Half the price, zero complexity. Just clean transcript text.
Tired of complex YouTube scrapers with 25+ configuration options? We extract transcripts with 3 simple fields at $2.50 per 1,000 transcripts - 50% cheaper than complex alternatives.
- 💰 Best Pricing: $2.50/1,000 transcripts (50% cheaper than complex scrapers)
- 🎯 Dead Simple: Just paste URLs → get clean text (no configuration hell)
- ⚡ Clean Output: Text-only results, no metadata bloat
- 🌐 Language Support: Auto-detect or choose from 10+ languages
- ⏱️ Format Options: Clean text, SRT timestamps, or raw VTT
- 📝 Manual + Auto: Prefers manual subtitles, falls back to auto-generated
- 🎯 Batch Ready: Process multiple videos in one run
- 🔄 Smart Retries: Automatic retry with proxy rotation
Required:
- YouTube URLs: Paste one or multiple video URLs
Optional (choose what you need):
- Language: Auto-detect, English, Spanish, French, etc.
- Format: Clean text (default), SRT with timestamps, Raw VTT
- Prefer Manual Subtitles: Use human-created over auto-generated
Basic Usage:
{
"startUrls": [
{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }
]
}Batch Processing with Timestamps:
{
"videoUrls": [
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"https://youtu.be/abc123",
"https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xyz789"
],
"includeTimestamps": true,
"maxRetries": 3
}With Proxy Support:
{
"startUrls": [
{ "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" }
],
"proxy": "http://residential-proxy.com:8080",
"includeTimestamps": false
}Results are presented in a user-friendly interface with detailed metadata:
{
"success": true,
"video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"video_title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
"transcript": "We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I...",
"transcript_length": 1247,
"language": "en",
"includes_timestamps": false
}{
"success": true,
"video_title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
"transcript": "[00:00:15] We're no strangers to love\n[00:00:18] You know the rules and so do I\n[00:00:21] A full commitment's what I'm thinking of",
"includes_timestamps": true,
"transcript_length": 156
}{
"success": false,
"video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=invalid",
"error": "Could not extract video ID from URL",
"attempts": 3
}- Content Creators: Generate transcripts for accessibility and SEO
- SEO Agencies: Analyze competitor video content and keywords
- Developers: Build transcript-powered applications and chatbots
- Researchers: Academic analysis of video content at scale
- Marketers: Extract insights from customer testimonial videos
- Educators: Create searchable video course materials
- Podcasters: Convert YouTube videos to blog posts and articles
- Runtime: Python 3.11 with Apify SDK
- Success Rate: 99% extraction success
- Processing Speed: ~5-10 seconds per video
- Batch Size: Unlimited videos per run
- Memory: 1GB recommended
- Timeout: 1 hour default
- Proxy Support: HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5
- Output Formats: Plain text or timestamped
- Only extracts publicly available subtitle data
- Respects YouTube's robots.txt and rate limits
- No video content is downloaded or stored
- Designed for legitimate research and accessibility use cases
This Actor can be easily integrated into:
- Apify Console: Run directly from the Apify platform
- API Calls: Trigger via Apify API
- Zapier/Make: Connect to automation workflows
- Custom Applications: Use with any application via REST API
- Add URLs: Paste YouTube URLs (any format supported)
- Configure Options: Enable timestamps if needed
- Run Actor: Process videos individually or in batches
- Get Results: Download clean transcripts with metadata
- Pay Only: For successful extractions (failed = free)
For Best Results:
- Use publicly accessible YouTube videos
- Consider residential proxies for high-volume usage
- Verify videos have English subtitles available
- Use batch processing for cost efficiency
Troubleshooting:
- Check Actor logs for detailed error information
- Retry failed videos (failures are free)
- Contact support for persistent issues
- Regular updates to maintain YouTube compatibility