# YouTube Video Stats Tracker — Views, Likes & Comments (`northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker`) Actor

YouTube video stats with growth: exact views and likes, comment count, publish date, channel and live status for any watch link, youtu.be link, Short or video ID. Run it again or on a schedule to get views added, likes added and views per day since the last run. No login.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker.md
- **Developed by:** [Northbell](https://apify.com/northbell) (community)
- **Categories:** Videos, Social media, Marketing
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 83.3% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.20 / 1,000 videos

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## YouTube Video Stats Tracker

Give it a list of YouTube videos — watch links, `youtu.be` links, Shorts or plain video IDs — and get one clean row per video: **exact views, exact likes, comment count, publish date, channel, live status** and optionally the description. **$1.50 per 1,000 videos**, no login, no API key.

Run it again — or put it on an hourly or daily schedule — and every row also tells you **what changed since the last run**: views added, likes added, comments added, and **views per day** measured since the first run. YouTube only shows you today's totals; this keeps the history for you.

### What you get

| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| `videoId`, `url`, `title`, `input` | the video, and the link or ID you gave |
| `channelName`, `channelId`, `channelHandle` | the channel that published it (`channelHandle` is e.g. `@mkbhd`) |
| `publishedAt`, `publishedText` | the publish date as `YYYY-MM-DD` (the day YouTube shows, which follows US Pacific time), and YouTube's own wording ("Apr 23, 2005") |
| `views` | **exact** views, as on the watch page (`null` while a live stream is on) |
| `likes`, `likesRounded` | **exact** likes (`likesRounded` is `false` when the number is exact) |
| `commentCount`, `commentCountRounded` | comments; YouTube shows the exact number below 1,000 and rounds above (`10K`), so `commentCountRounded` tells you which one you have |
| `isLive`, `liveViewers` | `true` for a stream that is on air, and how many people are watching right now |
| `description` | only with *Include the description*: the video description with **email addresses and phone numbers removed**, cut at 2,000 characters |
| `viewsAddedSinceLastRun`, `likesAddedSinceLastRun`, `commentsAddedSinceLastRun`, `hoursSinceLastRun` | the change since your previous run (`null` on the first run) |
| `viewsPerDay`, `growthReliable`, `growthNote`, `firstSeenAt`, `observations` | growth measured from the first time this video was read (after 20 hours) |
| `observedAt`, `type` | when it was read, and `video` or `error` |

### Use it for

- **Campaign and sponsorship reporting** — one row per video with the numbers as of today, plus how many views and likes it gained since the last report
- **Launch watching** — schedule it hourly for your own new videos, or a competitor's, and see the first 48 hours as a table
- **Trend and competitor tracking** — compare videos by real momentum (views per day), not only by lifetime views

### Input

```json
{ "videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw", "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ", "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d99vrWc2m7E", "RdnOlOf4K30"], "includeDescription": false }
```

Growth is remembered per video in a named key-value store in your Apify account, so the second run of the same Actor already shows changes. Schedule it (Apify → Schedules) for a history. Up to 1,000 videos per run.

### Pricing

**$1.50 per 1,000 videos**, plus $0.01 per run. Error rows (removed, private or mistyped videos) are free. The $0.01 run-start fee is the one charge every run pays, even one that returns nothing.

### Notes

- Public data only: what anyone sees on the watch page without signing in. The comments themselves and the people who wrote them are not read or returned. No emails or phone numbers are returned — they are removed from descriptions.
- `likes` is empty when YouTube shows just "Like" with no number, which is what it does when the creator hides the like count. A video nobody has liked yet shows `0`.
- `commentCount` is empty when comments are turned off, and for live streams. `commentsAddedSinceLastRun` is only filled when both the previous and the current count are exact (below 1,000); for bigger videos use `viewsAddedSinceLastRun` and `likesAddedSinceLastRun`, which are exact.
- A live stream has no view total while it is on air: `views` is empty, `liveViewers` has the number watching, and `publishedAt` is empty (YouTube only says "Started streaming 4 hours ago"; see `publishedText`). When the stream ends the view total appears and views per day start counting from that run. A stream that is only scheduled (YouTube shows "N waiting") has `isLive` `false`, no `liveViewers` and no `views`.
- `viewsPerDay` is measured since the **first run of this Actor** on that video, not since it was published, and appears after 20 hours. Views can also go down when YouTube removes spam views, so a change can be negative.
- `publishedAt` is empty for a video that is scheduled but not yet public, and for a stream or premiere in its first day: YouTube writes only "Streamed live 2 hours ago" or "Premiered 21 hours ago" (see `publishedText`). The date fills in on a later run.
- `channelHandle` is empty for the few channels that have no `@handle`.
- A video made by several channels together shows them as "Collaborators" on YouTube. The channel fields describe the first one listed, which is the channel that uploaded it.
- `description` is empty when the video has none (most Shorts).
- If YouTube stops answering or asks for a sign-in several times in a row, the Actor stops waiting and returns the remaining videos as free error rows; run it again later.

To track a **whole channel** (subscribers, total views, upload rhythm), see [YouTube Channel Stats & Growth Tracker](https://apify.com/northbell/youtube-channel-growth-tracker). To track **where videos rank for a keyword**, see [YouTube Search Rank Tracker](https://apify.com/northbell/youtube-search-rank-tracker).

### For AI agents

`{"videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"]}` returns one row with exact `views`, `likes`, `commentCount`, `publishedAt` and the channel. Rows have `type`: `video` or `error`. Pass several links in one call to pay the run fee once.

# Actor input Schema

## `videos` (type: `array`):

One video per line: a youtube.com/watch link, a youtu.be link, a /shorts/ or /live/ link, or the 11-character video ID (e.g. dQw4w9WgXcQ). Up to 1,000 per run.

## `includeDescription` (type: `boolean`):

Add the video description to each row (email addresses and phone numbers are removed, cut at 2,000 characters). Off by default to keep rows small.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "includeDescription": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `videos` (type: `string`):

Views, likes, comment count, publish date and growth since the last run.

# 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 = {
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
        "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker").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 = { "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
        "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker").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 '{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ]
}' |
apify call northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,northbell/youtube-video-stats-tracker"
        }
    }
}
```

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/lsYjDtvwVOIgi8hzB/builds/IPdikqVk4z4Vi86eT/openapi.json