# Substack Newsletter Scraper · Find Active Newsletters + Leads (`thequietstack/substack-scraper`) Actor

Find Substack newsletters by keyword or category and qualify them in one row: subscriber figure, paid-subscriber band, bestseller tier, paid price, last post date, posts per 30/90 days, median likes and comments. Optional post rows. No login.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/thequietstack/substack-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [TheQuietStack](https://apify.com/thequietstack) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 scraped newsletters

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Substack Newsletter Scraper · Find Active Newsletters + Leads

Find Substack newsletters by **keyword**, **category leaderboard** or **URL**, and get **one qualified row per newsletter**: public subscriber figure, paid-subscriber band, Bestseller tier, paid price, last post date, posting frequency and median engagement per post. Dead newsletters and ones outside your size range are filtered out **before** you pay for them. No login, no API key.

Built for sponsorship buyers, newsletter-swap and cross-promotion outreach, PR lists, and anyone researching a Substack niche.

### Why this scraper

- **Qualified, not just listed.** A keyword search on Substack returns plenty of newsletters with 0–100 subscribers and no post in a year. Every row here carries `daysSinceLastPost`, `postsLast30Days`, `postsLast90Days`, `medianLikes`, `medianComments`, `medianRestacks` and `likesPer1kSubscribers`, so you can sort by *who is actually read*, not by who has the biggest headline number. Measured on 23 Sep 2026 for the search term "ai marketing": one newsletter shows **107K+ subscribers** and gets a median of **0 likes** per post; another with **9.3K+** gets a median of **73.5**.
- **Paid-side signals in one row.** Substack's own paid-subscriber band (e.g. *"Tens of thousands of paid subscribers"*), the Bestseller tier (100+ / 1,000+ / 10,000+ paid), and the monthly, yearly and founding-member price.
- **Filters that save money.** `minSubscribers`, `maxSubscribers`, `activeWithinDays`, `onlyPaidEnabled`, `onlyBestsellers`, `languages`. Filtered-out newsletters are **never charged**.
- **No silently missing posts.** Substack's archive API returned only 23 of 50 posts for a `limit=50` request in our tests (23 Sep 2026), without any error. This Actor pages in steps of 20, which returned every post.
- **Custom domains work.** `lennysnewsletter.com`, `noahpinion.blog` or `@handle` — if a custom domain fails, the `*.substack.com` address is tried as a fallback. Publications that have left Substack are listed in the run summary instead of failing silently.

### Input example

```json
{
    "searchTerms": ["ai marketing"],
    "categories": ["technology"],
    "categoryRanking": "paid",
    "newsletters": ["https://www.lennysnewsletter.com", "@noahpinion"],
    "minSubscribers": 1000,
    "activeWithinDays": 30,
    "maxNewsletters": 200
}
```

Set `"includePosts": true` to also get one row per post (title, URL, date, likes, comments, restacks, paywalled flag, word count, preview text).

### Output example (newsletter row, measured 23 Sep 2026)

```json
{
    "name": "Lenny's Newsletter",
    "url": "https://www.lennysnewsletter.com",
    "authorName": "Lenny Rachitsky",
    "authorProfileUrl": "https://substack.com/@lenny",
    "twitter": "https://x.com/lennysan",
    "subscribersShown": 1200000,
    "subscribersLabel": "1.2M+",
    "paidSubscribersBand": "Tens of thousands of paid subscribers",
    "paidSubscribersAtLeast": 10000,
    "isBestseller": true,
    "bestsellerTier": "10,000+ paid subscribers",
    "priceMonthly": 20,
    "priceYearly": 200,
    "priceFoundingMember": 400,
    "priceCurrency": "USD",
    "lastPostDate": "2026-09-22T12:45:14.998Z",
    "daysSinceLastPost": 1,
    "postsLast30Days": 4,
    "postsLast90Days": 11,
    "postsAnalyzed": 20,
    "medianLikes": 453,
    "medianComments": 6.5,
    "medianRestacks": 24.5,
    "likesPer1kSubscribers": 0.38,
    "paywalledShare": 0.75,
    "topPostTitle": "How to turn your AI into a world-class designer",
    "topPostLikes": 1011,
    "source": "url:https://www.lennysnewsletter.com"
}
```

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `subscribersShown` / `subscribersLabel` | The subscriber figure the newsletter shows publicly ("1.2M+"). **Substack rounds it and it is a floor, not an exact count.** `null` when the writer hides it. |
| `paidSubscribersBand` | Substack's own paid band text, e.g. "Hundreds of paid subscribers". `null` when not shown. |
| `bestsellerTier` | Bestseller badge: 100+, 1,000+ or 10,000+ paid subscribers. |
| `priceMonthly` / `priceYearly` / `priceFoundingMember` | Paid plan prices in `priceCurrency`. |
| `postsLast30Days` / `postsLast90Days` | Posts published in that window — exact, or `null` if the newsletter posts so often that the window exceeds 100 posts; `postsLast90DaysAtLeast` then gives the lower bound. |
| `medianLikes` / `medianComments` / `medianRestacks` | Median over the latest `postsToAnalyze` posts that are older than 48 hours. |
| `likesPer1kSubscribers` | Median likes per 1,000 shown subscribers — an engagement *indicator*, based on the rounded subscriber figure. |
| `paywalledShare` | Share of analyzed posts that are for paid subscribers only. |
| `source` | Which search term, category or URL found this newsletter. |

A run summary (`SUMMARY` in the key-value store) lists candidates per source, how many newsletters each filter dropped, failed publications with the reason, and HTTP status counts.

### Honest limits

- **Public data only.** Paywalled posts are returned as metadata (title, date, likes, comments, word count, preview) — never their full text. No login, no paywall access.
- **Subscriber numbers are Substack's rounded public figures.** Nobody outside Substack has the exact count; we label the field accordingly instead of pretending.
- **Keyword search depth:** Substack's search returns about 80 publications per term. Use several terms or the category leaderboards (up to 525 per category) for bigger lists.
- Substack rate-limits fast clients. The Actor keeps concurrency low, retries with backoff and a fresh proxy IP; failures are listed in the summary, not hidden.

### Pricing (pay per event)

- Actor start: small flat fee per run
- Per scraped newsletter: charged only for newsletters that pass your filters and are written to the dataset
- Per scraped post: only when post rows are switched on

# Actor input Schema

## `searchTerms` (type: `array`):

Keywords, searched with Substack's own search. Substack returns up to ~80 publications per term; use several terms for bigger lists.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Substack category slugs, e.g. technology, business, finance, culture, health, science, crypto, education. Up to 525 publications per category.

## `categoryRanking` (type: `string`):

Which leaderboard to read: all subscribers or paid subscribers (Bestsellers).

## `newsletters` (type: `array`):

Publication URLs (custom domains work), subdomains ("lenny"), post URLs or @handles.

## `maxNewslettersPerSource` (type: `integer`):

Candidates taken from each source before filtering.

## `minSubscribers` (type: `integer`):

Only newsletters whose public subscriber figure is at least this. Newsletters that hide their count are dropped when this is set. Filtered-out newsletters are not charged.

## `maxSubscribers` (type: `integer`):

Skip newsletters above this public subscriber figure (useful for finding mid-size partners).

## `activeWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Drop newsletters whose latest post is older than this. Dead newsletters are not charged.

## `onlyPaidEnabled` (type: `boolean`):

Only newsletters that sell paid subscriptions.

## `onlyBestsellers` (type: `boolean`):

Bestseller badge = 100+, 1,000+ or 10,000+ paid subscribers.

## `languages` (type: `array`):

Two-letter language codes (en, de, es ...). Empty = all.

## `postsToAnalyze` (type: `integer`):

Median likes/comments/restacks are computed over this many latest posts that are older than 48 hours.

## `includePosts` (type: `boolean`):

Adds one row per post (title, URL, date, likes, comments, restacks, paywalled flag, word count, preview). Charged per post.

## `maxPostsPerNewsletter` (type: `integer`):

Only used with post rows.

## `postsSinceDate` (type: `string`):

Only used with post rows.

## `maxNewsletters` (type: `integer`):

The run stops cleanly at this number. You are never charged for more.

## `maxPosts` (type: `integer`):

Only used with post rows. The run stops cleanly at this number; you are never charged for more.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Kept low on purpose to stay within Substack's rate limits.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Default: Apify datacenter proxy, fresh IP on every retry.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchTerms": [
    "ai marketing",
    "personal finance"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "technology"
  ],
  "categoryRanking": "all",
  "newsletters": [
    "https://www.lennysnewsletter.com",
    "@lenny",
    "noahpinion"
  ],
  "maxNewslettersPerSource": 50,
  "onlyPaidEnabled": false,
  "onlyBestsellers": false,
  "postsToAnalyze": 20,
  "includePosts": false,
  "maxPostsPerNewsletter": 50,
  "maxNewsletters": 200,
  "maxPosts": 2000,
  "concurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `newsletters` (type: `string`):

Qualified newsletters: subscribers, paid band, bestseller tier, price, activity, engagement, contact links.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Candidates per source, how many each filter dropped, failed publications, HTTP status counts.

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchTerms": [
        "ai marketing"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("thequietstack/substack-scraper").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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchTerms": ["ai marketing"],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("thequietstack/substack-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchTerms": [
    "ai marketing"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call thequietstack/substack-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,thequietstack/substack-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/E7d5YeukBnSv40yl6/builds/eUYkj6XrNEt2W81XE/openapi.json