Substack Scraper — Newsletters, Posts, Authors & Leaderboards (No API Key, No Login)

Discover Substack newsletters by category and leaderboard rank, then scrape every post, author and publication. Point it at a category (technology, finance, crypto…) or a direct newsletter URL, and get structured post archives and publication metadata — titles, audience (free/paid), reactions, restacks, word counts, authors, domains and subscription tiers. Reads Substack's public API directly. No login, no API key, no proxy.

🏆 Why this Substack scraper?

Discovery + archive in one — enumerate top newsletters across 30+ categories, or pull a single publication's full post archive · post-level engagement (reactions, restacks, comments) · publication-level lead data (author, custom domain, tiers) · export to JSON / CSV / Excel. The unofficial Substack API alternative for content research, creator lead-gen and competitive intelligence.

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✨ What this Actor does / Key features

• 🏆 Category leaderboards — enumerate the top publications in any of 30+ categories by subscribers and engagement, with leaderboard, paid or all ranking modes.
• 🔗 Direct newsletter targeting — paste a subdomain (lennysnewsletter.substack.com), a bare name (lennysnewsletter) or a custom domain (www.lennysnewsletter.com).
• 📰 Full post archives — pull every post from a publication, or run publication-only mode (0 posts).
• 📊 Post engagement — reactions, restacks, comment counts, word count and audience (free vs paid).
• 🎙️ Podcast fields — podcast URL and duration when a post is a podcast episode.
• 🏢 Publication lead data — publication name, subdomain, custom domain, author, description, category, language, subscription tiers, logo and cover.
• 🎛️ Powerful filters — date range, keyword, audience (free/paid) and language.
• 🔓 Fully keyless — Substack's public API and archive endpoints serve metadata anonymously; no account, key or proxy needed.
• 📤 Any format — export to JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or pull via the Apify API.

🚀 Quick start (3 steps)

1. Configure — add Category Slugs (e.g. technology, finance) with a Ranking Mode, or paste Direct Newsletter URLs. Set how many publications and posts to pull.
2. Run — click Start. The Actor enumerates the leaderboard (or resolves each URL), fetches each publication's archive and streams records into your dataset.
3. Get your data — open the Output tab and export to JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or pull it via the Apify API.

📥 Input

Provide either category slugs or direct newsletter URLs. Everything else is optional.

Example — top technology newsletters + recent posts

{
  "categorySlugs": ["technology", "finance"],
  "rankingMode": "leaderboard",
  "maxPublicationsPerCategory": 25,
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 20
}

Example — one publication's full archive

{
  "newsletterUrls": ["lennysnewsletter.substack.com"],
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 500
}

Example — publication-only lead list for a category

{
  "categorySlugs": ["crypto"],
  "rankingMode": "paid",
  "maxPublicationsPerCategory": 100,
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 0
}

Field	Type	Description
categorySlugs	array	Substack category slugs (technology, finance, crypto…). Each becomes its own leaderboard task.
rankingMode	string	leaderboard, paid or all — how publications are ranked within a category.
newsletterUrls	array	Direct newsletter targets: subdomain, bare name or custom domain.
maxPublicationsPerCategory	integer	Cap publications enumerated per category.
maxPostsPerPublication	integer	Posts to pull per publication. 0 = publication-only mode.
dateFrom / dateTo	string	Optional post date-range filter (YYYY-MM-DD).
keyword	string	Optional keyword filter on post titles.
audienceFilter	string	all, free-only or paid-only posts.
language	string	Optional language filter.

📤 Output

Records come in two shapes tagged by recordType. Here is a trimmed post record:

{
  "recordType": "post",
  "publicationName": "Lenny's Newsletter",
  "subdomain": "lennysnewsletter",
  "authorName": "Lenny Rachitsky",
  "postId": 154382910,
  "postSlug": "how-the-best-pms-prioritize",
  "postTitle": "How the best PMs prioritize",
  "postSubtitle": "A field guide to ruthless focus",
  "postType": "newsletter",
  "audience": "everyone",
  "postDate": "2026-07-01T13:00:00Z",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-best-pms-prioritize",
  "coverImage": "https://substackcdn.com/image/.../cover.jpg",
  "reactions": 1284,
  "restacks": 212,
  "commentCount": 96,
  "wordCount": 2410,
  "sectionName": "Product",
  "category": "technology",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-06T12:00:00Z"
}

💡 Use cases

• Content & trend research — track which newsletters and posts are gaining traction across 30+ categories.
• Newsletter / creator lead generation — build lists of publications in a niche with authors, domains and tiers.
• Competitive intelligence — monitor a competitor's posting cadence, audience mix (free vs paid) and engagement.
• Market research — analyze topics, word counts and reactions across a category leaderboard.
• Archive backups — export a full publication's post archive to JSON or CSV.
• Influencer & sponsorship outreach — find high-engagement writers in your topic and their domains for partnership pitches.

👥 Who uses it

Content & growth marketers · newsletter operators & media analysts · creator-economy & sponsorship teams · competitive-intelligence analysts · researchers & data journalists · lead-gen teams building creator lists.

💰 Pricing

This Actor runs on a simple pay-per-result model — you pay for the records you extract, with no separate Apify platform fees to calculate. Try it on the free tier first, then scale up. See the Pricing tab on this page for the current rate.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a Substack login or API key? No. The Actor uses Substack's public API and archive endpoints, which serve publication and post metadata anonymously. No account, key or proxy is needed.

Can I scrape a specific newsletter directly? Yes. Add it to Direct Newsletter URLs — it accepts a subdomain (lennysnewsletter.substack.com), a bare name (lennysnewsletter) or a custom domain (www.lennysnewsletter.com).

Can I get only free or only paid posts? Yes. Use the Audience Filter to restrict results to free-only or paid-only posts, or keep all for both.

Which export formats are supported? Each run is stored in an Apify Dataset, downloadable as JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or available via the Apify API.

Is this a Substack API alternative?

Yes. Substack has no official public data API for bulk export, so this Actor acts as an unofficial Substack API alternative — it reads the public archive endpoints to return structured newsletter, post and author data.

How do I export Substack data to CSV or JSON?

Run the Actor on a category leaderboard or direct newsletter URL, then download the resulting Apify Dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel or XML. This gives you a clean Substack newsletter data export with no manual copy-paste.

Can I scrape Substack without an API key or login?

Yes. The scraper pulls Substack publication and post data anonymously through public endpoints, so you can scrape Substack without login, without an API key and without a proxy.

How do I find the top newsletters in a Substack category?

Add a category slug like technology or finance with ranking mode leaderboard, and the scraper enumerates the top publications by subscribers and engagement.

Can I export a single Substack publication's full post archive?

Yes. Add its subdomain, bare name or custom domain to Newsletter URLs and raise Max Posts Per Publication to pull the complete archive to CSV or JSON.

🔗 More social & content scrapers by logiover

Building a cross-platform content & creator dataset? Pair the Substack scraper with the rest of the suite:

Actor	What it does
Dev.to Articles Scraper	Articles by tag, author & feed
Product Hunt Daily Launches Scraper	Today's launches with votes & makers
LinkedIn Top Content Scraper	Top-performing LinkedIn posts
Reddit Subreddit Scraper	Posts from any subreddit by sort & window
Hacker News Search Scraper	HN stories & comments by keyword
YouTube Channel Scraper	Channel stats & full video lists
Pinterest Scraper	Pins, boards, profiles & save counts
Threads Scraper	Posts & profiles from Meta's Threads
Apple Podcasts Episode Scraper	Podcast shows & episodes
Stack Exchange Questions Scraper	Q&A across 170+ Stack Exchange sites
X Tweet Scraper	Tweets & profiles from X (Twitter)

👉 Browse all logiover scrapers on Apify Store — 180+ actors across real estate, jobs, crypto, social media & B2B data.

⏰ Scheduling & integration

Schedule this Actor on Apify to track a category leaderboard or a competitor's archive daily or weekly. Export results to JSON, CSV or Excel, sync to Google Sheets, or push to your database, BI tools and webhooks through the Apify API. Connect it to Make, n8n or Zapier for automated content-monitoring pipelines.

⭐ Support & feedback

Found a bug or need an extra field? Open an issue on the Issues tab — response is usually fast. If this Actor saves you time, a ★★★★★ review on the Store page genuinely helps and is hugely appreciated. 🙏

⚖️ Legal

This Actor reads only publicly available Substack data and is intended for legitimate research, analytics and lead-generation use. You are responsible for complying with Substack's terms, GDPR and any applicable local laws. Not affiliated with Substack Inc.

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Keywords: substack scraper, substack newsletter scraper, substack posts scraper, substack author scraper, substack leaderboard, substack api alternative, scrape substack without login, export substack data to csv, newsletter lead generation, creator economy data.

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📝 Changelog

2026-07-06

• ✨ README overhaul: shields badge row, green highlight callout, trimmed output sample, collapsible full field reference (post + publication), ready-to-run example scenarios, social-suite cross-links and clearer quick-start.

2026-07-01

• Maintenance pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data and confirmed successful runs within the 5-minute quality window on the default input.
• Sharpened Store metadata (SEO title & description) and expanded the FAQ with high-intent, long-tail questions for easier discovery in Google and Apify Store search.
• Added ready-to-run example tasks that cover common real-world use cases.

2026-06-15

• Reliability pass: re-verified end-to-end on live data with real-world inputs. Routine maintenance build.

2026-06-07

• Docs: added coverage for Substack API alternative, exporting Substack data to CSV/JSON, and scraping Substack without login or API key.