YouTube Comments Scraper

Get YouTube comments with likes, replies and author details — no API key, no quota, no login. Point it at video URLs and get a clean table.

The official YouTube Data API gives you 10,000 quota units a day and cuts you off. This Actor has no quota.

How to use

1. Sign up for Apify — the free plan's monthly credit is enough to try this Actor.
2. Open YouTube Comments Scraper, fill in the input (the form is pre-filled with a working example) and click Start.
3. Watch results stream into the dataset table while the run is going.
4. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML or RSS — or pull the results from your own code with the Apify API.

What can you do with YouTube comments data?

• Audience research — what people actually say under your videos or your competitors'.
• Sentiment and complaint mining — use searchTerms to keep only comments mentioning a product, a bug or a competitor.
• Find your top fans — sort by likes, see who is verified and whose comments the creator hearted.
• Spam and moderation review — pull everything and filter offline.

How to scrape YouTube comments

Field	What it does
videos	Video URLs or IDs. Shorts and live replays work too
sortBy	top (default) or newest
maxCommentsPerVideo	Stop after N comments per video
includeReplies	Also fetch replies; each reply carries parentCommentId
maxRepliesPerComment	Cap replies per thread (default 10)
minLikes	Only comments with at least this many likes
searchTerms	Only comments containing one of these words
maxResults	Total limit across all videos

Input reference

Every option at a glance. A minimal input that works as-is:

{
  "videos": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "sortBy": "top",
  "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100,
  "maxRepliesPerComment": 10,
  "maxResults": 1000
}

All fields:

• videos (YouTube videos) — Video URLs or IDs, e.g. “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ”. Shorts and live replays work too.
• sortBy (Sort by) — Top comments first, or newest first. Options: top (Top comments), newest (Newest first); default "top".
• maxCommentsPerVideo (Max comments per video) — Stop after this many comments for each video (replies count toward it). Default 100.
• includeReplies (Include replies) — Also fetch replies under each comment. Every reply carries its parentCommentId. Default false.
• maxRepliesPerComment (Max replies per comment) — Only used when replies are on. Default 10.
• minLikes (Min likes) — Only keep comments with at least this many likes.
• searchTerms (Only comments containing) — Keep only comments that contain one of these words. Useful for finding complaints or product mentions.
• onlyNewComments (Only comments that are new) — Monitoring mode. Remembers the comments you already pulled for each video and returns only new ones (newest first). Run it on a schedule to watch reactions — you pay only for new comments. Default false.
• maxResults (Max results) — Total limit across all videos. Default 1000.
• proxy (Proxy) — Apify Proxy is used by default — YouTube blocks datacenter requests without it.

What the YouTube comments output looks like

One row per comment. Real example from this Actor:

{
  "videoId": "9bZkp7q19f0",
  "videoTitle": "PSY - GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0",
  "channelName": "officialpsy",
  "channelId": "UCrDkAvwZum-UTjHmzDI2iIw",
  "commentCount": 5464686,
  "commentId": "UgxDQhg6iDM9Dt4EdLN4AaABAg",
  "text": "The person that first commented on this video must feel like the king of the world",
  "publishedTimeText": "7 years ago",
  "isReply": false,
  "replyLevel": 0,
  "authorName": "@SportyKid101",
  "authorChannelId": "UC2WIwCq-eaFLOY-GjvvwpzQ",
  "authorChannelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2WIwCq-eaFLOY-GjvvwpzQ",
  "authorIsVerified": false,
  "authorIsChannelOwner": false,
  "likeCount": 113000,
  "likeCountText": "113K",
  "replyCount": 566,
  "isHeartedByCreator": false,
  "parentCommentId": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-19T00:21:30.612Z"
}

isHeartedByCreator, authorIsVerified and authorIsChannelOwner tell you who the creator engaged with. commentCount is the video's total, so you always know what share you pulled.

How fast is it and how much does it cost to scrape YouTube comments?

60 comments from 2 videos took 8 seconds. You are charged per comment returned, and minLikes / searchTerms filter before you pay.

How to monitor YouTube comments for changes

Turn on onlyNewComments and the Actor remembers the comments it already returned for each video, and switches to newest-first. On the next run you get only comments posted since — a cheap way to watch reactions to a launch.

Limits you should know about

• Videos with comments turned off are reported with a warning and not charged.
• Like counts come from YouTube's own rounded display ("317K"); likeCount is that number parsed, likeCountText keeps the original.
• Relative times ("1 year ago") are what YouTube returns for comments; exact timestamps are not public.

Pricing — what you pay per comment

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: no monthly rental, you pay for the results you get. Prices per 1,000 results by Apify plan:

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold+
comment — One YouTube comment or reply with likes, author and reply count	$0.50	$0.45	$0.425	$0.40

There is also a small start fee of $0.00005 per GB of memory ($0.00005 per run at the default 1 GB). Platform compute is included in the price — you are not billed separately for run time. Set a maximum total charge on the run if you want a hard cap, and use the input limits to control how much is fetched. The current prices are always on the Pricing tab.

Tips

• Start with a small maxResults (say 20) to check the output, then raise it — you only pay per result.
• For ongoing tracking, schedule the Actor and turn on onlyNewComments so each run returns only what is new.
• Keep the default proxy setting — it is only used as a fallback when a direct request is blocked.
• Rows the Actor cannot read are logged and skipped, never charged — check the run log if a count looks low.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API — start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python — official SDKs.
• Schedules — run it on a cron to keep your data fresh.
• Webhooks — trigger downstream actions the moment a run finishes.

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('tindacloud/youtube-comments-scraper').call({
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ],
    "sortBy": "top",
    "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100,
    "maxRepliesPerComment": 10,
    "maxResults": 1000
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("MY_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("tindacloud/youtube-comments-scraper").call(run_input={
    "videos": [
        "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
    ],
    "sortBy": "top",
    "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100,
    "maxRepliesPerComment": 10,
    "maxResults": 1000
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

cURL — run and get the results in one request:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tindacloud~youtube-comments-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=MY_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"videos": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "sortBy": "top", "maxCommentsPerVideo": 100, "maxRepliesPerComment": 10, "maxResults": 1000}'

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps — no code required:

• Make — multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier — push new records straight into your CRM or sheet.
• n8n — self-hosted workflows.
• Slack — get notified when a run finishes or finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets — auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte — pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub — trigger runs from commits or releases.
• Webhooks — call your own endpoint when a run succeeds or fails.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

The output is clean, LLM-ready JSON. Call this Actor from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any agent framework through the Apify MCP server — ask your assistant to "pull the comments on this video and tell me what viewers liked and disliked" and let it run this Actor for you.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This Actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it and pay for it on their own. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic payments:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay in USDC through the Apify MCP server — no Apify account needed.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments with pre-funded Skyfire tokens.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool or data pipeline? This Actor is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Ready-made examples

Open one, change the fields, press Start — nothing to configure:

• Scrape YouTube comments of a video
• Analyze YouTube comments for sentiment
• Find comments mentioning a keyword

Frequently asked questions about scraping YouTube comments

Do I need an API key or a login?

No. Paste your input, press Start. There is nothing to connect and no account on the target site to create.

How do I export the results?

Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or read through the Apify API from your own code. You can also connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n.

Can I run this on a schedule?

Yes. Apify schedules run it every hour, day or week without you being there. With the monitoring option on, you only get comments posted since the last run.

Can I call it from Python or JavaScript?

Yes — the Apify API runs any Actor and returns the dataset, and the official Python and JavaScript clients wrap it in a few lines. AI agents can call it too, through Apify's MCP server.

What does it cost?

You pay per result, not per hour. Filters are applied before anything is charged, so narrowing the input directly lowers the bill. Pages that cannot be read are reported in the log and never charged.

Is this data public?

Everything collected here is what YouTube shows to anyone without logging in. Check the target site's terms and the rules that apply to you before using the data commercially.

Related scrapers

Other scrapers from the same maker, built the same way — no browser where it isn't needed, one flat price per result:

• YouTube Transcripts
• Threads Scraper
• Google News Scraper
• Website Contact & Email Scraper

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google LLC. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "YouTube" is named here only in a descriptive sense — to identify the publicly available website this Actor reads. It collects only publicly available information that anyone can see without logging in; you are responsible for making sure your use of the data complies with applicable laws, regulations and the terms of the source website.