Wattpad Story, Chapter and Comment Scraper

Pull structured records out of Wattpad, the social storytelling platform. Search the site's own story index by keyword, category, language and completion state, or paste story and chapter links you already have. Every story comes back with its author, blurb, cover, tags, categories, language, read, vote and comment counters, and its full chapter list. Switch on the extras and each story also brings the body text of every chapter, split into the site's own numbered paragraphs, and the whole comment thread: end-of-chapter comments and inline comments written against one specific paragraph, each one matched back to the paragraph it belongs to.

Everything here comes from what Wattpad shows any anonymous visitor. There is no login, no account, no sign up and no credential of any kind anywhere in this actor.

Why This Scraper?

• Inline paragraph comments, matched to their paragraph. Wattpad's most distinctive data is the comment a reader leaves on one line of one chapter. This actor returns those, each carrying the id of the paragraph it was written on, so a comment can be placed next to the sentence that caused it. Comments left at the end of a chapter come back in the same pass and are labelled separately.
• One row per story, chapters and comments nested inside. A run that reads ten stories and forty thousand comments exports ten rows, so the dataset stays joinable and you are billed for stories, not for comments.
• The chapter list costs nothing. Every chapter's id, title, link, length, publish stamp and its own read, vote and comment counters arrive inside the story record. Only the chapter body text and the comment thread need extra requests, and a story that takes them is billed one detail-enrichment event once, however many chapters or comment pages it needed.
• Honest filters. The site's index accepts a tag parameter and a maturity parameter and then ignores both, which is easy to mistake for a working filter. This actor applies those two itself, over the data the site returns, and says so in the input rather than handing back an unfiltered set that looks filtered.
• Real end-of-feed detection. The comment feed signals "no more pages" by dropping a key, not by returning an empty list, and a missing comment list means a refused request rather than a quiet thread. Those two cases are told apart, so a blocked request never masquerades as a story with no comments.
• "No results" is checked before it is reported. A search that returns nothing on its first page looks exactly like a search the site briefly declined to answer: same status, same empty body. Before a run reports an empty result set, it spends one small check read that the site always answers. If that check comes back with results, your search really is empty and the run succeeds quietly. If it does not, the run reports a connection problem instead of handing you a successful run with zero rows.
• Recurring monitoring built in. Incremental mode returns only what changed since the last run of the same search, and resume continues one interrupted pull without paying for rows you already have.

Data You Get

Sample shape, values are illustrative placeholders, not from a live story.

Field	Example
storyId	"100000001"
title	"The Sample Werewolf Chronicles"
url	"https://www.wattpad.com/story/100000001-the-sample-werewolf-chronicles"
description	"A one paragraph blurb, exactly as the author wrote it."
coverUrl	"https://img.example-cdn.test/cover/100000001-256.jpg"
author	"sample_author"
authorUrl	"https://www.wattpad.com/user/sample_author"
language	"English"
categories	["Werewolf"]
tags	["werewolf", "alpha", "mates"]
isCompleted	true
isMature	false
numParts	44
readCount	1234567
voteCount	89012
commentCount	34567
wordCount	412345
chapters	[{"chapterId": "200000001", "title": "Chapter 1", "commentCount": 876}]
chaptersReturned	44
comments	[{"scope": "inline", "paragraphId": "5a1b2c3d", "text": "This line broke me."}]
commentsReturned	50
commentsComplete	false
scanComplete	true
changeType	"NEW"

Comments, and what a comment row carries

Wattpad publishes two kinds of comment and this actor returns both from a single walk of each chapter:

• Inline comments are written against one paragraph. Their scope is "inline" and they carry a paragraphId that matches the id of an entry in that chapter's paragraphs list, so with chapter text switched on you can put the comment next to the exact sentence it answers.
• End-of-chapter comments sit under the chapter as a whole. Their scope is "part" and their paragraphId is null.

Every comment row carries the commenter's public display handle and profile address, the body text, the created and modified stamps, the site's own status value, its reply count and its permalink. replies is filled only when includeReplies is on. One thing is deliberately left out: the commenter's avatar image. A reader's photograph adds nothing to what they wrote, and republishing it at scale is a different product from publishing the comment. The same applies to the author's avatar on the story row.

commentCount on the story is the total the site itself declares and is usually far larger than commentsReturned. commentsComplete tells you whether the thread was read to its end or stopped at maxCommentsPerStory. Raise the cap to walk further.

Known limits of the public index

These are the site's own behaviours, measured rather than assumed. None of them is a reason to log in, and this actor never does.

• Mature-flagged stories are not returned by the public search index. Anonymous search results come back with the mature flag false across the board, including on queries that plainly should surface mature work. Use URL mode for a mature story you already know: fetching a story by its own link or id works regardless of its flag.
• The advertised result total is not a stop condition, and search stops at result 10,000. A keyword search can advertise hundreds of thousands of matches and still stop serving rows a little past result 10,000. Category listings and the default listing advertise a flat 1,500. The run bounds on an empty page instead of the advertised total, reports any scope that was cut short, and refuses to expire anything from an incomplete scan.
• Search pages are not perfectly stable. Two neighbouring pages of the same search can overlap. Stories are deduplicated by id across the whole walk.
• The index ignores its own tag and maturity parameters. A tag that does not exist returns exactly the same rows as a real one, which is why tags and mature are applied by this actor after each story is read. A run with either set reads more stories than it returns, and maxItems counts what is returned.
• Requesting an unsupported field returns the record without it, and without an error. The actor only asks for fields the site documents on each surface, so a missing value always means the site had no value, never that the request was malformed.

How to Use

Search the index, chapter list included, no extra requests per story:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "werewolf",
  "filter": "complete",
  "maxItems": 100
}

A category in one language, with the comment thread:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "category": "Horror",
  "language": "Spanish",
  "fetchComments": true,
  "commentScope": "inline",
  "maxCommentsPerStory": 200,
  "maxItems": 25
}

Pasted links, with the full chapter text and the replies under each comment:

{
  "mode": "url",
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.wattpad.com/story/12702726-werewolf-committee"
  ],
  "fetchChapterText": true,
  "fetchComments": true,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 10
}

Daily monitoring of one search, returning only what changed:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "enemies to lovers",
  "tags": ["slowburn"],
  "incrementalMode": true,
  "stateKey": "slowburn-watch",
  "maxItems": 0
}

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search to walk the story index, url to scrape pasted links.
query	string	werewolf (prefill)	Search mode only. Free text keyword. Empty returns the site's default listing.
category	select	any	Search mode only. One of the site's own 22 categories. Checked live every run.
filter	select	all	Search mode only. Every story, or finished stories only. Applied by the site.
language	select	any	Search mode only. One of the 26 languages the site says stories are written in. Resolved live to the site's own numeric language id and sent with the search, so the site narrows the results.
startUrls	array	one sample story link	URL mode only. Story links, chapter links or bare numeric story ids, mixed freely.
tags	array	(none)	Both modes. Keep only stories carrying at least one of these tags. Applied by the actor, not the site.
mature	boolean	true	Both modes. Leave on to keep every story, switch off to drop mature-flagged ones.
fetchChapters	boolean	true	Include the chapter list. Free: it ships inside the story record.
fetchChapterText	boolean	false	Also download every chapter's body text. One extra request per chapter.
fetchComments	boolean	false	Also download the comment thread, end-of-chapter and inline together.
commentScope	select	all	Keep both kinds of comment, end-of-chapter only, or inline only.
maxCommentsPerStory	integer	50	Cap on comments per story across all its chapters. 0 returns the story without its thread.
includeReplies	boolean	false	Also fetch the replies under each comment. One extra request per comment that has any.
maxRepliesPerComment	integer	5	Cap on replies per comment. 0 for every reply published.
maxItems	integer	100	The run's cap, counted on stories RETURNED. 0 for unlimited.
maxPages	integer	0	Index pages per search scope. 0 means no limit.
resumeFromRunId	string	(none)	Continue one interrupted run from its run or dataset id.
incrementalMode	boolean	false	Return only what changed since the last run of the same search.
stateKey	string	(none)	Name a monitoring campaign, or deliberately share state.
emitUnchanged	boolean	false	Also return unchanged rows. These are billed.
emitExpired	boolean	false	Also return rows that disappeared. These are billed.
proxy	object	Apify Proxy	Connection configuration. The standard pool is enough for this site.
mcpConnectors	array	(none)	Optional MCP connectors to pipe results into.
notionParentPageUrl	string	(none)	Notion parent page id, for the Notion connector.
maxNotifyListings	integer	50	Cap on items written to each connector per run.

Incremental mode, and what counts as a change

In incremental mode each story carries changeType (NEW, UPDATED, REAPPEARED or EXPIRED), changedFields, firstSeenAt and lastSeenAt.

What counts as a change here is an EDIT, not engagement drift. The engagement counters readCount, voteCount and commentCount are deliberately left out of the comparison, and so are the two nested arrays chapters and comments: on a live story those move between two reads minutes apart, so including them would mark every story UPDATED on every run and the change feed would be worthless. A story whose read count doubled overnight is therefore reported UNCHANGED, on purpose.

What IS compared: numParts, title, description, tags, categories, isCompleted, isMature, language, coverUrl and the site's own modifiedAt. So a new chapter, a retitle, a rewritten blurb, a tag or category edit and a completion flip all still classify as UPDATED and still name the exact field in changedFields. comments, chapters, readCount, voteCount and commentCount never appear there.

EXPIRED rows are only produced once a run has fully scanned the tracked search, so never after a capped run, never after a resumed run, and never when a scope hit the site's own result-depth limit. A chapter-text or comment request that failed does not enter the baseline as a real change either: the previous run's values are carried forward instead, so a one-off connection problem cannot fake an update.

Send results into your apps (MCP connectors)

Results can optionally be piped into the apps you already use, through Model Context Protocol connectors, without changing the dataset at all.

1. Authorize a connector under Apify, Settings, API & Integrations.
2. Select it in the Export to your apps (MCP connectors, optional) section of the input (mcpConnectors).
3. For Notion, set notionParentPageUrl to the page under which item pages should be created.
4. maxNotifyListings caps how many items are written to each connector per run.

Supported out of the box: Notion, Linear, Airtable and Apify. What gets written is a condensed, human readable summary per item, a title plus the key fields flattened to plain text, not the full JSON: nested objects collapse to their main value and arrays trim to a few names. The complete record always stays in the Apify dataset. If a connector fails, the run still succeeds and the dataset is unaffected.

Output Example

Sample shape, values are illustrative placeholders, not from a live story.

{
  "storyId": "100000001",
  "title": "The Sample Werewolf Chronicles",
  "url": "https://www.wattpad.com/story/100000001-the-sample-werewolf-chronicles",
  "description": "A one paragraph blurb, exactly as the author wrote it.",
  "coverUrl": "https://img.example-cdn.test/cover/100000001-256.jpg",
  "author": "sample_author",
  "authorUrl": "https://www.wattpad.com/user/sample_author",
  "language": "English",
  "categories": ["Werewolf"],
  "tags": ["werewolf", "alpha", "mates"],
  "isCompleted": true,
  "isMature": false,
  "rating": 1,
  "copyright": 1,
  "numParts": 44,
  "readCount": 1234567,
  "voteCount": 89012,
  "commentCount": 34567,
  "wordCount": 412345,
  "firstPartId": "200000001",
  "createdAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
  "modifiedAt": "2026-01-02T00:00:00Z",
  "chapters": [
    {
      "chapterId": "200000001",
      "title": "Chapter 1: The Sample Beginning",
      "url": "https://www.wattpad.com/200000001-sample-chapter-one",
      "wordCount": 8123,
      "rating": 1,
      "isDraft": false,
      "createdAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "modifiedAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "readCount": 98765,
      "voteCount": 4321,
      "commentCount": 876,
      "photoUrl": "",
      "videoId": "",
      "text": "The chapter body appears here when chapter text is switched on.",
      "paragraphs": [
        { "id": "5a1b2c3d", "text": "The first paragraph of the chapter." }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "chaptersReturned": 1,
  "comments": [
    {
      "commentId": "200000001_5a1b2c3d_1767225600_aaaa1111",
      "scope": "inline",
      "paragraphId": "5a1b2c3d",
      "text": "This line broke me.",
      "author": "sample_reader_01",
      "authorUrl": "https://www.wattpad.com/user/sample_reader_01",
      "createdAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "modifiedAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "status": "active",
      "replyCount": 1,
      "url": "https://www.wattpad.com/200000001-sample-chapter-one",
      "replies": [
        {
          "commentId": "200000001_5a1b2c3d_1767225601_bbbb2222",
          "scope": "inline",
          "paragraphId": "5a1b2c3d",
          "text": "Same, I had to put the phone down.",
          "author": "sample_reader_02",
          "authorUrl": "https://www.wattpad.com/user/sample_reader_02",
          "createdAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
          "modifiedAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
          "status": "active",
          "replyCount": 0,
          "url": "https://www.wattpad.com/200000001-sample-chapter-one",
          "replies": []
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "commentId": "200000001__1767225602_cccc3333",
      "scope": "part",
      "paragraphId": null,
      "text": "Updating soon, I hope.",
      "author": "sample_reader_03",
      "authorUrl": "https://www.wattpad.com/user/sample_reader_03",
      "createdAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "modifiedAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
      "status": "active",
      "replyCount": 0,
      "url": "https://www.wattpad.com/200000001-sample-chapter-one",
      "replies": []
    }
  ],
  "commentsReturned": 2,
  "commentsComplete": false,
  "scanComplete": true,
  "enrichmentSkipped": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-01-02T00:00:00Z",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.wattpad.com/story/100000001-the-sample-werewolf-chronicles",
  "changeType": "NEW",
  "changedFields": [],
  "firstSeenAt": "2026-01-02T00:00:00Z",
  "lastSeenAt": "2026-01-02T00:00:00Z"
}

Plan Requirement

Runs on any Apify account. Enable Apify Proxy in the Connection section for the most reliable results. No Wattpad account, login or subscription is needed, and none is used.