TikTok Hook Finder

Find the hooks of the most viewed TikTok videos for any niche, product, brand or competitor: the text on screen as each video opens and its first spoken sentence, with views, likes, saves, views per follower, sound, cover and video link. No login or cookies.

$5 per 1,000 videos.

What it's for

• UGC and ad scripts: the openings that already got millions of views in your niche, ready to remake.
• Competitor research: what a competitor's best videos open with, and which sounds they use.
• Swipe files on a schedule: every week's top hooks with Posted within set to the last 7 days.
• Outliers: Most views per follower finds small accounts whose video took off, the hooks that worked on their own.
• AI agents: clean hooks and numbers to write variations from.

Input

Field	What it does
searchQueries	Niches, products or brands; each gives its most liked videos
hashtags	With or without #; each gives the videos TikTok ranks highest for it
profiles	Usernames or profile URLs; each gives its latest videos
maxVideos	Videos per search, hashtag or profile (default 50)
postedWithin	1, 7, 30, 90 (default) or 180 days, or all
minViews	Leave out videos with fewer views
sortBy	views (default), viewsPerFollower or newest
region	Searches rank videos as TikTok does for viewers in this country (default US)
readCoverText	Reads text burned into the cover with AI when TikTok doesn't list it (default on)

Output

One row per video, best first:

{
  "id": "7686177197941329165",
  "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo/video/7686177197941329165",
  "screenText": "decided to take the high road 💅",
  "screenTextSource": "tiktok",
  "spokenHook": "Today. Oh, my god, what is that?",
  "caption": "when they go low i buy a plane 😛 @Brawl Stars",
  "views": 437604,
  "likes": 26185,
  "comments": 1661,
  "shares": 1298,
  "saves": 2930,
  "engagementRate": 0.0733,
  "viewsPerFollower": 0.02,
  "postedAt": "2026-09-16T16:53:13.000Z",
  "duration": 9.7,
  "isSlideshow": false,
  "creator": "duolingo",
  "creatorFollowers": 18323963,
  "sound": "OMG What Is That",
  "soundUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/music/omg-what-is-that-7199364709136026373",
  "hashtags": [],
  "language": "en",
  "coverUrl": "https://p16-common-sign.tiktokcdn.com/...360p.webp?...",
  "videoUrl": "https://v19e.tiktokcdn.com/.../?mime_type=video_mp4&...",
  "screenTextTimeline": [{ "text": "decided to take the high road 💅", "start": 0, "end": 4.1 }],
  "input": "duolingo"
}

screenText is what's on screen in the first seconds, one line per text layer, top to bottom; screenTextTimeline is every text layer and when it shows. screenTextSource is tiktok when the text comes from the video's own text layers, ai when it was read off the cover. spokenHook is the first sentence spoken, from TikTok's captions. engagementRate is likes, comments, shares and saves over views; viewsPerFollower above 1 means the video reached past its creator's audience. Cover and video links expire within a day: download what you keep.

Inputs that can't be read get a row with the reason, free of charge:

{ "input": "some_private_account", "error": "Private profile" }

Price

• $5 per 1,000 videos, cover reading included
• Private, missing or invalid inputs: free

Run	Cost
The top 50 videos of a niche	$0.25
20 niches, 50 videos each	$5
A competitor's last 90 days, 100 videos	$0.50

A run stops at the maximum cost you set for it. On Apify's free plan, a run returns up to 100 videos.

FAQ

Where does the text on screen come from? Text added in TikTok's editor is saved with the video, with the time it shows: it's read from there, exactly. Text added in other editors is burned into the image, so AI reads it off the cover; subtitles of what's being said are left out.

Why do some videos have no spoken hook? TikTok writes captions only for videos with speech it recognizes. Music-only videos have none, and when a song has words, its lyrics can come up.

Why is viewsPerFollower empty for hashtag videos? TikTok leaves the follower count out of hashtag results. Searches and profiles have it.

Can I get a competitor's best formats every week without running it? Competitor UGC tracks the apps you compete with and sends, every Monday, the TikTok formats that keep working for their creators and the ads they've kept running longest.

Do I need a TikTok account? No. It reads what TikTok shows anyone, with no login or cookies.

Is it legal? It reads only public videos. Usernames are personal data under the GDPR and similar laws: use them for a legitimate purpose, and remake hooks rather than copying videos.