Channel Stats, Live Streams & Comments for YouTube (Official API)

Get channel statistics, recent uploads, live and upcoming streams, country trending charts, video details and comments from the official YouTube Data API v3 – using your own free Google API key.

No scraping, no proxies, no CAPTCHAs, no random breakage when the YouTube page layout changes. You get exactly what the official API returns, in clean flat JSON / CSV / Excel.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google. This Actor is an API client: you bring your own YouTube Data API key and you agree to the YouTube API Services Terms of Service.

Why use this instead of a scraper?

	This Actor (official API)	Typical page scrapers
Source	YouTube Data API v3	HTML / internal endpoints
Stability	Stable, versioned API	Breaks when YouTube changes
Proxies needed	No	Usually residential proxies
Exact counts	Yes (views, likes, comments, subscribers*)	Often rounded ("1.2M")
Live stream schedule	scheduledStartTime, actualStartTime, concurrentViewers	Rarely
Cost	$0.50 per 1,000 rows + your free Google quota	$1–5 per 1,000 rows

* Subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube itself for channels over 1,000 subscribers; hidden counts return null.

What you can do

• Channel monitoring – subscribers, total views, video count, country, created date for any list of channels (@handle, URL or UC… ID).
• Recent uploads with stats – the latest N videos per channel with views, likes, comments, duration, tags, language.
• Live & upcoming stream schedule – turn on Only live & upcoming streams to get what your favourite streamers / VTubers / competitors are live with now or have scheduled, with start times. Run it on a schedule and send it to Slack, Discord, Google Sheets or a webhook.
• Trending charts by country – the official "most popular" chart for JP, US, KR, IN, GB … optionally by category (Music = 10, Gaming = 20).
• Video details – full statistics for any list of video / Shorts / live URLs.
• Comments – top or newest comments (plus up to 5 replies per thread) for sentiment analysis, community management or research.
• Keyword search – optional; note that search costs 100 quota units per page.

How to get your free API key (2 minutes)

1. Open Google Cloud Console and create (or pick) a project.
2. APIs & Services → Library → search YouTube Data API v3 → Enable.
3. APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key.
4. Optional but recommended: Restrict key → API restrictions → YouTube Data API v3. Do not add HTTP-referrer or IP restrictions (Apify servers would be blocked).
5. Paste the key into the YouTube Data API key field. It is stored encrypted as a secret input and only sent to googleapis.com.

The free quota is 10,000 units per day per Google project (resets at midnight Pacific Time).

Quota cost per feature

Feature	YouTube quota units
Channel stats	1 per channel
Recent uploads	~2 per 50 videos
Video details	1 per 50 videos
Trending chart	1 per 50 videos
Comments	1 per 100 comments
Keyword search	100 per 50 results

Example: 100 channels × 20 recent videos ≈ 300 units – about 3% of the free daily quota. The run summary (key-value store RUN_SUMMARY) shows the units used.

Input example

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY",
  "channels": ["@YouTube", "https://www.youtube.com/@GoogleDevelopers"],
  "recentVideosPerChannel": 10,
  "trendingRegions": ["JP", "US"],
  "commentsForVideos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 200
}

Stream schedule only:

{ "apiKey": "YOUR_KEY", "channels": ["@channelA", "@channelB"], "onlyLiveAndUpcoming": true }

Output

Every row has a type: channel, video or comment.

{
  "type": "video",
  "videoId": "bbbbbbbbbbb",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbbbbbbbbbb",
  "title": "Weekly live stream",
  "channelTitle": "Example Channel",
  "liveStatus": "upcoming",
  "scheduledStartTime": "2026-10-01T12:00:00Z",
  "durationSeconds": 0,
  "viewCount": 0,
  "likeCount": 12,
  "commentCount": 0,
  "tags": ["live"],
  "source": "channel:UC...",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-09-25T00:00:00.000Z"
}

liveStatus is one of live, upcoming, was_live, was_scheduled, none. Trending rows also have trendingRank.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.0005 per result row ($0.50 per 1,000) plus a tiny start fee. Runs without an API key finish with a setup message and are not charged for results. Use Max results in total to cap the cost of a run.

Errors are explained, not hidden

• Missing key → a clear setup message (no charge).
• Invalid key / API not enabled / key restricted → the run fails with a message telling you exactly what to fix.
• Daily quota exhausted → the run stops early and keeps the rows already collected.
• Comments disabled / private or deleted videos → skipped with a warning in the log and RUN_SUMMARY.

Data use

The data comes from the YouTube Data API and is subject to the YouTube API Services Terms and Developer Policies (for example, refreshing or deleting stored API data after 30 days). Comments contain public personal data (display names); process them in line with the GDPR / your local privacy law. This Actor does not keep any data outside your own Apify storage.

Support

Found a bug or need a field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab – we reply within a few days.