Cheap YouTube Video Scraper — Search, Channels & Playlists

A cheaper drop-in alternative to the most popular YouTube scraper on Apify, with the same input and output fields. Paste the input you already use (searchQueries, startUrls, maxResults, maxResultsShorts, maxResultStreams, sortVideosBy, oldestPostDate, search filters) and you get records with the same field names (id, title, url, viewCount, likes, commentsCount, date, duration, channelName, numberOfSubscribers, text, hashtags...). Your integrations, Make/Zapier/n8n flows and spreadsheets keep working, and the bill is about 44% smaller ($2.25 instead of $4 per 1,000 videos).

Price comparison

	This Actor	Typical YouTube scraper
Per 1,000 videos	$2.25	$4.00 (free plan)
Actor start	$0.001 per run	—
Date filter on channels	free	extra per video
Proxy	included	included

Pay only for videos in your dataset. Error rows (bad URL, deleted video) are free. 10,000 videos cost $22.50.

What you get

Give it search terms or YouTube URLs:

• Search terms, with YouTube's own filters: sort by relevance, rating, upload date or views; upload date (last hour, today, week, month, year); length; HD, 4K, subtitles, Creative Commons, live, 360°, VR180, HDR, 3D, location, purchased.
• Channels: https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd, /channel/UC..., /c/..., /user/.... Regular videos, Shorts and live streams, each with its own limit. Sort by newest, popular or oldest.
• Channel tabs: /@mkbhd/shorts, /@mkbhd/videos, /@mkbhd/streams.
• Playlists: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
• Single videos and Shorts: watch?v=, youtu.be/, /shorts/, /live/.
• Search results URLs: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=... (keeps its sp filters).

Every video comes with exact stats, not the rounded numbers of the list pages:

{
  "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Video) (4K Remaster)",
  "id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "viewCount": 1831534497,
  "date": "2009-10-25T06:57:33.000Z",
  "duration": "00:03:33",
  "type": "video",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg",
  "input": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "fromYTUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "order": 0,
  "channelName": "Rick Astley",
  "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstleyYT",
  "channelUsername": "RickAstleyYT",
  "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
  "numberOfSubscribers": 4550000,
  "isChannelVerified": true,
  "likes": 19491617,
  "commentsCount": 2400000,
  "commentsTurnedOff": false,
  "text": "The official video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley...",
  "descriptionLinks": [{ "url": "https://linktr.ee/rickastleynever", "text": "https://linktr.ee/rickastleynever" }],
  "hashtags": ["#RickAstley", "#NeverGonnaGiveYouUp", "#WheneverYouNeedSomebody", "#OfficialMusicVideo"],
  "keywords": ["rick astley", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "..."],
  "category": "Music",
  "isMembersOnly": false,
  "isUnlisted": false,
  "isFamilySafe": true
}

Rows from channel URLs also carry channelDescription, channelAvatarUrl and channelTotalVideos.

Input

Field	Meaning
searchQueries	Search terms. Ignored when startUrls is set.
startUrls	Video, Shorts, channel, channel tab, playlist or search results URLs. Plain strings or { "url": ... }.
maxResults	Videos per search term, playlist, or regular videos per channel. Default 10.
maxResultsShorts	Shorts per channel. Default 0.
maxResultStreams	Live streams per channel. Default 0.
sortVideosBy	Channel order: NEWEST, POPULAR, OLDEST.
oldestPostDate	2025-01-31 or an age like 7 days, 12 hours.
sortingOrder, dateFilter, videoType, lengthFilter, isHD, hasSubtitles, hasCC, is3D, isLive, isBought, is4K, is360, hasLocation, isHDR, isVR180	YouTube search filters.

Example:

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd" }],
  "maxResults": 50,
  "maxResultsShorts": 20,
  "oldestPostDate": "30 days"
}

What is not included

Titles and descriptions stay in the video's original language; YouTube's English auto-translation goes to translatedTitle / translatedText. Channel scrapes include the "About" data (channelJoinedDate, channelLocation, channelTotalViews, channelBannerUrl, channelDescriptionLinks, aboutChannelInfo). To keep the price low, this Actor does not do subtitles, AI transcription or AI summaries (subtitles, transcriptionUrl, aiVideoDescription, aiVideoSummary and isMonetized are always null). Need subtitles? Use YouTube Transcript Scraper on the video URLs from this dataset.

FAQ

Do I need a YouTube API key? No. No key, no quota, no login.

Why are comments counts rounded? YouTube itself shows comment counts rounded ("2.4M"). Likes and views are exact.

Is it legal? It collects public data only. Do not scrape personal data without a legal basis, and respect YouTube's terms.

Something broke? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the run link. YouTube changes often and fixes are quick.