Business: studio@example.com",
"verified": null,
"followers": 184000,
"followers_approximate": true,
"following": null,
"posts_count": 267,
"likes_count": null,
"url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0000000000000000000000",
"location": null,
"external_url": null,
"private": null,
"joined_at": "2016-09-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"last_post_at": null,
"ext": {
"total_views": 31250448,
"public_email": "studio@example.com",
"country": "GB",
"made_for_kids": false
}
}
},
"unavailable": [],
"credits_used": 0,
"charge_reason": "miss",
"free_call": true
}

What YouTube data can you get?

Public YouTube data only, returned in the same JSON envelope as every other platform.

Channels

Subscribers, description, links and public business contact info where the channel lists it, plus its videos, shorts, lives and playlists.

Videos and transcripts

A video's details and statistics, its transcript and subtitles, and the brands likely sponsoring it.

Comments and replies

Top-level comments under a video and the replies under each one.

Search and trends

Videos by keyword or hashtag, advanced search filters, and trending videos and shorts.

YouTube API endpoints

All 26 YouTube endpoints and their price in credits. 10 are metered: they show a range and charge what the call actually read.

Endpoint	Credits	What it returns
/channel	10	Returns a YouTube channel's public profile: subscriber count on author.followers (rounded above 1,000), video and view totals, description, banner and avatar URLs, and author.ext.public_email.
/channel/about	250	Returns the address behind a channel's View email address control on author.ext.public_email, its listed country, and the profile: id, handle, name, avatar, bio, URL, subscribers, join date, views.
/channel/videos	10–20	Returns recent videos published by a channel, each with title, view count, duration, thumbnail, and publish date; pass includeExtras=true to add like and comment counts.
/video	10	Returns full details for one video: title, view, like and comment counts, description, tags, duration, channel info, and publish date.
/video/sponsors	100	Returns whether a video carries a paid-promotion disclosure plus the brands likely sponsoring it, each with supporting evidence and a confidence score.
/video/comments	10	Returns comments on a video, each with the author name, comment text, like count, reply count, and publish timestamp.
/video/comment/replies	10	Returns the replies under one comment, each with the reply text, author details, like count, and publish date.
/search	10–150	Returns YouTube search results for a keyword: videos, channels, playlists, shorts, and live streams, each with title, thumbnail, views, and channel.
/channel/shorts	10–20	Returns the Shorts published by a channel, each with title, view count, like count, and thumbnail.
/community-post	10	Returns one YouTube community post: its text, like count, comment count, attached images, and author info.
/playlist	10–110	Returns the videos in a playlist in playlist order: video id, title, thumbnail, channel and publish date.
/search/hashtag	10–110	Returns videos posted under a hashtag, each with view count, channel info, and publish date.
/shorts/trending	50–150	Returns the Shorts trending on YouTube right now, each with view count, like count, channel info, and thumbnail.
/video/transcript	30	Returns the spoken transcript of a video as timestamped segments, each with text, start time and duration, plus language, word count, and speech rate.
/channel/playlists	10	Returns the playlists on a channel's Playlists tab, each with playlist id, title, thumbnail, video count, channel info, and playlist URL.
/channel/lives	10–70	Returns the live and past streams on a channel's Live tab, each with title, URL, thumbnail, view count, publish time, and duration.
/channel/community-posts	10	Returns the posts on a channel's Posts tab, each with post id, URL, text, images, attached video, like count, publish time, and channel info.
/videos/trending	10–60	Returns the trending videos for a country and category, each with title, thumbnail, duration, view, like and comment counts, channel, and publish time.
/playlist/items	10–110	Returns the videos of a playlist in playlist order, each with video id, title, thumbnail, the video's own channel, its publish date, and its position and insertion time on post.ext.
/search/advanced	10–110	Returns video search results with the full filter set: sort order, length, live status, license, category, country, language, and publish date window.
/search/suggestions	10	Returns the autocomplete suggestions YouTube's own search box shows for a partial query, as a plain list of strings.
/video/audio	50	Returns the downloadable audio streams for a video, each with a direct media URL, mime type, bitrate, audio quality, sample rate, channels, and duration.
/video/files	50	Returns the downloadable video streams for a video, each with a direct media URL, mime type, resolution, quality label, frame rate, bitrate, and duration.
/video/subtitles	10	Returns the caption track files for a video, each with a language code and name, file format, and a direct download URL, including auto-generated tracks.
/video/thumbnails	10	Returns a video's thumbnail images at every available size, each with a direct image URL, width, height, aspect ratio, and image format.
/profile/full	50	Returns a channel's profile and up to 30 recent videos in one call.

Parameters, response fields and examples for each endpoint are in the YouTube API reference.

InsightSocial vs the official YouTube API

The YouTube Data API v3 runs on a default quota of 10,000 units a day, where one search costs 100 units, and it downloads captions only for videos you own.

	InsightSocial API	Official YouTube API
Limits	Your credit balance	10,000 quota units a day by default; a search is 100
Transcripts	Any public video	Only videos on channels you manage
Setup	Sign in and copy a key	Google Cloud project, API key or OAuth
Sponsors and public contact info	Returned by dedicated endpoints	Not offered
Cost per call	10 credits	Free within the default 10,000 quota units a day

The official API is the right tool for posting, messaging or managing accounts you own. This one is read-only public data.

How much does the YouTube API cost?

YouTube calls start at 10 credits. Every endpoint's price is in the table above and in the free GET /v1/endpoints catalogue, so you know the cost before you call. Pro's 10,000 monthly credits cover about 1,000 channels at 10 credits each.

Failed calls are free
A call that errors or finds nothing costs 0 credits.
Retries are free
Resend a request with the same Idempotency-Key and the replay costs 0. Repeating a call without one is charged like the first time, because it can return newer data.
One balance
API calls and Chrome extension exports share the same credits. The free plan includes 500 a month.

See plans and credit packs How credits work

Not writing code?

Connect InsightSocial to Claude or ChatGPT and ask for YouTube data in plain English. Same account, same credits.

Use it from Claude or ChatGPT

YouTube API: frequently asked questions

No daily quota. The only limits are 60 requests a minute per key and your credit balance. The official YouTube Data API allows 10,000 units a day by default, and a single search spends 100 of them.

YouTube API guides

Does YouTube have an API?