# Substack Publication Cadence Brief (`jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief`) Actor

Compare recent publishing activity across up to five public Substack RSS feeds. Get one bounded brief per publication with latest post links and a clear quiet/active status; no full text or contacts. Unofficial.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief.md
- **Developed by:** [h ichi](https://apify.com/jpmarketdata) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Marketing, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$3.00 / 1,000 publication brief createds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Substack Publication Cadence Brief

> **Unofficial** — independent tool, **not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Substack**. It reads only publicly visible pages. Support, reliability guarantees and the full disclaimer are at the bottom of this page.

Compare the recent publication cadence of public Substack newsletters from their RSS feeds. One row per publication helps an editor or sponsor researcher spot active and quiet newsletters and open recent post links. This tool is independent of Substack.

### Input

Give one to five lowercase publication slugs on \*.substack.com, default simonowens and garymarcus. Set lookbackDays from 1 to 30 (default 14) and maxPostsPerPublication from 1 to 10 (default 5). Redirecting custom-domain publications are unsupported in v1.

### Output

One row per validated feed, in input order, includes recent post count, latest title/link/date, active or quiet status, up to the requested number of post title/link/date triples, and a feedWindowTruncated flag. A quiet row is a real negative observation. RSS exposes at most a recent window, usually 20 items; counts do not claim a complete archive. No full post content is provided.

### Pricing

One publication-brief-created PPE event at $0.003 per delivered row, including valid quiet rows; no start or secondary event. Two successful publications cost $0.006. Failed retrieval or malformed source before delivery is not charged. Dataset row count must equal the event count.

### Limits

Only public /feed paths are fetched after robots verification. Maximum five publications, 10 requests, 2 MiB per feed, 256 MB and 180 seconds; direct HTTP only, at least one second between requests, no proxy/browser/API key/paid source. All selected sources are validated before delivery. Redirects, 403, 429, malformed XML, missing identity or dates, and timeouts fail explicitly; a failed source never becomes a quiet row.

### Privacy

Store only post titles, public links and dates plus publication-level status. No full article, author profile, email, reviewer identity, contact URL, image or raw XML is persisted. Public RSS is attributed to its source publication; this Actor is unaffiliated with Substack.

### If something goes wrong

- **Wrong number or a failed run?** Open a ticket on the **Issues** tab. I read every one and reply within 2 business days (Japan time).
- **You never get a fake "empty" result.** If the site can't be read, the run fails and says so.
- **Validated briefs only.** One publication brief is one billable event, including a source-verified quiet period. Failed source retrieval is not charged.
- **Checked every week.** An automatic test runs this tool weekly; if the site changes, I fix it.
- **Public RSS data only.** No login, subscriber records, contacts or full post text.

### More tools by the same author

- [Mercari Japan Sold Prices — What Items Really Sell For](https://apify.com/jpmarketdata/mercari-japan-price-checker)
- [Yahoo! Auctions Japan Sold Prices — Median, Range, Bids](https://apify.com/jpmarketdata/yahoo-auction-sold-comps)

All tools (Japan marketplaces, real estate, jobs, racing, prediction markets): <https://apify.com/jpmarketdata>

### Disclaimer

Unofficial, independent tool — **not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Substack**. Product names and logos belong to their owners and only say where the data comes from. Data is read from public pages, for market research; check before you act on it.

# Actor input Schema

## `publications` (type: `array`):

One to five exact lowercase \*.substack.com publication slugs. Redirecting custom-domain publications are unsupported.

## `lookbackDays` (type: `integer`):

Count posts published during the last one to thirty UTC days within the visible 20-item RSS window.

## `maxPostsPerPublication` (type: `integer`):

Return one to ten latest public post title/link/date triples per publication within the lookback.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "publications": [
    "simonowens",
    "garymarcus"
  ],
  "lookbackDays": 14,
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,jpmarketdata/substack-publication-cadence-brief"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/BJIP5t2eGRSwNU28h/builds/5PEvElWgtlE0EkMRm/openapi.json