# YouTube Channel Scraper - Subscribers, Views & Channel Stats (`s-r/youtube-channel-scraper`) Actor Get YouTube channel statistics in bulk: subscriber count, total views, video count, join date, country, description and the external links from the About panel, one row per channel. Paste @handles, URLs or channel IDs; recent videos optional. No API key or quota. For influencer and rival research. - **URL**: https://apify.com/s-r/youtube-channel-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [SR](https://apify.com/s-r) (community) - **Categories:** Social media, Marketing, Lead generation - **Features:** Limited permissions - **Stats:** 31 total users, 15 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing from $1.00 / 1,000 channel scrapeds 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 ## YouTube Channel Scraper: Subscriber Count, Views and Channel Stats This **YouTube channel scraper** turns any list of channels into clean channel statistics for influencer vetting, competitor tracking and creator lead lists, as structured JSON with no API key and no quota. Subscriber count, total lifetime views, video count, channel creation date, country, description, external links, keywords, avatar, and banner all come back in one row per channel. Optionally attach the channel's recent videos as extra rows. Run it from the Apify Store with one click, or call it from your own service through the Apify API. Pay per channel, not per month. If you've been looking for a **YouTube channel scraper in Python** that stays maintained, a **YouTube channel statistics** tool that works in bulk, or a channel data extractor that reads @handles, `UC…` IDs, and full URLs interchangeably, this Actor is the hosted alternative. It reads the same public data the youtube.com channel page and its About panel show, so there's no API key, no OAuth screen, and no daily quota to burn. ### What the YouTube channel scraper returns - **Subscriber count** as both an integer (`subscriber_count`) and the localized display string (`subscriber_count_text`, for example "21.3M subscribers"). - **Total lifetime views** for the whole channel (`total_view_count` plus `total_view_count_text`), the aggregate view figure from the About panel. - **Video count** (`video_count`), the number of public uploads. - **Channel creation date** (`joined_date` and the raw `joined_date_text` like "Joined Mar 21, 2008"), useful for age and credibility checks. - **Country** (`country`) and **channel keywords** (`keywords`) straight from the About metadata. - **External links** (`links`), the title-and-URL pairs a creator lists in their About panel, so you capture their website, Discord, merch store, and social profiles. - **Identity and branding** fields: `channel_id`, `channel_name`, `handle`, canonical `channel_url`, full `description`, `avatar_url`, `banner_url`, and the `is_family_safe` flag. - **Recent videos on demand** when `include_videos` is on: one extra row per video with `video_id`, `url`, `title`, `view_count`, `published_text`, and `duration_text`. - **No YouTube Data API quota** and no key to manage. ### Why scrape YouTube channel statistics The official YouTube Data API can return channel statistics, but getting there is friction-heavy. You register a Google Cloud project, enable the API, generate credentials, and then work inside a 10,000-units-per-day quota. Once you fan out across thousands of channels plus their video lists, you hit the ceiling fast. For anything involving user-owned data you also get pulled into the OAuth consent flow, token refresh, and Google's verification review. That is a lot of plumbing for what is, at heart, public profile data anyone can read in a browser. This Actor skips all of it. It reads the public channel header and About panel, the same information anyone sees on youtube.com. No API key, no OAuth, no quota accounting. You pass channel URLs, @handles, or `UC…` IDs and get back a clean profile row for each one, with both the parsed integer and the original localized string for every count so you can verify the value matches the page. ### Input | Field | Type | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | `channels` | array | **required** | YouTube channel URLs, `@handles`, or channel IDs (`UC…`). One per line. | | `include_videos` | boolean | `false` | Also emit the channel's recent videos as separate rows (`type=video`). | | `max_videos` | integer | `30` | Recent videos to collect per channel (1–1000). Only used when `include_videos` is on. | | `country` | string | `US` | Two-letter country code (`gl`). | | `language` | string | `en` | Two-letter interface language code (`hl`). | ### Output Results are pushed to the Apify dataset as JSON records. Every channel produces one row with `type` set to `channel`. When `include_videos` is on, each of that channel's recent videos follows as its own row with `type` set to `video`. A real channel row fetched on 2 October 2026: ```json { "type": "channel", "channel_id": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "channel_name": "Marques Brownlee", "channel_url": "http://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "description": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos | YouTuber | Geek | Consumer Electronics | Tech Head | Internet Personality!\n\nbusiness@MKBHD.com\n\nNYC", "keywords": "MKBHD MarquesBrownlee Marques Brownlee", "is_family_safe": true, "input": "@mkbhd", "avatar_url": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/qu4TmIaYUlS41-dJ9gZ7DUR3nilvmB5_11i6OKSdvNnBNiyOusZP1bMN6ICnuxtjFBb6ioKgRQ=s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj", "handle": "@mkbhd", "subscriber_count": 21300000, "subscriber_count_text": "21.3M subscribers", "video_count": 1855, "banner_url": "https://yt3.googleusercontent.com/zi_48HwHU4s0Hnb6tZuvRzTfCPHrLEnrtIMDLzMauDEyDmURh9JZ4wrNd3lKr7m9uVnT4YjYKw=w2560-fcrop64=1,00005a57ffffa5a8-k-c0xffffffff-no-nd-rj", "total_view_count": 5726706783, "total_view_count_text": "5,726,706,783 views", "joined_date_text": "Joined Mar 21, 2008", "joined_date": "Mar 21, 2008", "country": "United States", "links": [ { "title": "Twitter", "url": "twitter.com/MKBHD" }, { "title": "Instagram", "url": "instagram.com/MKBHD" }, { "title": "The Studio", "url": "youtube.com/c/TheStudio" }, { "title": "Reddit", "url": "reddit.com/r/MKBHD" }, { "title": "Discord", "url": "discord.gg/MKBHD" } ], "profile_url": "http://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "profile_id": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "name": "Marques Brownlee", "bio": "MKBHD: Quality Tech Videos | YouTuber | Geek | Consumer Electronics | Tech Head | Internet Personality!\n\nbusiness@MKBHD.com\n\nNYC", "followers": 21300000, "link_urls": [ "https://twitter.com/MKBHD", "https://instagram.com/MKBHD", "https://youtube.com/c/TheStudio", "https://reddit.com/r/MKBHD", "https://discord.gg/MKBHD" ], "_type": "profile", "source": "youtube-channel-scraper", "platform": "youtube", "fetched_at": "2026-10-02T12:50:54.237Z", "channel_rows": 1, "video_rows": 0, "fetched_in_seconds": 6.08 } ``` A real video row fetched on 2 October 2026 (only when `include_videos` is on): ```json { "video_id": "e1q-TuHdc4Y", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1q-TuHdc4Y", "title": "Dear YouTube!", "description_snippet": "", "channel_name": "Marques Brownlee", "channel_id": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "channel_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "published_text": "1 day ago", "view_count": 4500000, "view_count_text": "4.5M views", "duration_text": "12:23", "thumbnail_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e1q-TuHdc4Y/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEcCNAFEJQDSFXyq4qpAw4IARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBg==&rs=AOn4CLCnYqMyXN44UJE6gtLRMRZt75Hxww", "is_live": false, "type": "video", "input": "@mkbhd", "channel_handle": "@mkbhd", "post_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1q-TuHdc4Y", "post_id": "e1q-TuHdc4Y", "author_id": "UCBJycsmduvYEL83R_U4JriQ", "author_handle": "@mkbhd", "text": "Dear YouTube!", "views": 4500000, "_type": "post", "source": "youtube-channel-scraper", "platform": "youtube", "fetched_at": "2026-10-02T12:51:47.208Z", "channel_rows": 0, "video_rows": 1, "fetched_in_seconds": 19.63 } ``` Download the dataset as JSON, JSONL, CSV, or Excel from the Apify console, stream it through the Apify API, or pipe it to webhooks, S3, BigQuery, or any of Apify's integrations. ### Use cases **Influencer discovery and vetting.** Feed a list of @handles and get subscriber counts, upload cadence signals (video count against join date), country, and the creator's own external links in one pass. Join date plus lifetime views tells you fast whether a channel is a steady long-term creator or a recently inflated account. **Competitor benchmarking.** Track a set of rival channels on a schedule and diff each run against the last. Subscriber growth, view accumulation, and new-upload counts over time turn into a competitive scoreboard, no YouTube Studio login required. **Sponsorship and media-kit research.** Before a deal, pull the hard numbers a creator would otherwise send in a media kit: subscribers, total views, upload volume, and country reach. Both the integer and the localized string come back for each count, so you can cross-check against the live page. **Creator databases and lead lists.** Build or enrich a directory of channels in a niche. The external links field is the standout here, surfacing the website, store, and social handles creators publish on their About tab, giving you contact and cross-platform paths straight out of the profile. ### How it compares | | This Actor | streamers/youtube-channel-scraper | |---|---|---| | Primary output | Full channel profile (subscribers, lifetime views, video count, join date, country, external links) | Channel-to-video list | | Subscriber count | Yes (integer + text) | Not the focus | | Total lifetime views | Yes | No | | Video count and join date | Yes | No | | External links from About | Yes | No | | Recent videos | Optional, billed only when enabled | Core output, every row billed | | API key or quota | None | None | | Price | $0.001 per channel row, $0.001 per video row, on every plan | $0.0013 per video row on the free plan, lower on higher Apify plans | The other Actor is really a "channel to video list": its job is to turn a channel into its uploads, and it bills every video row. This Actor emits a richer channel profile first and only charges for video rows when you explicitly turn `include_videos` on. If you need channel statistics rather than every upload, you pay for one row per channel instead of dozens of video rows. ### Pricing Pay-per-event, so your bill scales linearly with usage and there's no monthly subscription. - **$0.001** per channel row (`type=channel`) - **$0.001** per video row (`type=video`), charged only when `include_videos` is on - **$0.002** actor-start fee per GB of memory, with a minimum of one event Scraping 1,000 channels with videos off costs $1.00 plus the $0.002 start fee. Turn videos on and each returned video adds another $0.001. ### Limits and gotchas - **Two row types share one dataset.** Channel rows carry the profile fields; video rows carry `video_id`, `url`, `title`, `view_count`, `published_text`, and `duration_text`. Filter on the `type` field to separate them. - **Video rows appear only when `include_videos` is on.** With the default off, you get exactly one row per channel and pay only channel-row prices. - **`max_videos` is capped at 1,000** and is ignored entirely when `include_videos` is off. - **Two billing events.** A run charges the $0.002 start fee once, then $0.001 per channel row and $0.001 per video row. Budget both. - **Free-tier runs are capped at 10 results per run.** Upgrade to a paid Apify plan to lift the cap; paying users are never limited. - **Counts come back as both integer and text.** `subscriber_count` and `total_view_count` are parsed integers; the `_text` variants preserve YouTube's localized display string so you can verify against the page. - **Country and language shape the output.** `country` (`gl`) and `language` (`hl`) affect localized strings and the join-date wording. Set them to match the market you're reporting on. ### FAQ #### How do I get a YouTube channel's subscriber count? Pass the channel's URL, @handle, or `UC…` ID in `channels` and read `subscriber_count` (an integer like `21300000`) plus `subscriber_count_text` (the localized "21.3M subscribers" string) on the returned channel row. No API key needed. #### Can I scrape a channel's total view count? Yes. Every channel row includes `total_view_count` as an integer and `total_view_count_text` as the localized string. This is the lifetime aggregate view figure from the About panel, not a per-video number. #### How do I find when a YouTube channel was created? The `joined_date` field gives the creation date, and `joined_date_text` preserves the raw "Joined …" string. Combined with `video_count`, it's a quick way to gauge how established and active a channel is. #### Can I get the external links a creator lists on their channel? Yes. The `links` field returns the title-and-URL pairs from the About panel, so you capture the creator's website, merch store, Discord, and social profiles in one shot. That makes it the go-to field for outreach and creator-database lead lists. #### Do I need to enable the videos option to get channel stats? No. Channel statistics come back on the channel row whether or not `include_videos` is on. Turn videos on only when you also want the channel's recent uploads as separate rows, which adds $0.001 per video. #### Is this a YouTube scraper for videos or for channels? For channels. The core output is one statistics row per channel. Recent uploads are an optional extra with basic video fields; for full video, search or comment data use a dedicated YouTube video scraper such as the related Actors below. #### Can I track YouTube channel statistics over time? Yes. Schedule the Actor in Apify with the same channel list (daily or weekly) and compare `subscriber_count`, `total_view_count` and `video_count` between runs. Each row carries `fetched_at`, so every dataset is a dated snapshot. ### Related Actors - [Youtube Scraper](https://apify.com/s-r/youtube-scraper) - Scrape YouTube videos by search term, channel, or video URL. - [Youtube Shorts Scraper](https://apify.com/s-r/youtube-shorts-scraper) - Scrape YouTube Shorts from any channel with full engagement data. - [Free Youtube Channel Email Reveal](https://apify.com/s-r/free-youtube-channel-email-reveal) - Reveal the business email listed on a YouTube channel. The original channel and video fields remain available. Additional profile and post fields let you join the results across datasets. Unavailable channels produce no row and are recorded in the run errors. A free-plan run delivers at most ten rows in total, counting channels and videos together, and charges only for those delivered rows. # Actor input Schema ## `channels` (type: `array`): YouTube channel URLs, @handles, or channel IDs (UC…). One per line. ## `include_videos` (type: `boolean`): Also emit the channel's recent videos as separate rows (type=video). ## `max_videos` (type: `integer`): Only used when 'Include recent videos' is on (1–1000). ## `country` (type: `string`): Two-letter country code (gl). ## `language` (type: `string`): Two-letter interface language code (hl). ## Actor input object example ```json { "channels": [ "@mkbhd" ], "include_videos": false, "max_videos": 30, "country": "US", "language": "en" } ``` # Actor output Schema ## `results` (type: `string`): One row per channel (type=channel), optionally followed by its recent videos (type=video). ## `output` (type: `string`): OUTPUT record with the run's counts and status flags. ## `errors` (type: `string`): Failures with a code and a redacted message. Absent when the run had none. # 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 '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "channels": [ "@mkbhd" ], "max_videos": 30, "country": "US", "language": "en" }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("s-r/youtube-channel-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 '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "channels": ["@mkbhd"], "max_videos": 30, "country": "US", "language": "en", } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("s-r/youtube-channel-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 '{ "channels": [ "@mkbhd" ], "max_videos": 30, "country": "US", "language": "en" }' | apify call s-r/youtube-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,s-r/youtube-channel-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 ` 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/Y3sKo0fpb683rmLOS/builds/BqdKfi3r4DGDQxnbE/openapi.json