YouTube Comments Scraper (PPE)

YouTube Comments Scraper is the fast and easy way to extract the full conversation around any YouTube video. Simply enter one or more video or channel URLs and specify the amount of data you need. Your result set will include a separate output file for each qualifying video, populated with detailed metadata for its viewer comments (and their replies, if required).

🔑 Key Features

• Target individual videos or bulk content from your designated channels
• Get detailed metadata for some or all of each video's comments (you set the limits)
• Optionally include detailed comment replies
• Fine-grained billing means you pay only for the data elements that you actually need
• Super-simple setup gives you maximum results for minimum effort
  
  

💡 What Can You Do with YouTube Comments?

YouTube comments are full of unfiltered opinions and ideas. This scraper helps you tap into that conversation and turn it into something useful. Here are three simple ways you can put it to work:

Audience Research and Content Ideas

You are a creator looking for fresh inspiration that resonates with your audience.

Scrape comments from your own or competitors’ videos to uncover recurring questions, complaints, or suggestions. Feed this data into an AI assistant to summarize common themes and generate video ideas, titles, or outlines that directly address audience interests.

Product Feedback and Sentiment Tracking

You are a product team, marketer, or customer success manager seeking candid, unfiltered opinions.

Collect comments that mention your brand or product and run them through a sentiment analysis pipeline. This highlights praise, criticism, and emerging issues that may never appear in surveys or support tickets - giving you a more complete view of customer experience.

Community Engagement Insights

You are a brand or agency aiming to strengthen engagement with your audience.

Analyze comments to identify your most loyal fans, frequent contributors, or high-value discussions. Use this data to guide reply strategies, spotlight user-generated ideas, or even shape community-driven campaigns.

🚀 How to Scrape YouTube Comments

YouTube Comments Scraper is designed for simplicity and ease of use. To get started, you just need to configure a few basic settings in the Apify Console.

Step 1: Enter Target URLs

Start by providing a list of URLs that define the content you want to scrape.

For beginners, we recommend focusing on individual video URLs, although you can also target YouTube channels to scrape comments in bulk (see table below).

A single scraping run may mix multiple video and channel URLs.

Supported URL Examples

URL Type	Example	How it Works
Video page URL	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID	Scrapes comments from one specific video. Each URL produces a separate scraping result.
Channel home page URL	https://www.youtube.com/@CHANNEL_HANDLE https://www.youtube.com/channel/CHANNEL_ID	Scrapes comments from multiple videos on a channel. The number of videos is controlled by the maxChannelVideos setting.

Step 2: Set a Video Crawl Limit

This step is not necessary if you are only directly targeting YouTube video URLs.

For channel URLs, configure how many videos the scraper should target. For example, setting a limit of 5 will scrape comments from the 5 most recent videos.

Video limits are required when targeting channel URLs. Leaving the value at zero means no videos will be scraped.

Step 3: Configure Comment and Reply Limits

Having specified which YouTube content you're targeting, and how many videos to scrape, you now need to set limits on commment and reply volume.

• maxVideoComments – the maximum number of comments to retrieve for each targeted video. You must set a value greater than 0.
• maxCommentReplies – the maximum number of replies to fetch for each comment thread. Set to 0 if you only want top-level comments.

These limits help you control the size of your dataset and avoid unnecessary running costs.

Step 4: Launch the Scraper

Once your URLs and limits are set, simply launch the run using Apify’s standard interface. The scraper will crawl the designated videos, retrieve comments and replies according to your settings, and deliver your scraping results via the Apify Console.

💰 Understanding Running Costs

YouTube Comments Scraper uses Apify’s Pay per Event (PPE) pricing model. This means you are billed for each individual piece of data that the scraper processes, such as each video, comment, or reply that is saved. Instead of paying a flat fee, your costs scale with the amount of data you scrape. You never incur any Apify platform operating costs.

How Costs Work

Each scraping run generates a number of micro-charges based on the operations it performs and the data collected.

All billing calculations are handled automatically by the scraper and charged to your account by Apify; you do not need to calculate anything manually.

The main cost drivers for this scraper are the number of targeted videos, the number of comments per video and the number of replies per comment.

The complete pricing table for this scraper can be found on the Apify pricing tab.

Note that we also participate in Apify's tiered pricing scheme, which means that you'll benefit from progressive discounts if you are on a higher-tier Apify plan.

Worked Example

Suppose you configure a run as follows:

• 10 videos from a channel
• 20 comments per video
• 10 replies per comment

The scraper would execute the run, subject to the following maximum charges:

1. Video: 10 videos
2. Comments: 20 comments × 10 videos = 200 comments
3. Replies: 10 replies × 200 comments = 2,000 replies

Your run cost would then be calculated based on the per-item PPE rates for video results, comments, and replies.

You are only charged for the actual data results delivered, so videos with fewer comments/replies than your configured limits would be charged less than the theoretical maximum.

🧪 Sample Output Data

A successful scraper run yields one or more JSON output files, each containing the comments/replies for a scraped video.

Each output file contains a single root-level JSON object, representing the video, with a nested object hierarchy that represents a subset or all of the video's viewer comments (and optionally their replies).

The number of scraped comments for each video and the number of replies for each comment will depend on your configured scraping limits.

{
	"id": "99bgTARgKD8",
	"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99bgTARgKD8",
	"publishDate": "2025-07-27T19:53:39.000Z",
	"title": "England vs. Spain UEFA Women's Euro 2025 Highlights | FOX Soccer",
	"comments": {
        "totalCount": 885,
        "comments": [
            {
                "id": "Ugxb_EVDe8bNFSYcBlR4AaABAg",
                "content": "What was your favorite moment from this match?",
                "publishedDate": "2025-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
                "authorDisplayName": "@Foxsoccer",
                "isPinned": true,
                "isHearted": false,
                "hasDonation": false,
                "isCreator": true,
                "likeCount": 55,
                "replyCount": 3,
                "replies": [
                    {
                        "id": "Ugxb_EVDe8bNFSYcBlR4AaABAg.AL5Q-Hv6FIHAL5QX-pe8_B",
                        "content": "Kelly's winning penalty 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿",
                        "publishedDate": "2025-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
                        "authorDisplayName": "@richm23k",
                        "isPinned": false,
                        "isHearted": false,
                        "hasDonation": false,
                        "isCreator": false,
                        "likeCount": 37
                    },
                    {
                        "id": "Ugxb_EVDe8bNFSYcBlR4AaABAg.AL5Q-Hv6FIHAL5SXIct-fT",
                        "content": "Watching the women successfully score a good pen.",
                        "publishedDate": "2025-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
                        "authorDisplayName": "@FlipJohn",
                        "isPinned": false,
                        "isHearted": false,
                        "hasDonation": false,
                        "isCreator": false,
                        "likeCount": 13
                    },
                    {
                        "id": "Ugxb_EVDe8bNFSYcBlR4AaABAg.AL5Q-Hv6FIHAL5SeW5JNHG",
                        "content": "Hampton's super save.",
                        "publishedDate": "2025-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
                        "authorDisplayName": "@Muu0934",
                        "isPinned": false,
                        "isHearted": false,
                        "hasDonation": false,
                        "isCreator": false,
                        "likeCount": 12
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                "id": "UgyD8-Y0kZ0TQauFymt4AaABAg",
                "content": "Chloe Kelly is HER!!!\n-Winning goal in the Euro 2022 Final.\n-Winning penalty in the 2023 Finalissima.\n-Winning penalty in the 2023 World Cup Round of 16.\n-Subs in and immediately sets up two clutch goals, plus scores her penalty to keep England alive in the Euro 2025 Quarterfinal.\n-Winning goal in the Euro 2025 Semifinal.\n-Winning penalty in the Euro 2025 Final.",
                "publishedDate": "2025-07-28T00:00:00.000Z",
                "authorDisplayName": "@nintendolegonbafan5413",
                "isPinned": false,
                "isHearted": true,
                "hasDonation": false,
                "isCreator": false,
                "likeCount": 381,
                "replyCount": 0
            }
        ]
    }
}

🆘 Support & Feedback

We want you to enjoy the best possible experience while using YouTube Comments Scraper, so we're laser focused on providing the support you need, when you need it.

If you run into an obstacle, while configuring or using the scraper, please raise an issue, and we'll give it our rapid attention. We treat bugs and breakages as an absolute priority, but we're also keen to help out with advice and guidance that will make your scraping task easier and more effective.

If you have any feedback that would help us to improve the product, we'd also love to hear from you.

And, if you find the YouTube Comments Scraper useful, we'd really appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating/review (accessible via the Reviews tab in Apify Console). It really helps us to boost our Store visibility and keeps us motivated to continue working on new features. Thank you.

7️⃣ Meet the Magnificent Seven

Whatever your YouTube scraping needs, we’ve got you covered. Our expanding range includes both quick-start, task-specific scrapers and our all-encompassing YouTube Ultimate Scraper, which provides maximum flexibility for advanced users and complex use cases. We also have 3 exciting new additions coming soon.

	YouTube Video Scraper The fast and easy way to capture detailed metadata for YouTube videos and channels. Simply provide one or more video or channel URLs and set your data limits. Each result includes the video’s detailed metadata and, optionally, that of its associated channel.
	YouTube Comments Scraper Quickly extract the full conversation around any YouTube video. Enter video or channel URLs and define the amount of data you need. Each result contains viewer comments (and their replies, if required), helping you analyze audience engagement and sentiment for your own channels or those of your competitors.
	YouTube Transcript Scraper Retrieve complete transcripts for any YouTube video in seconds. Provide video or channel URLs, set your data limits, and choose your preferred format: timeline-based (segmented) or continuous text. Each result delivers the full transcript for a selected video.
	YouTube Ultimate Scraper The flagship of our YouTube scraping suite, YouTube Ultimate Scraper combines the functionality of all or our individual scrapers and more. It's ideal for users who need multiple data types (e.g., comments, transcripts, and metadata) in a single dataset, or greater control over targeting, filtering, and formatting. Our free onboarding service helps you to get started, even if your scraping needs are complex.
	YouTube Channel Insights (coming soon) Gain a deep understanding of any YouTube channel’s commercial goals and strategies. This tool aggregates and analyzes channel metadata and external references to uncover insights such as linked social media profiles, owned domains, monetization models, content strategy, and key performance metrics (videos, views, subscribers, publishing tactics, engagement, and growth).
	YouTube Channel Finder (coming soon) Discover YouTube channels that match your specific criteria. This tool locates channels by keywords or hashtags, then filters them using advanced inference techniques (powered by YouTube Channel Insights), helping you find creators, brands, or niches aligned with your interests or campaigns.
	YouTube Monitor (coming soon) A scheduled, stateful monitoring tool that tracks specified YouTube metrics over time, generates trend-based insights and reports, and raises alerts when user-defined thresholds or anomalies are detected — ideal for proactive channel health and competitor tracking.

All of our YouTube tools use Apify’s innovative Pay per Event (PPE) pricing model, so you only pay for the data you choose to collect. When multiple scrapers offer overlapping features, pricing remains consistent across tools, ensuring you always get the best value. Users on premium Apify plans also benefit from progressive discounts through Apify’s tiered pricing scheme.