TikTok Transcript API & Scraper – Subtitles, Captions, Whisper

TubeText · Transcripts · Pay per result. No login. Ready for AI agents. All tools

Quick start (no coding)

1. Click Try for free at the top of this page. A free Apify account is enough – it includes monthly credit.
2. In TikTok video URLs, paste one TikTok video link per line (share links like vm.tiktok.com/… work too).
3. Click Start. Usually done in under a minute.
4. When it says Succeeded, open the Output tab and click Export → Excel (or CSV). The transcript column has the text.

Cost: $0.0015 per transcript – 100 videos ≈ $0.15. AI transcription adds $0.006 per minute. Failed and music-only videos are free.

Common mistakes

• Pasting a creator's profile link → paste video links, or run a TikTok profile scraper first and put its dataset ID in Or: dataset with TikTok links.
• A video says "no speech" → it's music only. Turn on Also transcribe music videos if you want the lyrics anyway.

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Use from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client

Add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/tiktok-transcript as a remote MCP server and sign in to Apify (Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector). Claude Code:

$claude mcp add --transport http tubetext "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tubetext/tiktok-transcript"

Then ask, for example: "Transcribe this TikTok and pull out the hook in the first 3 seconds: [link]" or "Get transcripts for these 10 TikToks and tell me which claims they repeat."

🆓 Free to try: Apify's free plan includes $5 of usage every month, no credit card needed – enough for about 3,300 TikTok transcripts with this tool.

What you get – real output from a test run, shortened. One row per video:

Creator	Plays	Words	Transcript
hermoneymastery	238,100	688	Because it is going to do much more than just you paying your bills a…

TikTok transcript API

Call it from your back end with the Apify API. One request runs the Actor and returns the rows as JSON:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tubetext~tiktok-transcript/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"urls":["https://www.tiktok.com/@hermoneymastery/video/7691028177199680781"]}'

• Monitoring: Creator monitoring: chain a TikTok profile scraper with datasetId and schedule both, so new videos are transcribed as they appear. Add an Apify webhook to get notified when each run finishes.
• Cost at volume: 10,000 transcripts a month ≈ $15 at the free-plan price ($0.0015 each); Whisper AI for videos without captions adds $0.006 per minute.
• Stable output: field names don't change between runs. Failed or empty items come back as status rows that aren't billed, and every row has charged: true/false.
• Why not the official API: TikTok's official APIs don't return transcripts of other creators' videos. This reads TikTok's own captions, or transcribes with Whisper when there are none.

TikTok transcript API from $0.0015 per transcript. Turn TikTok videos into clean transcripts for ChatGPT, Claude, RAG pipelines, content repurposing, trend research and social listening. Paste as many video links as you like. Works as a TikTok audio-to-text / speech-to-text tool: if a video has no captions, its speech is transcribed with Whisper AI.

Why this one

• 🎯 Complete coverage – uses TikTok's own captions when they exist, and transcribes the rest with Whisper AI (on by default). In our tests every video with real speech got a transcript.
• 💸 Pay only for results – videos that are deleted, private, photo slideshows or music-only are free.
• 🔇 No junk transcripts – short clips set to a song or another creator's sound (dances, edits, lip-syncs) are treated as music and skipped for free; Whisper "Thank you" loops and sound-effect-only clips are detected and not charged. Want lyrics too? Turn on Also transcribe music videos.
• ⚡ Fast and reliable – lightweight requests, no browser, automatic retries through rotating proxies. Failed videos are free.
• 🌍 Any language – original-language captions by default; optionally prefer translated captions (e.g. en).
• 🧠 AI-ready output – plain text, timestamped sentences, SRT subtitles, raw segments and optional RAG chunks.
• 📊 Video stats included – creator, caption, hashtags, posting time, plays, likes, comments, shares, saves, sound and duration.

Input example

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.tiktok.com/@hermoneymastery/video/7691028177199680781",
    "https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTyXc9cpY/"
  ],
  "aiTranscription": "missing"
}

AI transcription modes

• missing (default) – TikTok captions first, Whisper AI only for videos without captions.
• all – Whisper AI for every video (consistent punctuation and number formatting).
• off – TikTok captions only; videos without captions are returned as no_transcript for free.

Output example

{
  "status": "ok",
  "videoId": "7691028177199680781",
  "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@hermoneymastery/video/7691028177199680781",
  "authorUsername": "hermoneymastery",
  "authorName": "Her Money Mastery",
  "description": "…",
  "hashtags": ["budgeting", "budgetingforbeginners"],
  "createTime": "2026-09-30T13:18:05+00:00",
  "durationSeconds": 167,
  "playCount": 224400,
  "likeCount": 22400,
  "commentCount": 154,
  "shareCount": 4449,
  "saveCount": 13779,
  "source": "captions",
  "captionType": "creator",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": "Because it is going to do much more than just you paying your bills a month ahead of time…",
  "timestampedText": "[00:02] Because it is going to do much more than just you paying your bills a month ahead of time.\n…",
  "wordCount": 412
}

source is captions (TikTok captions) or ai (Whisper). captionType is creator, auto, translated or ai. With AI transcription set to all, every video with speech is transcribed by Whisper, including ones that use a borrowed sound; if AI isn't possible (too long or no media), you get TikTok's captions instead of nothing.

Pricing

Pay per event:

• $1.50 per 1,000 transcripts from TikTok captions (cheaper on higher Apify plans: down to $1.10).
• $0.006 per started minute of AI transcription – only when real speech is found. A typical 45-second TikTok costs $0.006.
• Deleted, private, slideshow and music-only videos are free.

Example: 1,000 typical TikToks with 75% caption coverage ≈ $1.13 + about 30 AI minutes ($0.18) ≈ $1.31.

Use it from your tools

• API / Python: client.actor("tubetext/tiktok-transcript").call(run_input={"urls": [...]}), then read the default dataset.
• n8n / Make / Zapier: use the Apify integration, run this Actor and map the transcript field.
• YouTube too? Use YouTube Transcript Scraper from the same team.
• Instagram Reels too? Use Instagram Reels Transcript: reel links or @usernames, same clean output.

Ready-made examples

• TikTok to Text
• TikTok Subtitles to SRT
• TikTok Creator Latest Videos to Text
• TikTok Hooks Swipe File

TubeText Labs tools

TubeText Labs builds 35 pay-per-result Apify Actors for video, social and e-commerce data – no login, JSON/CSV/Excel output, and ready for ChatGPT and Claude (Apify MCP), n8n, Make and Zapier. All tools: apify.com/tubetext

Transcripts

• YouTube Transcript Scraper – videos, Shorts, playlists and whole channels to text; Whisper AI when there are no captions
• TikTok Transcript Scraper (this tool) – TikTok captions plus Whisper AI, SRT and timestamps
• Instagram Reels Transcript – reel links or @usernames to text with Whisper AI
• Podcast & Video Transcript – podcast RSS / Apple Podcasts, X, Facebook, Loom, Twitch and audio files to text
• Facebook Video Transcript – public Facebook videos and Reels to text with Whisper AI
• X (Twitter) Video Transcript – X/Twitter video posts to text with Whisper AI
• Reddit Video Transcript – videos in public Reddit posts (v.redd.it) to text with Whisper AI, with SRT and timestamps
• Bilibili Video Transcript – Bilibili (B站) videos to text with Whisper AI, plus optional English summaries
• Podcast Transcript – podcast RSS feeds and Apple Podcasts episodes to text with Whisper AI

Video & ad analysis

• Video Breakdown AI – hook analysis, shot list, cut pacing, products shown and script of any TikTok, Reel or YouTube video
• Shot-by-Shot Video Analysis Pro – director-level storyboard of any video: framing, camera move, emotion and why each shot works, plus replay peaks, danmaku and comments tied to shots
• YouTube & TikTok Comments API – comments with like-weighted sentiment and themes, plus the moments viewers react to on long YouTube and Bilibili videos
• Video Ad Analyzer – competitors' YouTube video ads by brand or domain (Google Ads Transparency), torn down by AI
• Google Ads Transparency API – any advertiser's YouTube video ads from Google Ads Transparency, with first/last shown dates, days running, views and transcripts
• Meta Ad Library Scraper – Facebook and Instagram ads by brand or keyword: video URLs, images, ad copy, CTA and landing page

Social, apps & trends

• YouTube Channel Analytics – subscribers, recent video performance, Social Blade grade, ranks and estimated earnings
• YouTube Shorts Scraper – every Short of a channel with exact views, likes, comments and publish time, plus transcripts and the opening line
• Bilibili Scraper – Bilibili (B站) keyword search, popular board, top-100 ranking, video stats, danmaku text and creator (UP主) followers – no login
• China Trending Topics – Douyin, Weibo, Baidu, Toutiao and Bilibili hot-search boards in one run, in English – plus an optional AI briefing on why topics trend
• WeChat Article Scraper – WeChat 公众号 articles by keyword or link: full text, English titles and optional English summaries
• Google Play Reviews + AI Insights – Android app reviews by star rating, country and language, plus an AI report of complaints and praise
• Steam Reviews Scraper + AI Insights – Steam game reviews with hours played and votes, review score and current players, plus an AI report of top complaints, praise and feature requests
• Social Blade Scraper – Social Blade stats for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch creators – grade, ranks, 2-week growth, daily history, earnings estimates and top-100 lists
• Spotify Play Count Scraper – play counts for every track of an album, artist or playlist (incl. Top 50 charts), plus monthly listeners, followers, world rank and top cities

E-commerce & travel

• TikTok Shop Product Scraper – US TikTok Shop prices, items sold, stock per SKU and shop stats
• AliExpress Search Scraper – AliExpress search results by keyword: price, items sold, rating, shipping, badges
• Google Hotels Scraper – hotel prices for any destination and dates, per booking site and as a 90-day price calendar
• Taobao & Tmall Product Scraper – Taobao/Tmall products by Chinese or English keyword, category or URL: CNY prices, shops and seller scores
• Alibaba & Yiwu Supplier Finder by Image – product photo in, similar Alibaba.com and Yiwu wholesale listings out: price, MOQ, supplier, country and rating
• Amazon Product Search Scraper – Amazon search results, Best Sellers lists and product pages: price, rating, reviews, monthly sales signal, badges and specs
• Google Flights Scraper – flight prices for any route or multi-city trip, a cheapest-day calendar, price insights and booking options per site
• Agoda & Booking.com Hotel Reviews + AI – Agoda hotel reviews plus verified Booking.com reviews shown on Agoda, hotel scores and sub-scores, and an AI report of complaints, praise and action items
• Gas Prices Scraper (US & Canada) – live gas station prices by ZIP, city or coordinates – regular, premium, diesel, E85 – with an area summary of the cheapest stations
• Idealo Price Scraper – every shop offer for a product on idealo – price, shipping, delivery, shop rating – in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, with a summary per market

Esports & sports data

• Esports Match Timeline – Valorant and CS2 round-by-round scores, winners and VOD timestamps read from broadcast VODs

Questions or problems? Open an issue (we read every one). Need a custom version? Ask in an issue or email us – we build it as a private Actor on Apify.

Found it useful? A short review on this page helps others find it.

Built by TubeText Labs · Pay per result. No login. Ready for AI agents.

FAQ

Is this cheaper than a TikTok scraper's built-in transcription? Usually by a lot. Popular TikTok scrapers on Apify sell transcription as an add-on at $0.048 per started minute. Here a video with captions costs $0.0015 in total, and AI transcription for videos without captions adds $0.006 per minute – 8× less per minute. (Apify free-plan prices, checked October 2026; both get cheaper on paid plans.) Already scraping profiles or hashtags? Pass that run's dataset as datasetId and pay only for the transcripts.

Can I transcribe a creator's or hashtag's latest videos? Yes – run a TikTok profile or hashtag scraper first, then pass its run's dataset as datasetId (sort with datasetSortBy, limit with maxVideosFromDataset). Profile links pasted directly return an error that points you here.

Why did a video return no_transcript? It was deleted or private, it is a photo slideshow, it uses a song/borrowed sound without captions (music), or it contains only sound effects. These are never charged.

Is AI transcription accurate? It uses Whisper large-v3-turbo, which usually gives cleaner punctuation and numbers than auto-generated captions. Expect occasional errors on names and heavy accents. In a test on 7 videos, Whisper agreed with TikTok's own auto-captions on about 90% of words (TikTok's captions are themselves automatic, so this is a consistency check, not a ground-truth score).

Is this legal? The Actor only reads publicly available video pages, without logging in. You are responsible for how you use the data (copyright, privacy and TikTok's terms).

Do duplicate links cost twice? No – different forms of the same TikTok link (share links, m.tiktok.com, links with ?lang=…, embed links) are recognised as one video and charged once.

Can I cap what a run costs? Yes – set Maximum cost per run in the run options. The run stops cleanly when the next item would go over it: you are never charged more, and you get a clear "stopped at your limit" status message.

What happens if a big run hits the time limit? It stops cleanly shortly before the limit: everything finished so far is delivered, the run ends as succeeded, and the status message says how many items weren't started. Raise the run timeout, or run again with the inputs that were not started.