# Substack Posts via RSS (no scraping) (`llarochelle/substack-rss-posts`) Actor

Latest posts of any Substack publication, read from its official RSS feed: title, subtitle, author, date, cover image, full HTML and plain text of free posts. Archive mode lists every post URL from the publication's sitemap. No login, no cookies, no page scraping.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/llarochelle/substack-rss-posts.md
- **Developed by:** [Luigi Larochelle](https://apify.com/llarochelle) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$2.00 / 1,000 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?

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 Posts via RSS

Export the posts of any Substack publication from what Substack itself publishes for syndication: the **RSS feed** and the **sitemap**. No page scraping, no login, no proxies, so it keeps working when the site layout changes.

### Two modes

| Mode | Source | Gives | Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latest posts | `/feed` | title, subtitle, author, date, cover image, full HTML and plain text (free posts), preview (paid posts) | the ~20 most recent posts |
| Archive | `/sitemap.xml` | every post URL with its last-modified date | whole history |

Publications can be given as a subdomain (`pragmaticengineer`), a custom domain (`https://www.platformer.news`) or a feed URL.

### Output (latest mode)

```json
{
  "publicationName": "The Pragmatic Engineer",
  "publicationUrl": "https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com",
  "title": "...",
  "subtitle": "...",
  "url": "https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/...",
  "guid": "...",
  "author": "Gergely Orosz",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-30T12:00:00.000Z",
  "coverImage": "https://substackcdn.com/...",
  "contentHtml": "<p>...</p>",
  "contentText": "...",
  "wordCount": 2140
}
```

### Pricing

Pay per event: one event per post row. Failed feeds cost nothing.

### Use cases

Newsletter monitoring, competitor tracking, research corpora, feeding an LLM with a writer's latest posts, RSS-to-sheet pipelines.

# Actor input Schema

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

Substack subdomains (e.g. "pragmaticengineer"), publication URLs (https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com), or direct feed URLs ending in /feed.

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Latest posts: reads the RSS feed (about the 20 most recent posts, with content). Archive: lists every post URL and last-modified date from the sitemap, without content.

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

Stop after this many posts for each publication.

## `includeContent` (type: `boolean`):

Latest mode only. Adds contentHtml and contentText for each post (full text for free posts, preview for paid posts).

## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`):

Keep only posts published on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "publications": [
    "pragmaticengineer",
    "https://www.platformer.news"
  ],
  "mode": "latest",
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 50,
  "includeContent": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

All posts (or archive URLs) returned by the run, in the default dataset.

# 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 = {
    "publications": [
        "pragmaticengineer",
        "https://www.platformer.news"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("llarochelle/substack-rss-posts").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 = { "publications": [
        "pragmaticengineer",
        "https://www.platformer.news",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("llarochelle/substack-rss-posts").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 '{
  "publications": [
    "pragmaticengineer",
    "https://www.platformer.news"
  ]
}' |
apify call llarochelle/substack-rss-posts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/IVy0pnOIg64pooODG/builds/Bg2mqw9S9bSfvFO3h/openapi.json