HookLens: TikTok, Reels & Shorts Transcript + AI Hook Analyzer

🎣 See exactly why short videos work. By Kuttura LLC · Kuttura Special Projects Division

Paste TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts links (or a channel/profile or hashtag) and get, for every video:

• Transcript: platform captions first, then built-in AI speech-to-text fallback
• Hook: the line spoken in the first ~3 seconds (and hookSource telling you exactly how it was derived)
• Topic, summary, CTA: AI-powered (CTA only when it's an explicit ask to the viewer)
• Public engagement: views, likes, comments, shares

Built for agencies, UGC teams, ad strategists and automation builders (Make, n8n, Zapier, Clay, custom pipelines) who need structured "why it worked" data, not just view counts.

Why HookLens

Feature	What you get	Why it matters
🎯 Hook timing & delivery	hookStartSec (how fast speech starts), hookDurationSec, hookDelivery = spoken / text-caption / music-only	See whether winners talk in the first second or open on text over a sound
🧩 Granular hook types	17 types: question, bold-claim, contrarian, curiosity-gap, pov, listicle, how-to, before-after, demo, story, skit-humor, social-proof, warning-mistake, relatable, challenge-trend, announcement, other	Build swipe files and A/B test hook formats
📈 Outlier score	engagementRate, outlierScore (views ÷ creator's median), engagementOutlierScore, with baselines	Find the videos that over-performed for that creator, not just big accounts
🔁 Monitoring mode	onlyNewVideos: true remembers what it has seen per profile/hashtag	Put it on an Apify Schedule; you only pay for new videos
🧠 Pattern brief	generateBrief: true → one AI strategy brief: common hook types, top performers, patterns, recommendations	A client-ready summary per run for $0.05
✅ Honest data	hasSpeech, hookSource, fetchStatus, validated CTAs (explicit asks only; chants/lyrics rejected)	No invented fields: unknown = null

Typical workflows

• Agency competitor watch: schedule daily on 10 competitor profiles with onlyNewVideos + generateBrief, then push PATTERN_BRIEF to Slack/Notion.
• Swipe-file builder: hashtag → filter outlierScore >= 3 → export hooks by hookType.
• Automation: call via the Apify API/webhooks; every field is typed in the dataset schema.

Input

videoUrls, profile, hashtag + hashtagPlatform, maxVideos, language, enableStt, enableAnalysis, forceStt, onlyNewVideos, generateBrief, proxyConfiguration (datacenter default), allowResidential (YouTube only), residentialCapMb. See input_schema.json.

Supported platforms

Platform	Support	Notes
TikTok	✅ Full	Videos, profiles, hashtags. Transcript, hook, stats (views, likes, comments, shares)
YouTube Shorts	✅ Full*	*YouTube often blocks datacenter IPs. Set allowResidential: true (YouTube only, adds $1/1k via youtube-surcharge) if results come back blocked
Instagram Reels	⚠️ Partial	Caption, likes, comments and audio/transcript are returned. Views and duration are null when logged out. Instagram profiles/hashtags are not supported (pass Reel URLs)

HookLens reads spoken audio and captions only. It does not read on-screen text (no OCR).

Output (one row per video)

Real row from a test run on a public TikTok video (Oct 20, 2026), trimmed:

{"platform":"tiktok","stats":{"views":554400000,"likes":514200,"comments":178,"shares":10600},
 "hasSpeech":true,"hook":"Bring my boots in for repair.","hookStartSec":0.06,"hookDurationSec":3,"hookDelivery":"spoken",
 "hookType":"relatable","topic":"Supportive Spouse Role","cta":null,"engagementRate":0.00095,"outlierScore":null,"fetchStatus":"ok"}

outlierScore is null here because it needs at least 3 videos from the same creator in the run. The run's key-value store also holds PATTERN_BRIEF (if enabled) and RUN_SUMMARY (proxy usage, processed and skipped counts).

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price
video-processed	$2.00 / 1,000 videos
youtube-surcharge	+$1.00 / 1,000 YouTube videos (residential proxy)
hook-analysis	$30.00 / 1,000 videos
transcription-minute	$0.025 / minute (only when platform captions are missing)
pattern-brief	$0.05 per run
Blocked videos and already-seen videos (monitoring mode) are never charged. No on-screen OCR is performed.

No API keys needed

You don't need an OpenAI (or any other) API key. AI speech-to-text and AI hook analysis are included in the per-event prices above. Just provide the input and run.

⚖️ Legal, GDPR & Terms-of-Service disclaimer

This Actor collects only publicly available, logged-out data. It uses no accounts, no cookies tied to a user, and collects no emails or contact details. Public posts may still contain personal data (usernames, voices, faces) under the GDPR/UK GDPR, CCPA and similar laws: you are the data controller for what you collect and must have a lawful basis (e.g. legitimate interest), minimise and delete data appropriately, and honour data-subject requests. Scraping may conflict with TikTok, Instagram/Meta or YouTube/Google Terms of Service; you are responsible for your use. Nothing here is legal advice; consult counsel. Kuttura LLC is not affiliated with TikTok, ByteDance, Meta or Google.