Substack Author Scraper

What does Substack Author Scraper do?

Substack Author Scraper extracts full public profiles of Substack writers by handle. Returns bio, social links (LinkedIn, Twitter, personal website), all newsletters they manage, and bestseller tier — no login required. Runs on the Apify platform with scheduling, proxy rotation, and API access built in.

Why use Substack Author Scraper?

• Influencer outreach: Find contact info and social profiles for newsletter sponsorships or collaborations
• Creator research: Discover who's behind a newsletter, their background, and other publications they run
• Lead generation: Build a list of newsletter authors in a specific niche with their social handles
• Market mapping: Identify the most active writers in a space and their publication portfolio

How to use Substack Author Scraper

1. Open the actor on Apify and click Try for free
2. Enter one or more Author Handles (e.g. finstoryai, doomberg, howtogrowanewsletter)
3. Click Start — results appear in the Output tab within seconds

Input

{
  "handles": ["finstoryai", "doomberg", "howtogrowanewsletter"]
}

Also accepts full profile URLs:

{
  "handles": [
    "https://substack.com/@finstoryai",
    "doomberg"
  ]
}

Output

Each item is one author's full public profile:

{
  "id": 346306310,
  "name": "AI In Finance",
  "handle": "finstoryai",
  "previous_name": "Storytelling for Finance",
  "photo_url": "https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/...",
  "bio": "AI is now everyone's problem. But you can catch up...",
  "profile_set_up_at": "2025-05-20T17:04:18.511Z",
  "userLinks": [
    {"type": "linkedin", "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/finstoryai/", "label": "LinkedIn"},
    {"type": null, "url": "https://finstory.ai", "label": "Website"}
  ],
  "publicationUsers": [
    {
      "role": "admin",
      "is_primary": true,
      "publication": {
        "id": 5076800,
        "name": "AI In Finance",
        "subdomain": "finstoryai",
        "hero_text": "Helping CFOs turn numbers into stories...",
        "payments_state": "enabled",
        "created_at": "2025-05-20T17:04:26.053Z"
      }
    }
  ]
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Data table

Field	Description
name	Author display name
handle	Substack handle
bio	Author bio
photo_url	Profile photo URL
profile_set_up_at	Date joined Substack
userLinks	Social links: LinkedIn, Twitter, website, etc.
publicationUsers[].role	Role in publication (admin, contributor)
publicationUsers[].publication.name	Newsletter name
publicationUsers[].publication.subdomain	Newsletter subdomain
publicationUsers[].publication.payments_state	Whether newsletter has paid tier

Finding author handles

The easiest way to find handles:

• From a newsletter URL: howtogrowanewsletter.substack.com → handle is howtogrowanewsletter
• From a profile URL: substack.com/@finstoryai → handle is finstoryai
• Use Substack Newsletter Scraper to discover newsletters, then extract the author_handle field to feed into this actor

Pricing

• $0.05 per run start
• $0.01 per author scraped

Scraping 100 authors costs approximately $1.05.

FAQ & Disclaimers

Is scraping Substack legal? This actor only accesses publicly available profile data through Substack's official API — the same data visible to anyone without logging in.

Can I get email addresses? No — email addresses are private and not exposed in public profiles.

Support: Open an issue in the Issues tab. Custom solutions available on request.