YouTube Transcript Scraper

Example: what you type and what you get

Made-up channel, real shape. This is what a small run looks like.

How to scrape YouTube transcripts in bulk

1. Add videos or channels. Paste video URLs, Shorts links or IDs, add channel URLs such as youtube.com/@channel, or both.
2. Set the options. Pick how many of each channel's newest videos to read, a caption language if you want one, and whether to add SRT or VTT.
3. Run and export. Download JSON, CSV or Excel, or read the dataset from the API. Each row says whether it was charged.

Input for a whole channel (paste into the JSON tab)

{
  "profiles": ["https://www.youtube.com/@yourchannel"],
  "maxVideosPerProfile": 200,
  "postedWithinDays": 365,
  "includeSegments": true,
  "outputFormats": ["srt"]
}

Call it from Python

# pip install apify-client
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("your-apify-token")
run = client.actor("scrape-lads/youtube-transcript-scraper").call(run_input={
    "urls": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
        "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID",
    ],
    "includeSegments": True,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["status"], item.get("title"), item.get("wordCount"))

Filters that save money

• Only videos from the last N days and minimum views skip channel videos before anything is charged.
• Caption language picks the track you want, such as en, es or fr. Empty means the original spoken language, and auto-dubbed tracks are skipped.
• Speech-to-text budget caps how many audio minutes one run can transcribe.

Pricing

Pay per transcript. Private, deleted, failed and silent videos are not charged.

In practice: $0.90 per 1,000 captioned videos. The newest 200 videos of a captioned channel cost about $0.18 in one run. Prices are the Apify free-plan rates as of November 2026; paid Apify plans get up to 20% off. Check the listing for current pricing.

A pintostudio alternative: how the two compare

The most used actor in the Apify Store's results for "youtube transcript" is YouTube Transcript Scraper by Pinto Studio (pintostudio/youtube-transcript-scraper). If you are looking for a pintostudio alternative, this is how ours differs. Everything below about pintostudio comes from its public Store listing, input schema and README, as of November 2026. We did not run it.

Where pintostudio is the better pick

• Track record. It has been on the Store since November 2024, with tens of thousands of users and millions of runs. Ours launched in October 2026.
• Translated transcripts. If you need an English transcript of a Spanish video, its README says it can return YouTube's auto-translated captions. Ours only returns caption tracks that exist on the video.
• Simple one-off calls. One URL in, one transcript out. Its current build also enables Apify Standby, so it can answer as an always-on HTTP endpoint for an agent that fetches one video at a time.

Where this actor is the better pick

• Volume. 1,000 captioned videos is one run and about $0.90 here, against 1,000 runs and $10 at $0.01 per result.
• Channels. Add a channel URL instead of collecting video links first.
• Context per row. Title, channel, publish date and view counts arrive with the text, so you can filter and cite without a second scraper.
• Subtitle files. SRT or VTT text for editors, players and translation tools.
• Clear billing. Each row carries a charged flag, and private, deleted or silent videos are free.

Limits

• Long videos with no captions. YouTube serves full audio only to signed-in players, so speech-to-text works only on very short uncaptioned videos. Longer ones come back free with the code stt_failed. Most spoken-word YouTube videos have auto-generated captions, so this affects few videos.
• Private, members-only and deleted videos cannot be read. They come back free with a reason.
• YouTube only. Links from other platforms are returned free with a pointer to the right actor. For TikTok, Instagram and X in one run, use the Video Transcript API.
• No playlist input. Paste the playlist's video links, or add the channel.

Just need one video?

For a single video, the free YouTube transcript generator is quicker: paste a link and copy the text, no account needed.

Still choosing a method? Read YouTube transcript API alternatives, or why youtube-transcript-api gets blocked on servers.

Use it with Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor

Add YouTube Transcript Scraper to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any other MCP client with this server URL. Sign in with your Apify account when asked, then ask for the data in plain words. Runs are billed to your Apify account at the same per-result price.

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=scrape-lads/youtube-transcript-scraper

In Claude Code it is one command:

claude mcp add --transport http youtube-transcript-scraper "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=scrape-lads/youtube-transcript-scraper"

When a different actor fits better

• Video Transcript Scraper Need TikTok, Instagram or X videos as well.
• YouTube Shorts & Channel Email Finder Need channel emails, tags and video stats rather than what was said.
• Web Crawler for LLM & RAG Need written pages as well as spoken words.

Questions