Substack Scraper ($0.99/1K Results)

Substack Scraper ✍️

Substack Scraper collects newsletters, posts, and writer profiles from Substack and turns them into a clean, downloadable dataset — titles, full article text, authors, publication details, subscriber numbers, engagement counts, and reader comments. Whether you are researching a niche, finding writers to work with, or tracking what your competitors publish, this Substack Scraper gathers it all in one run.

No coding and no Substack account needed. Paste a link, press Run, and download the results as a spreadsheet or JSON file.

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🚀 Why Choose This Substack Scraper?

Feature	What It Means for You
✅ Three Kinds of Link	Works as a Substack search scraper, a Substack publication scraper, and a Substack profile scraper — it recognises each link automatically
✅ Full Article Text	The Substack post scraper brings back complete article bodies, not just headlines
✅ Audience Numbers	See Substack subscriber counts, follower counts, and bestseller tiers for writers and publications
✅ Comments Included	Optionally collect reader replies under each post
✅ Any Domain	Handles both something.substack.com and newsletters on their own custom domains
✅ Spreadsheet-Ready	Clear, well-labelled columns let you export Substack data to CSV, Excel, or JSON instantly

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🔑 Key Features of the Substack Scraper

• 🔎 Search Any Topic — paste a Substack search link and the Substack search scraper collects every matching result
• 📰 Whole Newsletters — point the Substack publication scraper at any newsletter and it works through the archive
• 👤 Writer Profiles — the Substack profile scraper returns bio, audience size, social links, and their main publication
• 📄 Complete Article Bodies — full text and formatted versions of each post, so you can read and analyse offline
• 💬 Reader Comments — switch on replies to collect the discussion under each article
• 📊 Engagement Data — likes, comments, and restack counts for every post
• 💰 Free or Paid — each post is marked as free or subscriber-only, so you know what sits behind a paywall
• 🎧 Podcast Support — audio links and episode durations for newsletters that publish podcasts
• 🏷️ Tags and Topics — the labels each publication applies to its own posts
• 📈 Sort Your Way — choose the most popular results or the most recent ones
• 🌐 Custom Domains Handled — newsletters that moved to their own web address are recognised automatically
• 📝 Word Counts — article length is recorded, which is handy for newsletter research and content benchmarking
• 🎯 Set Your Own Size — collect a handful of posts for a quick look, or a whole archive for deep analysis
• 🔁 Repeatable Runs — save your settings and scrape Substack posts again whenever you want a fresh snapshot
• 🧾 Consistent Columns — every run uses the same layout, so your Substack data extraction stacks neatly over time

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📝 Input

Everything can be set up with the simple form in the Apify Console. If you prefer to enter settings directly, this is what a full configuration looks like:

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://substack.com/search/climate%20tech",
    "https://www.thedispatch.com",
    "https://example.substack.com",
    "https://substack.com/@janedoe"
  ],
  "result_type": "top",
  "limit": 100,
  "enrich_data": true,
  "get_replies": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 5
}

Input Settings

Setting	Type	Default	What It Does
startUrls	list	—	The links to collect. Each can be a search page, a newsletter, or a writer's profile — the Substack Scraper works out which is which.
result_type	text	top	How results are ordered: top for the most popular and relevant, or new for the most recent. Applies to searches and newsletter archives.
limit	number	—	The most records to collect for each link you supply.
enrich_data	yes/no	true	Fetch each post in full so the complete article text is included. Slower, but far richer. Leave it on unless you only need headlines.
get_replies	yes/no	false	Also collect the comments under each post, attached to the post's row.
maxConcurrency	number	—	How many pages to work on at once. Lower it if you want gentler, slower runs.

💡 Tip: you can mix all three link types in one run. Add a search, two newsletters, and a writer's profile together, and the Substack Scraper handles each correctly.

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📦 Output

The Substack Scraper writes one row per record. Each row is a post, a publication, or a profile, marked by the type column, which keeps results simple to separate and export Substack data to CSV. Here is one post row:

[
  {
    "id": "148392017",
    "type": "post",
    "title": "Why grid storage is the real bottleneck",
    "subtitle": "Batteries are cheap now. Connecting them is not.",
    "description": "Batteries are cheap now. Connecting them is not.",
    "published_at": "2026-03-02T11:00:00.000Z",
    "url": "https://climatecurrent.substack.com/p/why-grid-storage-is-the-real-bottleneck",
    "author_name": "Jane Doe",
    "author_handle": "janedoe",
    "publication_name": "Climate Current",
    "image_url": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/cover.jpg",
    "post_type": "newsletter",
    "audience": "everyone",
    "is_paid": false,
    "reaction_count": 412,
    "comment_count": 58,
    "restack_count": 76,
    "wordcount": 2140,
    "language": "en",
    "slug": "why-grid-storage-is-the-real-bottleneck",
    "tags": ["Energy", "Policy"],
    "podcast_url": null,
    "body_text": "Battery cell prices have fallen by more than 80% in a decade...",
    "replies": [
      {
        "body_text": "The interconnection queue point is underrated.",
        "author_name": "Sam Patel"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Post Columns

Column	Type	What It Contains
id	text	Substack's own identifier for the post
type	text	post, publication, or profile
title	text	The article headline
subtitle	text	The standfirst shown beneath the headline
description	text	The summary used in previews and social shares
published_at	text	When the post was published
url	text	A clickable link to the article
author_name	text	Who wrote it
author_handle	text	Their Substack handle
publication_name	text	The newsletter it appeared in
image_url	text	The article's cover image
published_bylines	list	Every contributor, for co-written posts
post_type	text	Whether it is a newsletter, podcast, or thread
audience	text	Who can read it, such as everyone or paying subscribers only
is_paid	yes/no	true when the post sits behind a paywall
reaction_count	number	How many likes it received
comment_count	number	How many comments it received
restack_count	number	How many times readers reshared it
wordcount	number	How long the article is
language	text	The language it was written in
tags / post_tags	list	Topic labels applied by the publication
podcast_url	text	The audio file, for podcast posts
podcast_duration	number	Episode length in seconds
body_text	text	The complete article as plain readable text
body_html	text	The same article with its original formatting
replies	list	Reader comments, when reply collection is switched on
updated_at	text	When the post was last edited

Publication and Profile Columns

Column	Type	What It Contains
type	text	publication for newsletters, profile for writers
title	text	The newsletter name, or the writer's name
description	text	The newsletter tagline, or the writer's bio
url	text	A clickable link to the newsletter or profile
author_name	text	Who runs it
author_bio	text	Their written biography
subscriber_count	number	How many subscribers they have
subscriber_count_string	text	The same figure as displayed, e.g. 12K
follower_count	number	How many people follow the writer
free_subscriber_count	number	How many subscribers are on the free tier
bestseller_tier	number	Substack's bestseller badge level, when awarded
publication_type	text	The kind of publication it is
tier	text	Which paid tiers it offers
has_podcast	yes/no	Whether it publishes audio episodes
custom_domain	text	Its own web address, when it has moved off substack.com
subdomain	text	Its something.substack.com name
first_post_date	text	When it started publishing
twitter_screen_name	text	The writer's X/Twitter handle
user_links	list	Other links the writer lists on their profile
image_url	text	The logo, cover photo, or profile picture

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🚀 How to Use the Substack Scraper (Step by Step)

1. Sign in — go to console.apify.com and open the Actors tab.
2. Open the actor — search for Substack Scraper and click its card.
3. Add your links — paste search pages, newsletter addresses, writer profiles, or a mixture of all three.
4. Choose your order — the most popular results, or the most recent.
5. Set your size — decide how many records to collect per link. Start small to review the output.
6. Choose your depth — leave full article text on for complete posts, or switch it off for faster headline-only runs.
7. Add comments — switch on replies if you want reader discussion included.
8. Press Run and download — open the OUTPUT tab and save as CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, or RSS.

No coding required — the Substack Scraper gives you a complete dataset in minutes.

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🎯 What Makes This Substack Scraper Different

• 🧠 It Recognises Your Links — you do not have to say what each link is; the Substack Scraper works out whether it is a search, a newsletter, or a profile
• 📄 Whole Articles, Not Snippets — full body text means you can genuinely read and analyse content, which most tools skip
• 🌐 Custom Domains Handled — newsletters that moved to their own address are still collected properly, where many tools simply fail
• 📊 Audience Data Attached — subscriber and follower numbers arrive with each writer, so your Substack data extraction supports real comparisons
• 💰 Paywall Clarity — every post states whether it is free or paid, so you always know what you are looking at
• 🎧 Podcasts Are Not Forgotten — audio links and durations come through for newsletters that publish episodes
• 🧵 Comments in Context — replies stay attached to their post rather than arriving as a disconnected list
• 🎚️ Speed You Control — turn full text on or off, and set how many pages run at once, to balance depth against time
• 📬 Built for Newsletters — as a Substack newsletter scraper it understands archives, paywall tiers, and podcast posts, not just generic web pages

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💡 Best Use Cases for the Substack Scraper

• 📚 Competitive Content Analysis — scrape Substack posts from rival newsletters to see what topics and formats they use
• 🤝 Writer and Creator Discovery — find newsletters in your niche and check their real audience size before reaching out
• 📢 Sponsorship Research — compare Substack subscriber counts and engagement to judge whether a placement is worth its price
• 📈 Topic and Trend Tracking — follow how a subject is covered across many publications over time
• ✍️ Content Planning — use newsletter research to spot which angles attract the most reactions and restacks
• 🎙️ Podcast Discovery — the Substack newsletter scraper surfaces which publications also publish audio
• 🔬 Media and Academic Research — build a corpus of full articles with dates, authors, and engagement attached
• 💬 Audience Insight — collect comments to hear what readers actually say, not just what writers publish
• 🗄️ Archive Building — point the Substack post scraper at your own newsletter to keep a complete offline backup of everything you have written
• 📥 Dashboards and Reports — export Substack data to CSV and load it straight into your reporting tool

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🔧 Good to Know

A few practical notes before you run the Substack Scraper:

• What you can start from
  • A Substack search page
  • A newsletter address, on substack.com or its own custom domain
  • A writer's profile page
• Download formats
  • CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, and RSS
• Please note
  • ❌ Subscriber-only articles cannot be read in full — paid posts return their public preview, and the is_paid column tells you which ones
  • ❌ Private subscriber lists and email addresses are never collected
  • ℹ️ Full article text makes runs noticeably slower, since each post is fetched individually
  • ℹ️ Comment collection adds further time, so combine it with a sensible limit
  • ℹ️ Very large archives take a while, so start with a small limit to confirm the output looks right

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🤝 Support & Feature Requests

Need a hand, or have an idea for the Substack Scraper?

• 💡 Feature Requests — want date filtering, scheduled monitoring, or cross-newsletter comparison reports? Just ask.
• 📧 Contact — email us at scrapershub@gmail.com.

Your feedback shapes what we build next and helps keep this the most useful Substack Scraper on the Apify Store.

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Start today with the most complete Substack Scraper available — posts, newsletters, writers, and comments in one run.

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Disclaimer

This Substack Scraper collects information only from publicly available pages. It does not access paywalled article bodies, private subscriber lists, email addresses, or any password-protected content. Articles remain the property of their authors, and you are responsible for respecting copyright, Substack's terms of service, and applicable data privacy laws when using what you collect.

For data removal requests, please contact scrapershub@gmail.com. Always use these tools responsibly, ethically, and for legitimate purposes only.