# Substack Newsletter, Author & Post Scraper (`kravennagen/substack-scraper`) Actor

Extract newsletters, articles, likes, comments, author bios, and metrics from any Substack publication via direct API.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/kravennagen/substack-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Morgane Flamant](https://apify.com/kravennagen) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, News, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 extracted substack posts

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?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## 📰 Substack Newsletter & Post Scraper — Apify Actor

> Extract posts, author bios, likes, comments, and engagement metrics from any Substack publication — fast, via direct JSON API. No headless browsers. No overhead.

***

### ✨ Features

- **Direct API access** — hits Substack's internal `/api/v1/archive` and `/api/v1/publication` endpoints directly
- **Zero browser overhead** — pure async HTTP via `httpx`; runs in ~128 MB RAM
- **Multi-publication** — scrape as many Substack slugs or URLs as you need in one run
- **Pagination handled** — automatically pages through the full archive
- **Clean output** — Pydantic-validated schema, ready for downstream pipelines
- **Apify-native** — batched `push_data`, structured input/output schemas, Docker-ready

***

### 📁 Project Structure

```
.
├── .actor/
│   ├── actor.json          # Actor manifest
│   ├── input_schema.json   # Input configuration schema
│   └── output_schema.json  # Output view / table schema
├── src/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── main.py             # Apify Actor entry point
│   ├── models.py           # Pydantic data models
│   └── substack_client.py  # Async HTTP client + pagination
├── Dockerfile
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md
```

***

### 🔌 API Endpoints Used

| Purpose              | Endpoint                                                   |
|----------------------|------------------------------------------------------------|
| Publication metadata | `GET https://{slug}.substack.com/api/v1/publication`       |
| Posts archive        | `GET https://{slug}.substack.com/api/v1/archive?sort=new&limit=50&offset={n}` |

All requests use standard browser headers — no authentication required.

***

### ⚙️ Input Parameters

| Field                  | Type       | Default                                   | Description                                                                 |
|------------------------|------------|-------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `subdomains`           | `string[]` | `["lennysnewsletter", "thealgorithmicbridge"]` | List of Substack slugs or full URLs to scrape                          |
| `maxPostsPerSubdomain` | `integer`  | `50`                                      | Max posts per publication. Set to `0` for unlimited                        |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "subdomains": [
    "lennysnewsletter",
    "thealgorithmicbridge",
    "https://pragmaticengineer.substack.com"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerSubdomain": 100
}
```

***

### 📦 Output Schema

Each item in the dataset represents one Substack post:

| Field                  | Type            | Description                                  |
|------------------------|-----------------|----------------------------------------------|
| `id`                   | `int`           | Internal Substack post ID                    |
| `publication_name`     | `str`           | Human-readable publication name              |
| `publication_subdomain`| `str`           | Slug (e.g. `lennysnewsletter`)               |
| `publication_url`      | `str`           | Root URL of the publication                  |
| `title`                | `str`           | Article title                                |
| `subtitle`             | `str / null`    | Article subtitle                             |
| `slug`                 | `str`           | URL slug of the post                         |
| `post_url`             | `str`           | Direct link to the article                   |
| `published_at`         | `str / null`    | ISO 8601 publish date                        |
| `canonical_url`        | `str / null`    | Canonical URL                                |
| `audience`             | `str / null`    | Access tier (`everyone`, `paid`, etc.)       |
| `cover_image_url`      | `str / null`    | Cover image URL                              |
| `likes_count`          | `int`           | Number of heart reactions                    |
| `comments_count`       | `int`           | Number of comments                           |
| `word_count`           | `int / null`    | Approximate word count                       |
| `reading_time_minutes` | `int / null`    | Estimated reading time in minutes            |
| `authors`              | `str[]`         | List of author names                         |
| `body_excerpt`         | `str / null`    | Short description / excerpt                  |

#### Example Output Item

```json
{
  "id": 123456789,
  "publication_name": "Lenny's Newsletter",
  "publication_subdomain": "lennysnewsletter",
  "publication_url": "https://lennysnewsletter.substack.com",
  "title": "How to build a product people love",
  "subtitle": "Lessons from 50 top product leaders",
  "slug": "how-to-build-a-product-people-love",
  "post_url": "https://lennysnewsletter.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-product-people-love",
  "published_at": "2024-03-15T09:00:00.000Z",
  "canonical_url": "https://lennysnewsletter.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-product-people-love",
  "audience": "everyone",
  "cover_image_url": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/...",
  "likes_count": 1842,
  "comments_count": 94,
  "word_count": 2300,
  "reading_time_minutes": 10,
  "authors": ["Lenny Rachitsky"],
  "body_excerpt": "After interviewing 50 of the world's best product leaders..."
}
```

***

### 🚀 Running Locally

#### 1. Install dependencies

```bash
pip install -r requirements.txt
```

#### 2. Run as a standalone script

```bash
python3 -m src.main
```

The actor will use default input (`lennysnewsletter` + `thealgorithmicbridge`, 50 posts each) when no Apify input is available.

#### 3. Run with Docker

```bash
docker build -t substack-scraper .
docker run substack-scraper
```

***

### 🏗️ Architecture Notes

#### `src/models.py`

Defines `SubstackPost` as a Pydantic `BaseModel`. All fields are strictly typed and optional where the API may omit them. `model_dump(mode="json")` serialises cleanly for `Actor.push_data`.

#### `src/substack_client.py`

- `clean_subdomain()` normalises slugs, full URLs, and `.substack.com` domains
- `fetch_substack_posts()` is an **async generator** — memory-efficient for large archives
- Uses a single `httpx.AsyncClient` per publication (connection pooling)
- Gracefully handles publication metadata errors and empty pages

#### `src/main.py`

- Iterates over all requested subdomains sequentially
- Buffers results in batches of 25 before calling `Actor.push_data` to minimise API round-trips

***

### 📋 Requirements

- Python 3.11+
- `apify >= 2.0.0`
- `httpx >= 0.27.0`
- `pydantic >= 2.0.0`

***

### 📄 License

MIT

# Actor input Schema

## `subdomains` (type: `array`):

List of Substack publication slugs or full URLs (e.g., 'lennysnewsletter', 'https://pragmaticengineer.com').

## `maxPostsPerSubdomain` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of articles to extract per publication. Set to 0 for unlimited.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "subdomains": [
    "lennysnewsletter",
    "thealgorithmicbridge"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerSubdomain": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

Clean structured Substack articles

# 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 = {
    "subdomains": [
        "lennysnewsletter",
        "thealgorithmicbridge"
    ],
    "maxPostsPerSubdomain": 50
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("kravennagen/substack-scraper").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 = {
    "subdomains": [
        "lennysnewsletter",
        "thealgorithmicbridge",
    ],
    "maxPostsPerSubdomain": 50,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("kravennagen/substack-scraper").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 '{
  "subdomains": [
    "lennysnewsletter",
    "thealgorithmicbridge"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerSubdomain": 50
}' |
apify call kravennagen/substack-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/DSQ3UCN5DBKVGeMcQ/builds/vMFl2LK0ljYbOMtXC/openapi.json