Substack Newsletter Finder & Lead Generator

Find the right Substack newsletters and get everything you need to reach them. Search by keyword (any niche or topic), browse categories, or pull Substack's ranked Bestseller and Rising leaderboards. Every newsletter comes back as one enriched lead:

• author and audience size
• bestseller tier
• paid-plan prices
• the author's social links: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky and website

Who uses this

• Sponsorship & influencer agencies build media lists of newsletters in a niche, sized by audience, with a direct social channel to pitch the author.
• B2B marketers & founders find newsletters their buyers read, for sponsorships, guest posts and partnerships.
• PR teams map the independent writers covering a beat and reach them on X or LinkedIn.
• Newsletter creators research competitors' pricing, audience size and who recommends whom in their niche.
• Investors & analysts track the creator economy: paid newsletters, price points, bestseller tiers and rising writers by category.

What data you get

One row per newsletter, de-duplicated across all your keywords and categories.

Field	Description
name, url, subdomain, customDomain, description	The newsletter
category, leaderboardRank	Category and rank (Bestseller/Rising sources)
authorName, authorHandle, authorBio, authorProfileUrl, authorPhotoUrl	The writer
subscriberCount, subscriberCountLabel	Audience size as published by Substack (e.g. "Over 1,100,000 subscribers")
paidSubscribersLabel, bestsellerTier	Paid-audience bracket and bestseller badge (100 / 1,000 / 10,000+ paid)
authorFollowerCount	Followers on Substack
isPaid, monthlyPrice, yearlyPrice, foundingPrice, priceCurrency	Monetization
twitterUrl, twitterHandle, linkedinUrl, instagramUrl, youtubeUrl, tiktokUrl, blueskyUrl, facebookUrl, threadsUrl, websiteUrl	Social channels for outreach
socialLinks	Every link on the author's profile as {type, label, url}
recommendationCount, recommendedPublications	The newsletters it recommends (optional)
language, publicationType, createdAt, stripeCountry, logoUrl	Metadata
source, scrapedAt	Which input found it, and when

Social links come from the author's public Substack profile. Most authors list at least one (in testing, 37 of 45 keyword results had social links), but not every author does.

Use cases

1. Sponsorship media list. Keywords "fintech", "personal finance" + minSubscribers: 10000 + paidOnly: true gives established paid newsletters, with LinkedIn/X links to pitch.
2. Top-100 per category. Pull Substack's Bestseller leaderboard for Technology, Business and Finance, with rank, prices and audience, in one run.
3. Niche mapping via recommendations. Start from 5 newsletters you know, turn on Include recommendation network, and discover the newsletters they recommend.
4. Rising writers watchlist. Schedule the Rising / trending leaderboard weekly to catch fast-growing newsletters early.
5. Pricing research. Compare monthly/annual/founding prices across a niche before launching your own paid tier.

Input

Parameter	Default	Description
searchQueries	—	Keywords (topic, niche or newsletter name), one per line
categories	—	Substack categories, e.g. technology, finance, culture, health
categorySource	bestsellers	bestsellers (ranked paid leaderboard), trending (rising), or all (every newsletter in the category)
publicationUrls	—	Enrich specific newsletters (subdomain, *.substack.com URL or custom domain)
includeAuthorProfile	true	Add social links, follower count and audience size (one extra request per newsletter)
includeRecommendations	false	Add the newsletters each result recommends
minSubscribers	0	Skip smaller newsletters
paidOnly	false	Keep only newsletters with paid plans
languages	—	Keep only these language codes (en, es, de, …)
maxResultsPerSource	100	Cap per keyword or category (0 = no cap)
maxItems	200	Stop after this many newsletters (0 = no limit)
proxyConfiguration	Apify Proxy	Keyword searches are routed through Apify Proxy (datacenter is enough). Everything else goes direct

Provide at least one of searchQueries, categories or publicationUrls; you can combine them.

Example input

{
    "searchQueries": ["artificial intelligence", "machine learning"],
    "categories": ["technology"],
    "categorySource": "bestsellers",
    "minSubscribers": 5000,
    "languages": ["en"],
    "maxResultsPerSource": 100,
    "maxItems": 300
}

Example output

{
  "publicationId": 458709,
  "name": "The Pragmatic Engineer",
  "url": "https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com",
  "customDomain": "newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com",
  "description": "Big Tech and startups, from the inside. Highly relevant for software engineers, AI engineers and engineering leaders, useful for those working in tech.",
  "language": "en",
  "category": "Technology",
  "leaderboardRank": 3,
  "authorName": "Gergely Orosz",
  "authorHandle": "pragmaticengineer",
  "authorProfileUrl": "https://substack.com/@pragmaticengineer",
  "subscriberCount": 1100000,
  "subscriberCountLabel": "Over 1,100,000 subscribers",
  "paidSubscribersLabel": "Tens of thousands of paid subscribers",
  "authorFollowerCount": 1216511,
  "bestsellerTier": 10000,
  "isPaid": true,
  "monthlyPrice": 15.0,
  "yearlyPrice": 150.0,
  "priceCurrency": "USD",
  "twitterHandle": "GergelyOrosz",
  "twitterUrl": "https://x.com/GergelyOrosz",
  "linkedinUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/",
  "youtubeUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@pragmaticengineer",
  "blueskyUrl": "https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com",
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/",
  "recommendationCount": 11,
  "recommendedPublications": [
    {"name": "charity.wtf", "url": "https://charity.wtf"},
    {"name": "The Coder Cafe", "url": "https://read.thecoder.cafe"}
  ],
  "source": "category:bestsellers:technology",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-23T01:46:11Z"
}

Scheduling, webhooks & integrations

• Schedule weekly runs of the Rising leaderboard or your niche keywords to keep a lead list fresh. Rows are de-duplicated within a run.
• Export to CSV/Excel, or push straight to Google Sheets, HubSpot (via Zapier/Make), Airtable or Slack with Apify integrations and webhooks.

Use it from AI assistants (MCP)

Available as a tool through the Apify MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients can call it:

"Find 30 English-language Substack newsletters about climate tech with over 5,000 subscribers and give me their LinkedIn links."

FAQ

Does it return email addresses? No. Substack does not publish writers' email addresses. You get the public contact channels authors list on their profile (X, LinkedIn, Instagram, website, …) plus the newsletter itself.

How accurate are subscriber counts? They are Substack's own published figures, rounded the same way Substack shows them (e.g. "Over 122,000"). If a writer hides their count, subscriberCount is null rather than a misleading 0.

Why does keyword search work here when other tools return nothing? Substack's publication search only answers requests that look like its own apps. This actor sends them correctly, so keyword searches return real newsletters.

Do I need a Substack account? No. Only public data is used.

Why does it use a proxy? Substack returns empty newsletter search results to cloud-server IP addresses. Keyword searches therefore go through Apify Proxy (enabled by default); categories, leaderboards and enrichment go direct.

How many newsletters can I get? Substack's search returns roughly the 50–65 most relevant newsletters per keyword, so use several specific keywords (e.g. "fintech", "payments", "neobank") to cover a niche. Leaderboards return their full ranking, and categorySource: "all" lists every newsletter Substack shows in a category. Results are de-duplicated across all sources.

Is it legal? The actor collects publicly available business information that authors publish on their profiles. Follow applicable laws (e.g. GDPR, CAN-SPAM) and platform rules when you use it for outreach.

Need another field or found a problem? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab.