YouTube Video Scraper

You shouldn't need a quota-capped Google API project — or a $10-per-1,000 browser scraper — to read public video stats. Paste up to 500 YouTube or Shorts links and get titles, views, likes, channel info, and chapters back as clean rows at $1.98 per 1,000. No API key, no quotas.

Title, views, likes, channel, and metadata for any public YouTube video or Short — paste links, export rows.

🔥 $1.98 per 1,000 rows · up to 500 URLs per run · ⚡ API-based — no browser, no proxies · integration guide

💡 Why this scraper

• 💵 Flat $1.98 per 1,000 rows — about 80% below typical YouTube scrapers on the Store, with platform API usage included in the price.
• ⚡ API calls, not browser automation — no headless Chrome to babysit, no proxies to rent, no cookies or logins. Runs start fast and fit in 256–512 MB of memory.
• 📦 Structured rows, every time — each dataset row is the same Social Fetch API envelope (data, meta, and lookupStatus where applicable), so your parsing never breaks when YouTube redesigns its UI.
• 🔁 Nothing locked to Apify — the same endpoint is available on the Social Fetch API with an sfk_ key when you outgrow Actor runs.

New to Social Fetch on Apify? The integration guide has screenshots, the actor catalog, and troubleshooting.

🎯 What can you do with it

You need	Give the Actor	You get
Benchmark against competitors	Competitor upload URLs	Views, likes, and metadata to compare side by side
Vet channels before sponsoring	A creator's recent uploads	Real performance numbers before you sign
Research titles and formats	Links from a niche or search results	Titles, descriptions, and chapters to mine for patterns
Report in a specific market	The same links with a language code	Localized titles and descriptions where available

📦 Data you get

Video

• Title, URL, and thumbnail
• Description, duration, publish date, and chapters

Performance

• Views and likes
• Comment counts

Channel

• Handle and display name
• Channel link

🚀 Quick start

1. Fill in the Input below — sample values are pre-filled.
2. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
3. Open the Dataset tab and export as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

🧪 Input recipes

• videoUrls — public YouTube watch or Shorts links
• language — optional language code for localized metadata

Single lookup

Start with one link to see the exact row shape.

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ah_DFr8cw"
  ]
}

Batch up to 500 links

Swap in your own links — one dataset row per URL, in input order.

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ah_DFr8cw",
    "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/<video-id>"
  ]
}

Localized metadata

Pass a language code to get titles and descriptions localized where the channel provides them.

{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ah_DFr8cw"
  ],
  "language": "es"
}

📤 Example output

{
  "data": {
    "lookupStatus": "found",
    "video": {
      "id": "Y2Ah_DFr8cw",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ah_DFr8cw",
      "title": "Example video",
      "thumbnailUrl": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y2Ah_DFr8cw/maxresdefault.jpg"
    },
    "channel": {
      "handle": "afroballer8906",
      "displayName": "Afroballer"
    },
    "metrics": {
      "views": 372864,
      "likes": 4043
    },
    "relatedVideos": [
      {
        "id": "lzDTK5kEdkM",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDTK5kEdkM",
        "title": "Charles Barkley and Shaq FUNNIEST MOMENTS",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lzDTK5kEdkM/hqdefault.jpg",
        "publishedAt": "2025-02-16T19:25:39.493Z",
        "publishedTimeText": "11 months ago",
        "viewCount": 1800000,
        "viewCountText": "1.8M views",
        "durationSeconds": 1081,
        "durationText": "18:01",
        "channel": {
          "displayName": "SkyHooked",
          "handle": "SkyHooked",
          "profileUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@SkyHooked",
          "platformUserId": "UCrX8GD5f_O-Cu5Y2vQuSSvw"
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "meta": {
    "requestId": "req_01example",
    "version": "v1"
  }
}

Rows may include data.lookupStatus (found, not_found, or private). Completed lookups are billed, including not_found.

💵 Pricing & cost control

	Cost per 1,000 lookups
YouTube Video Scraper	$1.98
Typical YouTube scrapers on Apify	$10.00

Roughly 80% less than many YouTube scrapers on the Store — structured API data behind every row.

Keeping costs predictable

• Pay-per-event pricing: you pay for results, not platform usage — no compute or proxy surcharges on top.
• A run can never bill more rows than the URLs you submit (up to 500), so the ceiling on a run's cost is known before you press Start.
• Completed lookups are billed even when the result is not_found or private — the work was done, and the row tells you why.

🧩 Related actors

• TikTok Video Scraper — TikTok video metadata by URL

🔗 Wire it up

Works with Make, Zapier, n8n, Apify webhooks, and scheduled runs — or call the Social Fetch API directly.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

Symptom	What's happening
A row says "lookupStatus": "not_found"	The YouTube content doesn't exist, was deleted, or the input has a typo. The lookup completed, so the row is billed — it echoes the input value so you can spot the culprit.
Links you know exist come back not_found	Check the URL format against the recipes above — this Actor expects youtube.com/watch?v=… or Shorts links.
Run fails with No dataset items were produced	The input list was empty or no lookups completed. Copy a recipe above and swap in your own values.

❓ FAQ

• Do I need a Social Fetch API key? No — your Apify token is enough. Never paste an sfk_ key into Actor input.
• Why was I charged for not_found? The lookup completed, but YouTube did not return that profile, video, or post. That still counts as a billable dataset row.
• What URLs work? Standard YouTube watch links (youtube.com/watch?v=...) or Shorts URLs.
• Do I need a YouTube Data API key? No — no Google Cloud project, no quota management. Your Apify token is all you need.
• Do Shorts work? Yes — paste the Shorts URL as-is.
• Is it legal to scrape YouTube? This Actor reads only publicly available data — no logins, no private accounts, nothing beyond what YouTube shows any visitor. How you store and use the data is your responsibility; review YouTube's terms and the laws that apply to your use case.

🤝 Support & more

• Apify integration guide — quick start and actor catalog
• API reference — same endpoints with your sfk_ key
• Missing a field or hit a snag? Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab or email support@socialfetch.dev.