# Free Spotify Podcast Catalog (`s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog`) Actor - **URL**: https://apify.com/s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog.md - **Developed by:** [SR](https://apify.com/s-r) (community) - **Categories:** Business, Lead generation - **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, NaN bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing Pay per usage This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage ## What's an Apify Actor? Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases. 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. Actors are written with capital "A". ## 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. The best way to integrate Actors is as follows. In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md): ```bash npm install apify-client ``` In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md): ```bash pip install apify-client ``` In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): ````bash # MacOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash # Windows irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex ```bash In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md). If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md). For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below. For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt). # README ## Free Spotify Podcast Catalog — Show Metadata, Episodes & Ratings API Scrape any Spotify podcast for full show metadata, paginated episode list with descriptions, ratings, publisher, topics, and audio preview URLs. The fields the official Spotify Web API leaves blank — average star rating, total ratings count, topic tags, trailer URI, paywall flag — all in one call. $0.012 per podcast. ### What you get - Show metadata: `name`, `publisher`, `description`, `html_description`, `media_type` (audio / video / mixed), `content_type`, `show_types`, `consumption_order` - `rating` — `average` star rating (e.g. `4.7`), `total_ratings` count (e.g. `28,491`), and Spotify's internal `show_average`. **Not in the public Spotify Web API.** - `topics[]` — Spotify's content classification tags (e.g. `True Crime`, `Society & Culture`, `Comedy Interviews`) - `trailer_uri` — direct URI of the show trailer episode if one exists - `cover_art[]` — full size variants with width/height - `share_url` — the canonical share URL - `episodes[]` — paginated episode list with `name`, `description`, `release_date`, `duration_ms`, `audio_preview_url`, `is_paywalled`, `is_trailer`, `is_19_plus`, `has_video`, `playable`, `share_url`, `cover_art[]` - `playability` flag with reason (e.g. why a region-blocked show is unplayable) ### Why scrape Spotify for podcast data Spotify's official Web API returns `name`, `description`, `publisher`, and a thin `episodes` list — but **no ratings**, no topics, no trailer flag, no paywall flag, no audio preview URLs for non-licensee callers, and no `media_type` distinction between audio shows and video shows. For competitive intelligence on the podcast catalog you need the fields Spotify renders to anyone visiting `open.spotify.com/show/`, not the slim public-API subset. This actor uses the same `pathfinder` GraphQL endpoint Spotify's public web player uses, with anonymous embed-token auth. No Spotify account, no Premium subscription, no developer-app OAuth registration. You get every public-facing field including the star rating Spotify displays under the show title. Real value for the typical buyer: a podcast network doing competitive benchmarking against 50 shows in their genre pays $0.60/run and gets average rating + total ratings + topic tags + episode cadence all together. A pitching agency doing host research for guest-booking pulls 500 shows for $6 with publisher + share URLs ready to feed into their CRM. Compared to Listen Notes Pro at $99/month or Podscribe enterprise plans at $500+/month, this actor is dramatically cheaper when you don't need transcription on top. ### Input | Field | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | `shows` | required | Array of Spotify show IDs (22-char), URIs (`spotify:show:`), or `open.spotify.com/show/` URLs (incl. `/intl-xx/` paths) | | `maxEpisodes` | unset (all) | Cap episodes returned per show. Leave blank to fetch the full back catalog. Useful for shows with 1,000+ episodes when you only want recent ones. | | `pageSize` | `50` | Episodes per pagination request, 1-100 | ### Output ```json { "uri": "spotify:show:4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "id": "4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "name": "The Joe Rogan Experience", "publisher": "Joe Rogan", "description": "The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.", "media_type": "MIXED", "content_type": "PODCAST", "music_and_talk": false, "show_types": ["AUDIO", "VIDEO"], "playable": true, "rating": { "average": 4.5, "total_ratings": 184729, "show_average": 4.5 }, "topics": [ {"title": "Society & Culture", "uri": "spotify:topic:..."}, {"title": "Comedy Interviews", "uri": "spotify:topic:..."} ], "cover_art": [ {"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/...", "width": 640, "height": 640} ], "trailer_uri": null, "share_url": "https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "episode_count_fetched": 2178, "episodes": [ { "position": 0, "uri": "spotify:episode:7E9...", "name": "#2245 - Bret Weinstein", "description": "Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist...", "release_date": "2026-04-25T00:00:00Z", "duration_ms": 11483920, "explicit": true, "is_trailer": false, "is_19_plus": false, "is_paywalled": false, "has_video": true, "playable": true, "audio_preview_url": "https://podz-content...", "share_url": "https://open.spotify.com/episode/..." } ] } ```` ### Use cases **Podcast network doing competitive benchmarking** across 50 shows in their vertical (e.g. true-crime, business interview, sports). Run the actor weekly. Track `rating.average`, `rating.total_ratings`, and the release cadence of `episodes[].release_date` to see which competitors are gaining traction, which have stopped publishing, and which topics are recurring across the genre. $0.60 per weekly run vs Listen Notes Pro at $99/month flat. **Guest-booking / podcast PR agency** building target lists for client pitches. Feed in 500 candidate shows from a topic/genre seed list. Filter on `rating.average >= 4.0` and `rating.total_ratings >= 100` to drop dead shows, then use `publisher` + `share_url` for outreach and `topics[]` to match client expertise. $6 a run beats spending a day on ListenNotes manually. **Podcast advertising buyer** vetting inventory before paying ad budget. The publicly-rendered `rating.total_ratings` is a strong proxy for actual listener engagement (vs. the easily-gamed download counts publishers report). Pull 200 shows on a media plan, sort by ratings density (`total_ratings / episode_count_fetched`), and drop the bottom quartile from your buy. $2.40 of due diligence saving you potentially thousands in wasted spend. **Podcast SEO / discovery research** — the `topics[]` array contains Spotify's own categorization, which is what gets used in search/discovery surfacing. If you're launching a new show or relaunching, scrape the top 100 shows in your target topic, look at the topic-tag overlap and the publisher-name patterns, and reverse- engineer how Spotify is shelving content in your category. ### How it compares | Actor / Tool | Price | Episode List | Star Rating | Topics | Audio Preview URL | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | **This actor** | **$0.012 / podcast** | full pagination | yes | yes | yes | | `benthepythondev/spotify-podcast-scraper` (#1 SERP) | per-result | full | partial | no | no | | `apiharvest/spotify-podcasts-search-and-scraper` | per-result | full | yes | yes | partial | | Spotify official Web API | free (with OAuth) | full | **no** | **no** | no | | Listen Notes Pro | $99+ / month flat | yes | yes | yes | yes (own preview) | | Podscribe | $500+ / month flat | yes (w/ transcripts) | yes | yes | yes | The closest competitors are Listen Notes Pro at $99/month and Podscribe / Magellan AI at $500+/month flat-rate enterprise — both charge you whether or not you query. This actor is pay-per-use, so querying 200 shows once costs $2.40, not $99. `apiharvest/spotify-podcasts-search-and-scraper` is the closest feature-equivalent on the Apify Store; it's been refreshed regularly in 2026 and is the actor to beat on quality. We match topic + rating extraction and add the structured `is_paywalled` / `is_19_plus` / `has_video` flags that subscription-podcast and video-podcast researchers care about. ### Pricing - `$0.012` per podcast returned - All pricing is **pay-per-event** — you only pay per result. No actor-start fee. A show with 10 episodes costs the same as a show with 3,000 episodes: one event. - Errors (deleted show, region-blocked, invalid input) are not billed. ### Limits and gotchas - **Anonymous scraping** — no Spotify account, no Premium subscription required. The audio preview URLs returned are the public ones Spotify exposes to logged-out browsers (used for the in-page preview). - **`maxEpisodes` is the right knob** for very long-running shows (Joe Rogan Experience, Daily Wire, etc. have 1,000-3,000+ episodes). Default fetches everything which costs more time. - **Paywalled episodes** still appear in the list with `is_paywalled: true` and `playable: false` — you get metadata but no audio preview URL. - **Region-blocked shows** return a top-level `playable: false` with a `playability_reason`. Episode metadata is still surfaced. - **`rating` may be `null`** for shows under Spotify's minimum review threshold (typically <100 ratings). That's not a scraper bug, it's Spotify hiding the average until enough ratings accumulate. - **Audio podcasts vs video podcasts** — `media_type` is one of `AUDIO`, `VIDEO`, or `MIXED`; `show_types` array tells you which formats individual episodes are available in. - **Cold-start time** is ~5-8s for the first show; subsequent shows reuse the embed token at ~1-2s each + 1s per 50-episode page. ### FAQ **Can I get podcast ratings without the Spotify API?** Yes. The official Spotify Web API does not expose podcast ratings — only show metadata. This actor pulls the exact `average` rating and `total_ratings` integer Spotify displays on the public show page. **Does this scrape episode transcripts?** No. Transcripts are a separate Spotify product (often paywalled to the publisher in Spotify-for-Podcasters) and not exposed in the same GraphQL endpoint. For transcripts at scale, you'd combine this actor (for show + episode discovery) with a transcription tool downstream. **Does this need a Spotify Premium account?** No. Auth uses anonymous embed tokens that any logged-out browser gets. You don't need a Spotify account at all. **What's the cost to track 200 podcasts weekly?** $2.40/week = ~$10/month. Compared to Listen Notes Pro at $99/month or Podscribe at $500+/month, the break-even for monthly cost is around 8,000 podcast-fetches per month. **How fresh is the data?** Live at request time. New episodes appear in this actor's output the moment they're published on Spotify. ### Related Actors - [Free Spotify Artist Analytics](https://apify.com/s-r/free-spotify-artist-analytics) — monthly listeners, world rank, top tracks with playcount - [Free Spotify Playlist Intelligence](https://apify.com/s-r/free-spotify-playlist-intelligence) — playlist tracklists, follower count, editorial flag, run-over-run diff - [Free Spotify Charts Scraper](https://apify.com/s-r/free-spotify-charts) — global Top Tracks / Albums / Artists weekly with rank deltas # Actor input Schema ## `shows` (type: `array`): List of Spotify show IDs (22-char), URIs (spotify:show:...), or open.spotify.com URLs. ## `maxEpisodes` (type: `integer`): Cap episodes per show. Leave blank to fetch all. ## `pageSize` (type: `integer`): Pagination size for episode fetch (1-100). ## Actor input object example ```json { "shows": [ "5Hpc8qDcawOEf4ulCouPau", "https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk" ], "pageSize": 50 } ``` # 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 '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "shows": [ "https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL" ] }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog").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 '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "shows": [ "https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL", ] } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"]) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{ "shows": [ "https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk", "https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL" ] }' | apify call s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=s-r/free-spotify-podcast-catalog", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer " ] } } } ``` ## OpenAPI specification ```json { "openapi": "3.0.1", "info": { "title": "Free Spotify Podcast Catalog", "version": "0.1", "x-build-id": "qdXgsXwApvLVOjSTz" }, "servers": [ { "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2" } ], "paths": { "/acts/s-r~free-spotify-podcast-catalog/run-sync-get-dataset-items": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-s-r-free-spotify-podcast-catalog", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } }, "/acts/s-r~free-spotify-podcast-catalog/runs": { "post": { "operationId": "runs-sync-s-r-free-spotify-podcast-catalog", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK", "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema" } } } } } } }, "/acts/s-r~free-spotify-podcast-catalog/run-sync": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-s-r-free-spotify-podcast-catalog", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } } }, "components": { "schemas": { "inputSchema": { "type": "object", "required": [ "shows" ], "properties": { "shows": { "title": "Spotify shows / podcasts", "type": "array", "description": "List of Spotify show IDs (22-char), URIs (spotify:show:...), or open.spotify.com URLs.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "maxEpisodes": { "title": "Max episodes per show", "minimum": 1, "type": "integer", "description": "Cap episodes per show. Leave blank to fetch all." }, "pageSize": { "title": "Episodes per page", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 100, "type": "integer", "description": "Pagination size for episode fetch (1-100).", "default": 50 } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } } } ```