Substack Scraper

Collect posts from any Substack newsletter: title, subtitle, date, authors, likes, comments, restacks, word count and paywall status, with optional full text of free posts. Works with name.substack.com addresses and custom domains.

What can this Substack scraper do?

• 📰 Any newsletter. Use the short name (lenny), the Substack address, or the newsletter's own domain.
• 📈 Engagement data. Likes, comments and restacks for every post, so you can see what resonates.
• 🔒 Paywall status. Know which posts are free and which are for paid subscribers.
• 📝 Full text (optional). The complete text of free posts, and the free preview of paid ones.
• 🏆 Newest or most popular. Track new posts, or pull a newsletter's greatest hits.

Who uses it?

• Writers researching what topics and formats perform in their niche.
• Marketers and investors tracking newsletters in a market.
• Researchers building datasets of newsletter content.

How to scrape Substack

1. Add one or more newsletters.
2. Set Max posts per newsletter and Sort by.
3. Optionally set Posts since and turn on Include post text.
4. Click Start and download the results.

Input example

{
    "publications": ["lenny", "https://www.astralcodexten.com"],
    "maxPostsPerPublication": 100,
    "sort": "new",
    "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
    "includeContent": false
}

Output example

{
    "resultType": "post",
    "publication": "https://lenny.substack.com",
    "postId": 219482066,
    "title": "How to tell if a startup has a moat",
    "url": "https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-tell-if-a-startup-has-a-moat",
    "publishedAt": "2026-10-13T12:45:41.160Z",
    "authors": ["Dan Hockenmaier"],
    "postType": "newsletter",
    "audience": "only_paid",
    "isPaywalled": true,
    "wordCount": 4153,
    "likes": 376,
    "comments": 2,
    "restacks": 22
}

Use it from AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor)

AI assistants can run this Actor as a tool through Apify's MCP server. Add this server URL to any MCP client:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=rsiddiq95/substack-scraper

Then just ask, for example: "List the latest 20 posts from lenny.substack.com with their dates and links." Agent runs cost the same per result as runs from the console.

How much does it cost?

Pay per post collected. See the Pricing tab. Newsletters that return nothing are free.

Limitations

• Paid posts only include their free preview. The Actor never bypasses a paywall.
• Comment text is not collected, only comment counts.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Substack? This Actor reads the same public archive pages any visitor sees. Respect authors' copyright: don't republish full posts without permission.

Something isn't working. Open an issue on the Issues tab with your input.