Substack Publications & Newsletters Scraper

Here is one real result, with every field the actor returns:

{
  "publicationName": "ByteByteGo Newsletter",
  "author": "Alex Xu",
  "authorHandle": "bytebytego",
  "authorBio": "Author of 3 Bestselling Books | Co-Founder of ByteByteGo",
  "category": "technology",
  "categoryName": "Technology",
  "subscriberRank": 1,
  "bestsellerTier": 0,
  "badgeType": "subscriber",
  "badgeTier": 1,
  "isPaid": true,
  "subscriberCountEstimate": null,
  "type": "newsletter",
  "language": "en",
  "hasPodcast": false,
  "inviteOnly": false,
  "monthlyPriceUsd": 15,
  "annualPriceUsd": 150,
  "foundingPriceUsd": 300,
  "paidBenefits": [
    "An extra deep dive on Thursdays",
    "Full archive",
    "Many expense it with team's learning budget"
  ],
  "freeBenefits": ["One issue every Saturday"],
  "description": "Explain complex systems with simple terms, from the authors of the best-selling system design book series. Join over 1,000,000 friendly readers.",
  "publicationUrl": "https://blog.bytebytego.com",
  "customDomain": "blog.bytebytego.com",
  "subdomain": "bytebytego",
  "twitterHandle": "alexxubyte",
  "copyright": "ByteByteGo",
  "foundedDate": "2022-03-27T03:36:45.845Z",
  "firstPostDate": "2021-11-25T17:31:00.000Z",
  "logoUrl": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1eXV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8a5609ae-1239-4400-9491-6010a15c4d60_504x504.png",
  "coverPhotoUrl": "https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a4e1c1bd-03ee-4126-b3e4-19553b2d2fc6_1279x821.png",
  "authorPhotoUrl": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!90Cx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F10cd1afb-9a92-433e-bbf4-f726eb8ffdb3_375x375.jpeg",
  "publicationId": "817132",
  "authorId": "22329494",
  "source": "Substack",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-10T14:32:04.032Z"
}

The most complete Substack publications scraper available. It returns every field the category leaderboards expose for a publication, plus pricing, benefits, badge and rank data, author bio and contacts, and gives you category and volume inputs to target exactly the newsletters you need.

📥 Input · 📤 Output · 💰 Pricing · ▶️ Examples

Table of contents

• What it does
• Quickstart
• Input reference
• Output reference
• Example output record
• Run via API and CLI
• Fetch results
• Billing and limits
• FAQ and troubleshooting

What it does

The actor reads the ranked category leaderboards on Substack for every category you list, resolves each ranked publication to its full public profile, and writes one normalized record per publication to the run's dataset. Prices are captured in USD, subscriber rank and bestseller tier come from the leaderboard, and author bio, handle, and contact fields are pulled from the publication profile. Missing source values are returned as null.

Data covers publicly ranked Substack publications by category. One run collects the ranked publications for every category listed, up to maxPublications in total.

Quickstart

Open the actor, paste this into the input, and press Run. It returns up to 10 top publications across the Technology and Business leaderboards.

{
  "categories": ["technology", "business"],
  "maxPublications": 10
}

Use category slugs such as technology, business, finance, crypto, news, culture, health, sports, us-politics. Both inputs are optional; with an empty input the actor uses the default categories and returns up to 10 publications.

Input reference

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
categories	string[]	no	["technology","business"]	One or more Substack category leaderboards to scrape, by slug (for example technology, business, finance, crypto, news, culture, health, sports, us-politics). One run collects the ranked publications for every category listed.
maxPublications	integer	no	10	Maximum number of publications to collect across all categories in this run. Range 1 to 1000000.

Output reference

One dataset item per publication. Types: string, integer, boolean, string[], or null when the source value is absent.

Field	Type	Description
publicationName	string	Publication name.
author	string	Primary author display name.
authorHandle	string	Author handle.
authorBio	string	Author bio text, or null.
category	string	Category slug the ranking came from.
categoryName	string	Human-readable category name.
subscriberRank	integer	Rank within the category leaderboard.
bestsellerTier	integer	Bestseller tier value.
badgeType	string	Badge type (for example subscriber), or null.
badgeTier	integer	Badge tier value, or null.
isPaid	boolean	Whether the publication has a paid subscription.
subscriberCountEstimate	integer	Estimated subscriber count when exposed, else null.
type	string	Publication type (for example newsletter).
language	string	Publication language code.
hasPodcast	boolean	Whether the publication has a podcast.
inviteOnly	boolean	Whether the publication is invite-only.
monthlyPriceUsd	integer	Monthly subscription price in USD, or null if free.
annualPriceUsd	integer	Annual subscription price in USD, or null.
foundingPriceUsd	integer	Founding-member price in USD, or null.
paidBenefits	string[]	Listed benefits of a paid subscription.
freeBenefits	string[]	Listed benefits of a free subscription.
description	string	Publication description.
publicationUrl	string	Canonical publication URL.
customDomain	string	Custom domain, or null.
subdomain	string	Substack subdomain.
twitterHandle	string	Linked Twitter/X handle, or null.
copyright	string	Copyright holder text, or null.
foundedDate	string	ISO timestamp the publication was founded.
firstPostDate	string	ISO timestamp of the first post.
logoUrl	string	Publication logo image URL.
coverPhotoUrl	string	Cover photo image URL, or null.
authorPhotoUrl	string	Author photo image URL, or null.
publicationId	string	Substack publication ID.
authorId	string	Substack author ID.
source	string	Data source. Always Substack.
observedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was collected.
error	string	Present only on a failed run; a single item with a populated error field is written instead.

Example output record

Real record from a live run (input {"categories": ["technology", "business"], "maxPublications": 10}):

{
  "publicationName": "ByteByteGo Newsletter",
  "author": "Alex Xu",
  "authorHandle": "bytebytego",
  "authorBio": "Author of 3 Bestselling Books | Co-Founder of ByteByteGo",
  "category": "technology",
  "categoryName": "Technology",
  "subscriberRank": 1,
  "isPaid": true,
  "type": "newsletter",
  "language": "en",
  "monthlyPriceUsd": 15,
  "annualPriceUsd": 150,
  "foundingPriceUsd": 300,
  "freeBenefits": ["One issue every Saturday"],
  "description": "Explain complex systems with simple terms, from the authors of the best-selling system design book series. Join over 1,000,000 friendly readers.",
  "publicationUrl": "https://blog.bytebytego.com",
  "customDomain": "blog.bytebytego.com",
  "twitterHandle": "alexxubyte",
  "foundedDate": "2022-03-27T03:36:45.845Z",
  "firstPostDate": "2021-11-25T17:31:00.000Z",
  "publicationId": "817132",
  "authorId": "22329494",
  "source": "Substack",
  "observedAt": "2026-08-10T14:32:04.032Z"
}

Run via API and CLI

Start a run and wait for it to finish, then read the dataset. Replace <TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

Run synchronously and get dataset items in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~substack-publications-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"categories":["technology","business"],"maxPublications":10}'

Start a run asynchronously:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/scrapers_lat~substack-publications-scraper/runs?token=<TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"categories":["finance","crypto"],"maxPublications":100}'

Apify CLI:

apify call scrapers_lat/substack-publications-scraper \
  --input '{"categories":["us-politics"],"maxPublications":25}'

Fetch results

Every run writes to a dataset. Fetch items as JSON, CSV, or Excel by changing format:

# JSON
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=json"

# CSV
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&clean=true&format=csv"

# Paginate large datasets
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?token=<TOKEN>&offset=1000&limit=1000"

<DATASET_ID> is returned as defaultDatasetId in the run object. Use offset and limit to page through large result sets. clean=true drops empty and internal fields.

Billing and limits

• Pay per result. You are charged per publication returned (result event). See the pricing tab for the current per-result price.
• No charge on failure. If a run errors, the actor writes a single item with a populated error field and does not charge for it. Empty runs cost nothing.
• Spend cap respected. Set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run; once reached, the actor stops emitting and charging further billable results.
• Free Apify plans are capped at 10 publications per run. Upgrade for higher maxPublications.

FAQ and troubleshooting

A run returned 0 records. Why? The category slug did not match a Substack leaderboard. Check the spelling (for example us-politics, not politics). Zero-result runs are not charged.

Which categories can I use? Any Substack category leaderboard slug, for example technology, business, finance, crypto, news, culture, health, sports, us-politics. List several to collect them all in one run.

Why is subscriberCountEstimate null? Substack does not expose an exact subscriber count for every publication. When it is not available it is returned as null, never invented.

Why are the price fields null? The publication is free or does not publish a paid tier. Paid publications populate monthlyPriceUsd, annualPriceUsd, and often foundingPriceUsd.

Is this an official Substack tool? No. This actor is independent and has no affiliation with Substack. It reads only data that is publicly available on the category leaderboards and publication pages.

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More scrapers at scrapers.lat

Built and maintained by scrapers.lat, where we publish scrapers for US and Latin American public platforms: company registries, government data, finance, e-commerce and more. Browse the catalog or request a custom scraper at scrapers.lat.

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Independent tool, not affiliated with Substack. Accesses only publicly available leaderboard and publication data.