# RSS Feed Reader & Monitor - Any Feed to JSON, $0.50/1K (`plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor`) Actor

Turn any RSS, Atom or JSON Feed (or just a website URL) into clean JSON items. Keyword and date filters, only-new monitoring for scheduled runs, podcast enclosures and optional full article text. $0.50 per 1,000 items.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Plot Point Technologies](https://apify.com/plotpointtech) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Automation, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.31 / 1,000 feed items

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

## RSS Feed Reader & Monitor: Any RSS, Atom or JSON Feed to JSON

**Read any RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed, or just paste a website address, and get every item as clean, consistent JSON:** title, link, GUID, ISO publish date, author, categories, plain-text summary and content, podcast or media enclosure and image. Filter by keywords and date, and switch on **only-new mode** so scheduled runs return just the items you have not seen before. Optional full article text extraction. **$0.50 per 1,000 items.**

### What can this RSS feed reader do?

- **Read any feed format.** RSS 0.9x/1.0/2.0, Atom, RDF and JSON Feed 1.0/1.1 are parsed with the widely used `feedparser` library (plus a native JSON Feed parser), so odd and slightly broken feeds still work.
- **Find the feed for you.** Give it a normal website URL such as `https://github.blog/` and it reads the page's `<link rel="alternate">` tags, then tries common paths like `/feed`, `/rss.xml` and `/atom.xml`.
- **Monitor feeds.** With **Only new items** on, the tool remembers what it already returned in a named key-value store in your account. Schedule it hourly or daily and each run returns only fresh items.
- **Filter.** Include and exclude keywords (whole words, case-insensitive, any or all) and a published-after date such as `2026-10-01` or `24 hours`.
- **Normalise everything.** Dates in UTC ISO 8601, HTML stripped to readable text, relative links resolved, the main enclosure pulled out for podcasts and video feeds.
- **Full article text (optional).** Open each item's link and extract the main article text with `trafilatura`. Charged separately and only when text is found.
- **Keep going on bad feeds.** Timeouts, retries with backoff, and broken or missing feeds are skipped and logged instead of failing the run.

### Who uses it?

- **Media monitoring and PR teams** tracking mentions of a brand, product or competitor across news sites and blogs.
- **Developers and data teams** who need one stable JSON shape for hundreds of feeds, for a database, search index or newsletter.
- **AI and LLM builders** feeding fresh articles into RAG pipelines, summarisers and agents.
- **Podcast and media tools** collecting episode audio URLs, durations and artwork.
- **Researchers** archiving publication history from government, academic and company feeds.

### How to use it

1. Click **Try for free** (or **Start**).
2. Paste feed URLs or website URLs into **Feed or website URLs**.
3. Optionally add **Include keywords**, **Exclude keywords** and **Published after**.
4. For monitoring, turn on **Only new items** and give the monitor its own **Memory store name**, then add a Schedule in Apify Console.
5. Turn on **Extract full article text** if the feed only carries short summaries.
6. Run it and export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or send items to Slack, Sheets or a webhook.

### Input example

```json
{
  "feeds": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
    "https://github.blog/",
    "https://feeds.simplecast.com/ZgJoLxHg"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
  "includeKeywords": ["AI", "Copilot"],
  "excludeKeywords": ["crypto"],
  "publishedAfter": "7 days",
  "onlyNew": true,
  "stateStoreName": "my-tech-news-monitor",
  "extractFullText": false
}
```

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| `feeds` | Feed URLs (RSS, Atom, RDF, JSON Feed) or website URLs to auto-discover. |
| `maxItemsPerFeed` | Newest items per feed after filters (default 10, 0 = all). |
| `maxItems` | Overall cap across all feeds (0 = no cap). |
| `onlyNew` | Return only items not returned by an earlier run with the same store name. |
| `stateStoreName` | Named key-value store that remembers seen items (one per monitor). |
| `includeKeywords` / `excludeKeywords` / `requireAllKeywords` | Keyword filters on title, summary, content and categories. |
| `publishedAfter` | Date, datetime or period such as `24 hours`, `7 days`, `2 weeks`. |
| `extractFullText` | Extract the main article text from each item's link (separate event). |
| `includeContentHtml` | Also return the original content HTML. |
| `maxTextChars` | Trim long text fields (0 = no limit). |
| `discoverFeeds`, `maxFeedsPerSite`, `requestTimeoutSecs` | Discovery and timeout settings. |

### Output example

Item from the default run (BBC News technology feed):

```json
{
  "feedTitle": "BBC News",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
  "feedLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology",
  "feedFormat": "rss20",
  "sourceUrl": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
  "title": "US tech stocks see sharp falls as AI spending nears $1tn",
  "link": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvwy72e0n72yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss",
  "guid": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvwy72e0n72yo#0",
  "published": "2026-10-30T20:34:46Z",
  "updated": null,
  "author": null,
  "categories": [],
  "summary": "Shares in Intel continue to fall while the tech-heavy Nasdaq opens at its lowest level in more than two months.",
  "content": null,
  "enclosureUrl": null,
  "enclosureType": null,
  "enclosureLength": null,
  "enclosures": [],
  "duration": null,
  "image": "https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/240/cpsprodpb/10b0/live/dcdf2a60-d46e-11f1-9dda-1ba6fcc7d159.jpg",
  "feedImage": "https://news.bbcimg.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif",
  "matchedKeywords": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-30T21:29:33Z"
}
```

Podcast feeds fill `enclosureUrl` (the audio file), `enclosureType` (for example `audio/mpeg`), `enclosureLength` and `duration`. With full text on, items also get `fullText`, `fullTextWordCount`, `fullTextAuthor`, `fullTextImage` and `fullTextStatus` (`ok` or the reason no text was found). Keyword runs add `matchedKeywords`.

### How much does it cost?

| Event | Price | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Feed item | $0.0005 | **$0.50** |
| Full article text (optional, only when found) | $0.0008 | $0.80 |

Plus a $0.00005 start fee per run. Examples: an hourly monitor of 20 feeds that finds 300 new items a day costs about $0.15 a day ($4.50 a month). A one-off export of 10,000 items costs $5; adding full text to all of them adds $8. Items removed by your filters and items already seen in only-new mode are not charged.

**Volume discounts on higher Apify plans.** The prices above are for the Apify Free plan. On paid plans the price per item drops automatically: about 15% lower on Bronze, 25% lower on Silver and 38% lower on Gold and above.

### Use it via API, Make, Zapier, n8n or an AI agent

**Apify API.** Start a run and get the results back in one HTTP request (replace `YOUR_API_TOKEN` with the token from Apify Console > Settings > Integrations):

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/plotpointtech~rss-feed-reader-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"feeds": ["https://github.blog/"], "maxItemsPerFeed": 20, "onlyNew": true, "stateStoreName": "github-blog-monitor"}'
```

For longer jobs, start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes. Official `apify-client` libraries exist for Python and JavaScript; the **API** tab on this page has ready-made code.

**No-code automation.** Connect the tool to **Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable** or any webhook with Apify integrations, and use **Schedules** in Apify Console to run it hourly, daily or weekly. With only-new mode, each scheduled run delivers just the new items.

**AI agents (MCP).** Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP-compatible agent direct access to this tool through the hosted Apify MCP server. Add this server URL to your client:

```
https://mcp.apify.com?tools=plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor
```

The agent can then call the tool with the same input fields shown above and read the results.

### FAQ

**Is it legal to read RSS feeds?**
Feeds are published so that readers and software can fetch them automatically, and this tool only reads public feeds and the public pages you supply. It does not log in, use cookies or get around blocking. Republishing full articles may still require the publisher's permission, so check the site's terms before you redistribute content.

**How does only-new mode work?**
Each feed's seen items (by GUID, or link if there is no GUID) are kept in the key-value store you name, up to the latest 5,000 per feed. The first run returns the newest items and remembers everything currently in the feed; later runs return only items that were not there before. Use a different store name for each independent monitor, or delete the store to start over.

**What if a website has no feed?**
The tool tries the page's feed links and common feed paths. If none exist, the URL is skipped and logged. Use our Website to Markdown Crawler for sites without feeds.

**Why is `content` empty for some items?**
Many feeds only carry a summary. Turn on full article text to fetch the page itself. Paywalled or consent-walled pages return a reason in `fullTextStatus` and are not charged.

**Which date is `published`?**
The item's publish date in UTC; if a feed gives only an update date, that is used. `updated` is filled only when it differs.

### Related tools from Plot Point Technologies

- [News Scraper - Worldwide News Search by Keyword, 65+ Languages](https://apify.com/plotpointtech/worldwide-news-search): news articles worldwide by keyword, country and language.
- [Website to Markdown Crawler for AI, LLM & RAG](https://apify.com/plotpointtech/website-to-markdown-crawler): full pages as clean Markdown for sites without feeds.
- [Podcast Scraper - Apple Podcasts, Owner Emails & Episodes](https://apify.com/plotpointtech/podcast-search-episodes-scraper): find podcasts by keyword and get their feeds, owners and episodes.

Plot Point Technologies is not affiliated with any feed publisher, including the BBC, GitHub or Hacker News, whose public feeds are used as examples.

***

If this tool saved you time, we would be grateful for a short review on this page; it helps other people find it. If something did not work as expected, please open an issue on the **Issues** tab and we will look into it quickly.

# Actor input Schema

## `feeds` (type: `array`):

RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed URLs, or ordinary website URLs. For a website, the tool finds its feed automatically from <link rel="alternate"> tags and common paths such as /feed and /rss.xml.

## `maxItemsPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

Newest items to return from each feed after filters. 0 = all items in the feed.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many items across all feeds. 0 = no limit.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

Remember the items already returned (by GUID or link) in a named key-value store, so the next run returns only items you have not seen. Use with Schedules to monitor feeds. The first run returns the current items and remembers them.

## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`):

Name of the key-value store in your account that keeps seen items for 'Only new items'. Use a different name for each independent monitor. Letters, digits and dashes.

## `includeKeywords` (type: `array`):

Keep only items whose title, summary, content or categories contain at least one of these words or phrases (case-insensitive, whole words).

## `requireAllKeywords` (type: `boolean`):

Keep an item only if it contains every include keyword, instead of any one.

## `excludeKeywords` (type: `array`):

Drop items that contain any of these words or phrases.

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

Keep only items published after this date or period, e.g. 2026-10-01, 2026-10-01T08:00:00Z, '24 hours' or '7 days'. Items without a date are dropped when this is set.

## `extractFullText` (type: `boolean`):

Open each item's link and extract the main article text with trafilatura. Charged as a separate 'Full article text' event, only when text is found.

## `includeContentHtml` (type: `boolean`):

Also return the item content as the original HTML (contentHtml).

## `maxTextChars` (type: `integer`):

Trim summary, content and full text to this many characters. 0 = no limit.

## `discoverFeeds` (type: `boolean`):

When a URL is a web page rather than a feed, look for its feed.

## `maxFeedsPerSite` (type: `integer`):

How many discovered feeds to read from each website URL (main feeds come before comment feeds).

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

Give up on a feed or page that does not answer within this time. Failed feeds are skipped and logged.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feeds": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
    "https://hnrss.org/frontpage"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 10,
  "maxItems": 0,
  "onlyNew": false,
  "stateStoreName": "rss-reader-seen-items",
  "includeKeywords": [],
  "requireAllKeywords": false,
  "excludeKeywords": [],
  "extractFullText": false,
  "includeContentHtml": false,
  "maxTextChars": 0,
  "discoverFeeds": true,
  "maxFeedsPerSite": 1,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 30
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "feeds": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
        "https://hnrss.org/frontpage"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor").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 = { "feeds": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
        "https://hnrss.org/frontpage",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor").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 '{
  "feeds": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml",
    "https://hnrss.org/frontpage"
  ]
}' |
apify call plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,plotpointtech/rss-feed-reader-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/kg2wWvFyKxnPCqmqT/builds/3DKPoxU2qP20QPX7p/openapi.json