Substack Newsletter Scraper — Subscribers, Engagement, Pricing & Authors

Find the right Substack newsletters to sponsor, partner with or research — in minutes. This Substack scraper pulls newsletters from Substack's category leaderboards (or by keyword or URL) and gives you a clean spreadsheet with subscriber counts, engagement (avg likes & comments per post), posting frequency, paid pricing, bestseller status, leaderboard rank and author X/Twitter handles.

✅ No login, no cookies, no API key ✅ Works with custom domains ✅ Export to CSV, Excel, JSON, Google Sheets ✅ Pay only per newsletter saved

🎯 Who uses this Substack scraper

• Brands & agencies buying newsletter sponsorships — find newsletters in your niche with 10K+ subscribers and real engagement, not just big lists.
• Founders & marketers — discover cross-promotion and guest-post partners.
• Newsletter writers — benchmark your pricing, posting cadence and engagement against the top newsletters in your category.
• PR, podcast & influencer teams — find active writers to pitch or invite.
• Investors & analysts — track paid newsletter pricing and the creator economy over time.

📊 What data you get

Field	Example
Newsletter name & URL	Lenny's Newsletter — https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
Subscribers (number + Substack's text)	1200000 — "Over 1,200,000 subscribers"
Paid subscribers range	"Tens of thousands of paid subscribers"
Leaderboard rank in its category	#3 in Finance
Avg likes / comments per post	229.7 / 60.9
Posts per month	15.9
Share of paywalled posts	0.7 (70%)
Last post date	2026-10-29 — skip inactive newsletters
Monthly / yearly price	$20 / $200 USD
Bestseller badge & tier	true, 10000
Author name, bio, Substack profile, X/Twitter	Lenny Rachitsky, @lennysan
Recent posts	title, date, free/paid, likes, comments, restacks, word count

🚀 How to use it

1. Pick one or more categories — Business, Technology, Finance, Health, Culture, Crypto and 27 more. Results come from Substack's popularity leaderboards (~500 newsletters per category).
2. Add keywords (optional) — e.g. real estate, AI, marketing. Keywords match whole words in the newsletter name, description or author bio. Keywords with no category selected search every category.
3. Add specific newsletter URLs (optional) — https://www.lennysnewsletter.com or just bytebytego.
4. Filter — minimum subscribers, paid-tier only.
5. Run and download as CSV / Excel / JSON, or send results to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n, Slack or your own app via API.

Example: newsletters to sponsor in marketing

{
  "categories": ["62"],
  "keywords": ["marketing", "growth"],
  "minSubscribers": 10000,
  "includeRecentPosts": true,
  "maxResults": 200
}

Example: look up specific newsletters

{
  "publicationUrls": ["https://www.lennysnewsletter.com", "pragmaticengineer"]
}

💰 Pricing

Pay-per-result: $3.00 per 1,000 newsletters plus a tiny per-run start fee. Newsletters removed by your filters are free. A typical 200-newsletter sponsorship list costs about $0.60.

❓ FAQ

How accurate are the subscriber counts? They come straight from Substack's own public numbers, which Substack rounds (e.g. "Over 33,000"). Some newsletters hide their count — those show null and are skipped when you set a minimum.

Can I get email addresses? No. This Actor only collects public newsletter and author profile data. Use the newsletter URL, Substack profile or X/Twitter handle to reach out.

How do I find newsletters in a niche that isn't a Substack category? Use keywords. Leave categories empty to search all 33 leaderboards, or combine a category with keywords to narrow it down.

Why is a run slower with "Include recent posts"? It reads each newsletter's archive to calculate engagement and posting frequency. Turn it off if you only need subscriber counts and pricing.

Can I schedule it? Yes — use Apify Schedules to run it weekly and track how newsletters grow, or connect it to Google Sheets for an always-fresh list.

Can I use it with AI agents? Yes. It works through the Apify API and Apify MCP server, and has a full output schema so agents know what data to expect.

⚖️ Is scraping Substack legal?

This Actor reads only public information Substack shows to every visitor, does not log in, and does not bypass any protection. It collects no email addresses or private data. You are responsible for using the data lawfully (e.g. GDPR, CAN-SPAM) if you contact anyone.

💬 Support

Found a bug or want a new field? Open an issue on the Issues tab — we typically reply within 1–2 days and ship fixes fast.