# Substack Publications Scraper 📚 (`easyapi/substack-publications-scraper`) Actor

Scrape detailed publication information from Substack based on keywords. Get comprehensive data about newsletters, authors, subscriber counts, and publication metrics in structured JSON format.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/easyapi/substack-publications-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [EasyApi](https://apify.com/easyapi) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, Integrations, Other
- **Stats:** 89 total users, 7 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 7 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 1.83 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $2.99 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Substack Publications Scraper 📚

Extract comprehensive publication data from Substack's search results. This actor helps you gather detailed information about newsletters, authors, and their performance metrics.

### 🔍 Features

- Search publications by keywords
- Extract detailed publication metadata
- Get subscriber counts and engagement metrics
- Collect author information and social links
- Retrieve publication themes and settings
- Export data in structured JSON format

### 📊 Output Data

The actor provides rich publication data including:

- Publication name and description
- Author details (name, bio, photo URL)
- Subscriber counts and rankings
- Creation dates and publication status
- Theme settings and customization
- Social media integrations
- Community and podcast features
- Multilingual ranking details

### 💡 Use Cases

- Newsletter market research
- Content creator analysis
- Competitive intelligence
- Publishing industry insights
- Audience size tracking
- Content platform analysis

### 🛠️ Input Parameters

- `keywords`: Array of search terms to find publications
- `maxItems`: Maximum number of publications to scrape (default: 50)

### 📋 Output Format

Results are stored in JSON format with detailed publication information. Each record includes:

- Basic publication details
- Author information
- Subscriber metrics
- Theme configuration
- Platform settings
- Temporal data

### 💪 Benefits

- Clean, structured data
- Real-time information
- Comprehensive publication details
- Efficient bulk scraping
- Regular updates
- Reliable performance

### 🎯 Perfect For

- Content marketers
- Newsletter publishers
- Market researchers
- Media analysts
- Platform developers
- Digital strategists

Need to scrape specific Substack publications? Just provide your keywords and let the actor do the heavy lifting! 🚀

#### Input Example

A full explanation of an input example in JSON.

```json
{
    "keywords": [
        "sale"
    ],
    "maxItems": 50
}
```

#### Output sample

The results will be wrapped into a dataset which you can always find in the **Storage** tab. Here's an excerpt from the data you'd get if you apply the input parameters above:

And here is the same data but in JSON. You can choose in which format to download your data: JSON, JSONL, Excel spreadsheet, HTML table, CSV, or XML.

```json
[
    {
        "keyword": "sale",
        "apple_pay_disabled": false,
        "apex_domain": null,
        "author_id": 116594,
        "byline_images_enabled": true,
        "bylines_enabled": true,
        "chartable_token": null,
        "community_enabled": true,
        "copyright": "Anna Sale",
        "cover_photo_url": "https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6f6ae257-6ab9-4a79-a055-0691548aaf26_1280x956.png",
        "created_at": "2023-11-07T19:46:21.152Z",
        "custom_domain_optional": false,
        "custom_domain": null,
        "custom_publication_theme_id": null,
        "default_comment_sort": "best_first",
        "default_coupon": null,
        "default_group_coupon": null,
        "default_show_guest_bios": true,
        "email_banner_url": null,
        "email_from_name": "Anna Sale",
        "email_from": null,
        "embed_tracking_disabled": false,
        "explicit": false,
        "expose_paywall_content_to_search_engines": true,
        "fb_pixel_id": null,
        "fb_site_verification_token": null,
        "flagged_as_spam": false,
        "founding_subscription_benefits": null,
        "free_subscription_benefits": null,
        "ga_pixel_id": null,
        "google_site_verification_token": null,
        "google_tag_manager_token": null,
        "hero_image": null,
        "hero_text": "Writings, recommendations, conversations and FUN from Anna Sale, host of Slate's podcast Death, Sex & Money. We're all coming from somewhere. ",
        "hide_intro_subtitle": null,
        "hide_intro_title": true,
        "hide_podcast_feed_link": false,
        "homepage_type": "magaziney",
        "id": 2088549,
        "image_thumbnails_always_enabled": false,
        "invite_only": false,
        "language": "en",
        "logo_url_wide": null,
        "logo_url": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F93d021a9-5b75-45e2-8609-7172d8c615fa_1280x1280.png",
        "minimum_group_size": 2,
        "moderation_enabled": true,
        "name": "From Somewhere with Anna Sale",
        "paid_subscription_benefits": null,
        "parsely_pixel_id": null,
        "payments_state": "disabled",
        "paywall_free_trial_enabled": false,
        "podcast_art_url": null,
        "paid_podcast_episode_art_url": null,
        "podcast_byline": null,
        "podcast_description": null,
        "podcast_enabled": false,
        "podcast_feed_url": null,
        "podcast_title": null,
        "post_preview_limit": null,
        "require_clickthrough": false,
        "rss_feed_url": null,
        "rss_website_url": null,
        "show_pub_podcast_tab": false,
        "show_recs_on_homepage": true,
        "subdomain": "annasale",
        "subscriber_invites": 0,
        "support_email": null,
        "theme_var_background_pop": "#6B26FF",
        "theme_var_color_links": false,
        "theme_var_cover_bg_color": null,
        "trial_end_override": null,
        "twitter_pixel_id": null,
        "type": "newsletter",
        "post_reaction_faces_enabled": true,
        "is_personal_mode": false,
        "plans": null,
        "stripe_user_id": null,
        "stripe_country": null,
        "stripe_publishable_key": null,
        "stripe_platform_account": null,
        "automatic_tax_enabled": null,
        "author_name": "Anna Sale",
        "author_handle": "annasale",
        "author_photo_url": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb8a58b1a-c631-4a96-af98-a03ba50a7778_1027x1306.jpeg",
        "author_bio": "I'm an interviewer and writer. My podcast is Death, Sex & Money from Slate. My book is Let's Talk About Hard Things. ",
        "twitter_share_on_publish_opt_in": null,
        "has_custom_tos": false,
        "has_custom_privacy": false,
        "theme": {
            "background_pop_color": "#16a34a",
            "web_bg_color": "#ffffff",
            "cover_bg_color": null,
            "publication_id": 2088549,
            "color_links": null,
            "font_preset_heading": null,
            "font_preset_body": null,
            "font_family_headings": null,
            "font_family_body": null,
            "font_family_ui": null,
            "font_size_body_desktop": null,
            "print_secondary": null,
            "custom_css_web": null,
            "custom_css_email": null,
            "home_hero": "magaziney",
            "home_posts": "grid",
            "home_show_top_posts": false,
            "hide_images_from_list": false,
            "home_hero_alignment": "left",
            "home_hero_show_podcast_links": true,
            "default_post_header_variant": null
        },
        "threads_v2_settings": null,
        "default_group_coupon_percent_off": null,
        "pause_return_date": null,
        "has_posts": true,
        "has_recommendations": true,
        "first_post_date": "2023-12-28T15:19:46.188Z",
        "has_podcast": false,
        "has_free_podcast": false,
        "has_subscriber_only_podcast": false,
        "has_community_content": true,
        "twitter_permissions": "none",
        "rankingDetail": "Launched a year ago",
        "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Thousands of subscribers",
        "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
        "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
        "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Over 8,000 subscribers",
        "rankingDetailByLanguage": {
            "de": {
                "rankingDetail": "Vor vor einem Jahr gelauncht",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Tausende von Abonnenten",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Über 8,000 Abonnenten",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "es": {
                "rankingDetail": "Lanzado hace un año",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Miles de suscriptores",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Más de 8,000 suscriptores",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "fr": {
                "rankingDetail": "Lancé il y a une année",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Des milliers d'abonnés",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Plus de 8,000 abonnés",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "pt": {
                "rankingDetail": "Lançado 1 ano",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Milhares de subscritores",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Mais de 8,000 subscritores",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "pt-br": {
                "rankingDetail": "Lançado 1 ano",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Milhares de assinantes",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Mais de 8,000 assinantes",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "it": {
                "rankingDetail": "Lanciato 1 anno",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Migliaia di abbonati",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Oltre 8,000 abbonati",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            },
            "en": {
                "rankingDetail": "Launched a year ago",
                "rankingDetailFreeIncluded": "Thousands of subscribers",
                "rankingDetailOrderOfMagnitude": 0,
                "rankingDetailFreeIncludedOrderOfMagnitude": 1000,
                "rankingDetailFreeSubscriberCount": "Over 8,000 subscribers",
                "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
                "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+"
            }
        },
        "freeSubscriberCount": "8,000",
        "freeSubscriberCountOrderOfMagnitude": "8.2K+",
        "author_bestseller_tier": 0,
        "disable_monthly_subscriptions": false,
        "disable_annual_subscriptions": false,
        "hide_post_restacks": false,
        "notes_feed_enabled": false,
        "last_chat_post_at": null,
        "no_follow": false,
        "paywall_chat": "free",
        "sections": [],
        "multipub_migration": null,
        "navigationBarItems": [],
        "contributors": [
            {
                "name": "Anna Sale",
                "handle": "annasale",
                "role": "admin",
                "owner": true,
                "user_id": 116594,
                "photo_url": "https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b8a58b1a-c631-4a96-af98-a03ba50a7778_1027x1306.jpeg",
                "bio": "I'm an interviewer and writer. My podcast is Death, Sex & Money from Slate. My book is Let's Talk About Hard Things. "
            }
        ],
        "threads_v2_enabled": false,
        "viralGiftsConfig": null,
        "tier": 2,
        "no_index": false,
        "can_set_google_site_verification": true,
        "can_have_sitemap": true,
        "founding_plan_name_english": "Founding Member",
        "draft_plans": null,
        "base_url": "https://annasale.substack.com/",
        "hostname": "annasale.substack.com",
        "is_on_substack": false,
        "spotify_podcast_settings": null,
        "podcastPalette": {
            "DarkMuted": {
                "population": 72,
                "rgb": [
                    73,
                    153,
                    137
                ]
            },
            "DarkVibrant": {
                "population": 6013,
                "rgb": [
                    4,
                    100,
                    84
                ]
            },
            "LightMuted": {
                "population": 7,
                "rgb": [
                    142,
                    198,
                    186
                ]
            },
            "LightVibrant": {
                "population": 3,
                "rgb": [
                    166,
                    214,
                    206
                ]
            },
            "Muted": {
                "population": 6,
                "rgb": [
                    92,
                    164,
                    156
                ]
            },
            "Vibrant": {
                "population": 5,
                "rgb": [
                    76,
                    164,
                    146
                ]
            }
        },
        "pageThemes": {
            "podcast": null
        },
        "multiple_pins": true,
        "live_subscriber_counts": false,
        "scrapedAt": "2025-02-10T05:37:31.758Z"
    },
    ...
]
```

### Related Actors

- 📚 [Substack Posts Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/substack-posts-scraper) - Extract comprehensive post data including titles, authors, and publication details from Substack
- 📚 [Substack People Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/substack-people-scraper) - Extract comprehensive Substack author and publication data using keywords
- 🔍 [Substack Notes Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/substack-notes-scraper) - Extract notes and comments from Substack's search results with user info and engagement metrics
- 📊 [Substack Leaderboard Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/substack-leaderboard-scraper) - Get insights about top newsletters including subscriber counts and author details
- 📄 [Article Content Extractor](https://apify.com/easyapi/article-content-extractor) - Extract clean article content and metadata from any web page
- 📚 [Medium Posts Search Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/medium-posts-search-scraper) - Extract comprehensive article data from Medium's search results
- 📚 [Medium User Posts Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/medium-user-posts-scraper) - Extract detailed post data from Medium user profiles
- 📚 [Medium Publications Search Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/medium-publications-search-scraper) - Scrape Medium publications by keywords with detailed information
- 🔍 [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/google-news-scraper) - Collect up to 5000 news articles with flexible search options
- 📚 [arXiv Search Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/arxiv-search-scraper) - Extract comprehensive research paper data from arXiv search results
- 🔬 [Nature Search Results Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/nature-search-results-scraper) - Extract research article data from Nature.com search results
- 📚 [Goodreads Book Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/goodreads-book-scraper) - Extract comprehensive book data from Goodreads search results
- 📚 [Goodreads Review Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/goodreads-review-scraper) - Extract detailed book reviews from Goodreads
- 🎓 [PubMed Search Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/pubmed-search-scraper) - Scrape research papers and academic articles from PubMed
- 📚 [Wattpad Story Scraper](https://apify.com/easyapi/wattpad-story-scraper) - Extract comprehensive story details from Wattpad search results

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

List of keywords to search for publications

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of publications to scrape

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optionally, use Apify Proxy or custom HTTP proxy to avoid IP address-based blocking.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "sale"
  ],
  "maxItems": 20,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  }
}
```

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keywords": [
        "sale"
    ],
    "maxItems": 20
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("easyapi/substack-publications-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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "keywords": ["sale"],
    "maxItems": 20,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("easyapi/substack-publications-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 '{
  "keywords": [
    "sale"
  ],
  "maxItems": 20
}' |
apify call easyapi/substack-publications-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,easyapi/substack-publications-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 <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` 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/fYI8hUlgIjUBirecm/builds/dqLS4Nz3b0x4rTkPF/openapi.json