Substack Scraper — Newsletter Posts, Engagement & Authors

Scrape every post from any Substack newsletter with zero setup — no login, no API key. Pass a handle, a *.substack.com subdomain, or a custom domain and get clean, structured post data with engagement metrics.

Substack has no useful public API for reading other people's newsletters, so getting a newsletter's post history and engagement means scraping. This Actor does it the easy way — clean JSON out, no account, no tokens, no browser hassle.

What you get per post

Title, subtitle, author, publish date, canonical URL, post type (newsletter / podcast / thread), audience (free vs paid), reactions (likes), comment count, restacks, word count, tags, cover image, and a text preview — with the full body available on demand.

Why use it

• ✅ Zero-config — no Substack account, no API key, no OAuth. Enter publications and run.
• 📊 Real engagement data — likes, comments, and restacks per post, not just titles (great for spotting what performs).
• 🏢 Any publication — works on both *.substack.com subdomains and custom domains.
• 💸 Cheap & predictable — billed per scanned publication, however many posts come back.
• 🎯 Clean structured output — JSON, CSV, or Excel, or straight from the Apify API.

Who it's for

Newsletter operators and sponsors sizing up creators, content and competitor research, media analysts, dataset builders, and anyone archiving or tracking a Substack.

Input

Field	Description
publications	Up to 20 Substack handles / subdomains / custom domains (e.g. noahpinion, platformer.news). Each is one scanned publication.
sort	new (newest first) or top.
maxPostsPerPublication	How many posts to pull per publication (paginated).
includeBody	Include the full post body (HTML + text). Off by default.
maxItems	Optional overall safety cap on total posts.

Example input

{
  "publications": ["noahpinion", "astralcodexten"],
  "sort": "new",
  "maxPostsPerPublication": 50
}

Output

One record per post. Example:

{
  "id": 213463624,
  "publication": "www.noahpinion.blog",
  "title": "Roundup #87: Technology BAD!!",
  "subtitle": "The Hugging Face attack; TV and loneliness…",
  "author": "Noah Smith",
  "url": "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-87-technology-bad",
  "postDate": "2026-09-01T02:26:19.061Z",
  "type": "newsletter",
  "audience": "everyone",
  "likes": 306,
  "commentCount": 103,
  "restacks": 41,
  "wordcount": 3088,
  "tags": ["economics"]
}

Fields: id, publication, title, subtitle, author, url, postDate, type, audience, likes, commentCount, restacks, wordcount, tags, coverImage, truncatedText (+ bodyHtml/bodyText when includeBody is on). Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, or via the API.

Pricing

Pay per scanned publication — one unit per publication, no matter how many posts come back, with no monthly fee. Predictable and cheap.

FAQ

Do I need a Substack account or API key? No — nothing to set up. Does it get paywalled content? No — it returns what Substack serves publicly (free posts in full, free previews for paid posts) plus public engagement metrics. Can I schedule it? Yes — run it on a schedule to keep a rolling archive of newsletters you follow. What formats can I export? JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or via the API.

Notes

Returns publicly available Substack data only. Please scrape responsibly and comply with applicable terms and laws.