📬 Substack Newsletter & Sponsor Leads Scraper

Extract publication metadata, creator details (bios, Twitter/X handles), subscriber ranking badges, paid pricing plans, and active sponsor leads with outbound URLs directly from any Substack newsletter or custom domain publication.

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🌟 Why Scrape Substack?

Substack hosts the world's most influential independent tech, business, finance, and culture newsletters. These creators reach millions of affluent professionals and decision-makers:

• 🎯 Sponsorship Prospecting: Find out which brands (e.g. Shopify, Retool, Vanta, Reducto, Jack & Jill) are actively sponsoring top newsletters so you can pitch your own audience or find verified sponsor budgets.
• 💼 Media Buying & PR Outreach: Discover creator Twitter/X handles, pricing tiers ($/month, $/year), and subscriber badges to negotiate sponsorship placements.
• 🔍 Competitor Newsletter Intelligence: Benchmark subscriber tiers, pricing strategies, and content cadences across any niche.

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⚡ Key Features

• High-Precision Sponsor Detection: Scans recent newsletter posts to extract active sponsor brand names, outbound campaign URLs with UTM parameters, context snippets, and publication dates.
• Custom Domain & Substack.com Support: Seamlessly works with native Substack URLs (lenny.substack.com) and custom branded domains (notboring.co, newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com).
• Creator Socials & Contacts: Unpacks creator names, bios, Twitter/X handles, and Substack handles.
• Pricing Plans & Tiers: Captures monthly, annual, and founding tier prices in standard currency.
• Subscriber Badges: Collects verified Substack ranking badges (e.g., "Tens of thousands of paid subscribers").
• Ultra-Fast & Lightweight: Built on Cheerio and direct SSR hydration, executing in seconds without headless browser bloat.

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📥 Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	Array	["https://notboring.co", "https://lenny.substack.com"]	List of Substack publications to analyze.
extractRecentSponsors	Boolean	true	When enabled, scans recent posts to extract sponsor leads and outbound links.
postsPerNewsletter	Integer	5	Number of recent articles to inspect for sponsorships.
maxItems	Integer	10	Maximum number of publications to scrape.

Example Input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://notboring.co" },
    { "url": "https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com" },
    { "url": "https://lenny.substack.com" }
  ],
  "extractRecentSponsors": true,
  "postsPerNewsletter": 5,
  "maxItems": 10
}

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📤 Output Data Format

{
  "publicationName": "Not Boring by Packy McCormick",
  "url": "https://www.notboring.co/",
  "subdomain": "notboring",
  "customDomain": "www.notboring.co",
  "authorName": "Packy McCormick",
  "authorBio": "Author of Not Boring",
  "authorTwitter": "packyM",
  "description": "Tech strategy, analysis, and philosophy, but not boring.",
  "subscribersRanking": "Hundreds of paid subscribers",
  "pricingPlans": [
    {
      "interval": "month",
      "amount": 20,
      "currency": "USD"
    },
    {
      "interval": "year",
      "amount": 200,
      "currency": "USD"
    }
  ],
  "logoUrl": "https://substackcdn.com/...",
  "sponsors": [
    {
      "sponsorName": "Jack & Jill",
      "sponsorUrl": "https://jackandjill.ai/jill?utm_source=notboring",
      "contextSnippet": "This Week’s Weekly Dose is Brought to you by… Jack & Jill",
      "postTitle": "Weekly Dose of Optimism #212",
      "postUrl": "https://www.notboring.co/p/weekly-dose-of-optimism-212",
      "publishedDate": "2026-09-25T12:36:02.277Z"
    }
  ],
  "totalSponsorsFound": 1,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-02T01:19:00.000Z"
}

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🔗 Integrations & Automations

• Google Sheets & Airtable: Automatically build a dynamic directory of newsletter sponsors.
• HubSpot & Salesforce: Feed sponsor company names and marketing URLs into your sales CRM for partner prospecting.
• Slack & Webhooks: Receive real-time alerts whenever a newsletter in your tracking list signs a new sponsor.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does this scraper work on custom domains like notboring.co or pragmaticengineer.com?
A: Yes! It automatically identifies whether a custom domain is hosted on Substack and pulls the full publication metadata and pricing plans seamlessly.

Q: How does sponsor detection work?
A: The scraper analyzes recent newsletter articles for high-intent sponsorship placements (e.g. "Brought to you by...", "Thanks to our sponsor...") and extracts the exact sponsor brand name and outbound campaign URL (including UTM parameters).

Q: Can I export the data to CSV or Excel?
A: Yes! You can download your dataset directly as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Apify Console, or sync via API.