What does Youtube Niche Channel Finder do?

Youtube Niche Channel Finder will enable you to get detailed channel data from YouTube instantly. Simply enter a keyword and your YouTube API key, and this Actor will fetch comprehensive information about top channels in your niche.

Youtube Niche Channel Finder can scrape:

• Channel names and URLs
• Subscriber counts
• Total view counts
• Video counts
• Channel country of origin
• Channel descriptions

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Why find Niche Channels on YouTube?

YouTube is the world's largest video sharing platform with over 2 billion logged-in users monthly, making it an invaluable source of data for content creators, marketers, and researchers.

Here are just some of the ways you could use that data:

• Identify top influencers and content creators in your niche
• Conduct competitor analysis to understand market positioning
• Research emerging channels and market trends
• Build targeted outreach lists for partnerships and collaborations
• Analyze audience reach and engagement patterns across channels
• Support market research and business intelligence gathering

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How to scrape YouTube

It's easy to scrape YouTube with Youtube Niche Channel Finder 100% Results. Just follow these few steps and you'll get your data in minutes.

1. Click on Try for free
2. Enter your search keyword (the niche or topic you want to explore)
3. Provide your YouTube API key for authentication
4. Click on Run
5. When Youtube Niche Channel Finder 100% Results has finished, preview or download your data from the Dataset tab

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How much will it cost to scrape YouTube?

Apify gives you $5 free usage credits every month on the Apify Free plan. You can get several hundred channel results per month from Youtube Niche Channel Finder 100% Results for that, so those results will be completely free!

But if you need to get more data regularly from YouTube, you should grab an Apify subscription. We recommend the $49/month Starter plan - you can get up to tens of thousands of channel results every month with the $49 monthly plan!

Or get even more results for $499 with the Scale plan - perfect for enterprise-level research!

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⭐ What This Actor Does

This Actor searches YouTube for channels related to a niche keyword (e.g., Facebook Marketing, Dropshipping, Keto Diet) and returns a clean, enriched dataset containing:

Channel name

@handle

Description

High-resolution thumbnail

Subscriber count

Total views

Total videos

Country

Joined date

Custom URL

The keyword used

Timestamp of scrape

Results are sorted by subscriber count (highest → lowest).

The actor may return slightly more channels than requested, ensuring you don’t miss any top performers in your niche.

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🔑 API Key Requirement (Mandatory)

This actor requires a YouTube Data API v3 key.

How to get your API key

Open Google Cloud Console

Enable YouTube Data API v3

Create an API key

Paste your key into the input:

{
"youtubeApiKey": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"keyword": "dropshipping",
"maxResults": 10
}

If no API key is provided, the Actor will stop with an error.

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📝 Input Schema

Here is the exact input structure supported by this Actor:

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "title": "Youtube Niche Channel Finder",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "keyword": {
      "title": "Niche keyword",
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Example: dropshipping, shopify, keto diet",
      "editor": "textfield",
      "default": "dropshipping"
    },
    "youtubeApiKey": {
      "title": "YouTube API Key (required)",
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Paste your API key – it will be hidden",
      "editor": "textfield",
      "isSecret": true
    },
    "maxResults": {
      "title": "Max results (1-50)",
      "type": "integer",
      "description": "Number of channels to fetch per search (max 50)",
      "default": 10,
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 50
    }
  },
  "required": ["youtubeApiKey"]
}

---

📝 Output Schema

{
  "title": "YouTube Niche Channel Finder Output",
  "description": "Schema defining the output structure of the YouTube Niche Channel Finder actor.",
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "channelName": { "type": "string", "description": "The channel's display name" },
    "handle": { "type": ["string", "null"], "description": "The channel's @handle if available" },
    "description": { "type": ["string", "null"], "description": "Channel description text" },
    "thumbnail": { "type": "string", "description": "URL to the channel's high-resolution thumbnail" },
    "subscriberCount": { "type": "string", "description": "Formatted subscriber count or 'Hidden'" },
    "videoCount": { "type": "number", "description": "Total number of uploaded videos" },
    "totalViews": { "type": "string", "description": "Formatted total view count" },
    "joinedDate": { "type": ["string", "null"], "description": "Channel creation date" },
    "country": { "type": ["string", "null"], "description": "Channel country if available" },
    "customUrl": { "type": "string", "description": "Direct link to the channel page" },
    "searchedKeyword": { "type": "string", "description": "The keyword used for searching" },
    "scrapedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "description": "ISO timestamp when data was scraped" }
  },
  "required": [
    "channelName",
    "thumbnail",
    "subscriberCount",
    "videoCount",
    "totalViews",
    "customUrl",
    "searchedKeyword",
    "scrapedAt"
  ]
}

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📤 Dataset Schema

Each dataset item follows this structure:

{
  "channelName": "string",
  "handle": "string|null",
  "description": "string|null",
  "thumbnail": "string",
  "subscriberCount": "string",
  "videoCount": "number",
  "totalViews": "string",
  "joinedDate": "string|null",
  "country": "string|null",
  "customUrl": "string",
  "searchedKeyword": "string",
  "scrapedAt": "string"
}

---

📤 Output Example

A typical dataset entry looks like this:

{
  "channelName": "Ben Heath",
  "handle": "@benheath",
  "description": "Making Facebook Ads & Instagram Ads easier...",
  "thumbnail": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/.../photo.jpg",
  "subscriberCount": "407,000",
  "videoCount": 1041,
  "totalViews": "27,032,078",
  "joinedDate": "1/28/2016",
  "country": "GB",
  "customUrl": "https://youtube.com/@benheath",
  "searchedKeyword": "Facebook Marketing",
  "scrapedAt": "2025-12-07T23:06:23.346Z"
}

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⚙️ How It Works Under the Hood

1. Search YouTube for niche channels Uses the official endpoint:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search

2. Extract channel IDs
3. Fetch full channel insights Via:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels

Fetches:

● snippet ● statistics ● brandingSettings

4. Enhance & format data
5. Sort by subscriber count
6. Save final dataset to Apify

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Results

The Actor returns channel data in JSON format, including:

{
  "channelName": "Example Channel",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/c/examplechannel",
  "subscribers": 1500000,
  "totalViews": 50000000,
  "videoCount": 250,
  "country": "US",
  "description": "Channel description text..."
}

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✔️ Use Cases

🏷 Influencer Outreach

Find creators in any micro-niche instantly.

🏆 Competitor Research

See who dominates YouTube in your industry.

🎯 Niche Product Launch

Identify channels talking about a specific topic.

🧠 Market Research

Discover communities & gaps inside your niche.

⚠️ Limitations & Notes

● Max 50 results per search (YouTube API limit) ● Some channels hide subscriber count (“Hidden”) ● Invalid or restricted API keys will make requests fail ● Fully compliant with Google API policies — no scraping

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📦 Exporting Your Data

Your results are saved in an Apify Dataset and can be exported as:

JSON

CSV

Excel (.xlsx)

JSONL

XML

RSS

HTML Table

API endpoint

Exports can be used in:

Google Sheets

Excel / Numbers

BI dashboards

Make / Zapier / n8n automations

Custom apps & databases

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Tips for scraping YouTube

• Ensure you have a valid YouTube API key with appropriate quota limits
• Use specific, targeted keywords to get the most relevant results
• Run searches during off-peak hours to avoid API rate limiting issues
• Regularly monitor your API usage to stay within your quota
• Combine multiple keyword searches to build comprehensive competitive intelligence

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▶️ Run via API Example

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/USERNAME~youtube-niche-channel-finder/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
  "youtubeApiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
  "keyword": "Fitness",
  "maxResults": 20
}'

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Limitations

• Max 50 results per run (API limit)
• Some channels hide subscriber counts
• Requires valid API key with YouTube Data API v3 enabled
• Strict filter may reduce results but improves relevance

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Is it legal to scrape YouTube?

Note that personal data is protected by GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

Highly recommended that you read Apify blog post: is web scraping legal?.