Substack Newsletter Scraper

Substack Newsletter Scraper lets you extract newsletter content, subscriber counts, post analytics, and creator intelligence from any public Substack publication at scale. It’s designed for analysts, creators, and data teams who need reliable Substack newsletter analytics without API keys or authentication. Use it to power dashboards, research, and automations across the creator economy.

     

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Introduction

Substack Newsletter Scraper collects structured data from Substack publications and their archives, including real subscriber counts, post lists, metadata, and basic content fields. It works directly on public pages, so you don’t need OAuth, API keys, or access tokens.

This tool is built for creator economy operators, market researchers, VCs, data scientists, agencies, and growth teams who want to analyze newsletters, benchmark creators, or monitor market trends using live Substack data.

Creator Economy & Newsletter Intelligence

• Discover high-subscriber newsletters (e.g., 500K+ audiences) across any niche.
• Extract publication profiles, subscriber counts, and post lists from /archive URLs.
• Segment creators by themes such as business, politics, education, and more.
• Analyze headline patterns, posting frequency, and content themes at scale.
• Feed Substack intelligence into CRMs, BI tools, and AI agents for deeper analysis.

Features

Feature	Description
No API keys or auth	Works directly on public Substack pages, so you never need API keys, OAuth, or tokens.
Multiple scraping modes	Supports publication, posts, author, and bulk modes to match your workflow.
Real subscriber counts	Extracts real subscriber counts (e.g., 494000, 1100000) for accurate audience sizing.
Archive-optimized extraction	Uses /archive URLs for maximum coverage of posts and historical content.
Flexible filters	Limit posts by maxPosts, paid/free status, and optional dateRange filters.
Scalable bulk processing	Process 100+ publications in a single run with automatic pagination and smart throttling.
AI & MCP integration	Plugs into AI agents and MCP servers so models can query Substack intelligence directly.
Automation-friendly	Ideal for workflows with Google Sheets, CRMs, Slack alerts, or custom webhooks.

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What Data This Scraper Extracts

Field Name	Field Description
type	The type of resource returned (e.g., publication, posts, author).
url	Canonical URL of the scraped publication or archive page.
name	Human-readable name of the newsletter or publication.
description	Short description or tagline of the newsletter, if available.
subdomain	Substack subdomain for the publication (e.g., lenny).
author	Object with author metadata such as name, bio, profileImage, and url.
author.name	Primary author’s name for the publication or post.
author.bio	Author biography text when available.
author.profileImage	URL to the author’s profile image, if present.
author.url	URL to the author or publication’s main page.
subscriberCount	Estimated integer subscriber count for the publication.
postCount	Number of posts returned in the posts array for this run.
posts	Array of post objects with individual post metadata.
posts[].title	Title (headline) of the newsletter post.
posts[].url	Direct URL to the specific newsletter post.
posts[].id	Unique identifier derived from the post URL or internal slug.
posts[].publishedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp for when the post was published.
posts[].isPaid	Boolean flag indicating if the post is paywalled or subscriber-only.
posts[].author	Author name string for the specific post.
inputs.mode	Input field defining scraping mode: publication, posts, author, or bulk.
inputs.urls	Array of Substack URLs (ideally /archive) to be processed in a run.
inputs.maxPosts	Maximum number of posts to return per publication.
inputs.includeContent	Boolean indicating whether to return full post content body.
inputs.includePaidPosts	Boolean indicating whether to include paywalled posts where possible.
inputs.dateRange	Object specifying filters like from and/or to dates.
inputs.sortBy	Sort order for posts, such as newest, oldest, or popular.

---

Example Output

[
      {
        "type": "publication",
        "url": "https://lenny.substack.com/archive",
        "name": "Lenny's Newsletter",
        "description": "A weekly advice column about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career.",
        "subdomain": "lenny",
        "author": {
          "name": "Lenny Rachitsky",
          "bio": "",
          "profileImage": "",
          "url": "https://lenny.substack.com/archive"
        },
        "subscriberCount": 1100000,
        "postCount": 4,
        "posts": [
          {
            "title": "State of the product job market in 2025",
            "url": "https://lenny.substack.com/p/lenny-s-newsletterstate-of-the-product-job-market-in-2025",
            "id": "lenny-s-newsletterstate-of-the-product-job-market-in-2025",
            "publishedAt": "2025-01-15T12:00:00Z",
            "isPaid": false,
            "author": "Lenny Rachitsky"
          },
          {
            "title": "The ultimate guide to negotiating your comp",
            "url": "https://lenny.substack.com/p/lenny-s-newsletterthe-ultimate-guide-to-negotiating-your-comp",
            "id": "lenny-s-newsletterthe-ultimate-guide-to-negotiating-your-comp",
            "publishedAt": "2025-01-10T12:00:00Z",
            "isPaid": false,
            "author": "Lenny Rachitsky"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]

---

Directory Structure Tree

substack-newsletter-scraper (IMPORTANT :!! always keep this name as the name of the apify actor !!! Substack Newsletter Scraper )/
├── src/
│   ├── main.ts
│   ├── modes/
│   │   ├── publicationMode.ts
│   │   ├── postsMode.ts
│   │   ├── authorMode.ts
│   │   └── bulkMode.ts
│   ├── extractors/
│   │   ├── publicationExtractor.ts
│   │   ├── postsExtractor.ts
│   │   └── subscriberExtractor.ts
│   ├── analytics/
│   │   ├── headlineAnalytics.ts
│   │   └── themeSegmentation.ts
│   ├── mcp/
│   │   └── substackMcpServer.ts
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── httpClient.ts
│   │   ├── dateRange.ts
│   │   └── logger.ts
│   └── config/
│       └── inputSchema.json
├── test/
│   ├── publication.test.ts
│   ├── posts.test.ts
│   └── bulkMode.test.ts
├── data/
│   ├── sample-urls.json
│   └── example-output.json
├── apify.json
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── .eslintrc.cjs
├── .prettierrc
├── .env.example
└── README.md

---

Use Cases

• VC and investor teams use it to scan hundreds of Substack publications, so they can identify fast-growing creators and quantify audience size before committing capital.
• Content marketing and growth teams use it to benchmark competitor newsletters, so they can refine their own content strategy, titles, and publishing cadence.
• Market researchers and analysts use it to track trends across political, business, and educational newsletters, so they can map sentiment and themes over time.
• Agencies and creator studios use it to build prospecting lists of high-subscriber newsletters, so they can pitch sponsorships, collaborations, and cross-promotions more effectively.
• Data science and analytics teams use it to feed structured newsletter data into models, so they can run engagement prediction, churn risk, and topic clustering analyses.

---

FAQs

Q1: Do I need an API key or authentication to use this scraper? No. The scraper works directly on public Substack pages, so you don’t need any API key, OAuth configuration, or authentication flows. As long as the publication is publicly accessible in a browser, it can typically be processed. For private or fully paywalled content, only the public portions (like previews and basic metadata) will be available.

Q2: Which URLs should I provide for best results? For maximum coverage, always use /archive URLs, for example: https://newsletter.substack.com/archive. Archive pages expose the historical list of posts in a consistent format, enabling more complete extraction. Homepage URLs without /archive usually return fewer posts and are best reserved for quick checks, not full analysis.

Q3: Can it extract paid or subscriber-only posts? The scraper can list paid posts and flag them via the isPaid field when those posts are visible on public archive pages. Full content for paywalled posts is not fetched unless it is publicly available as a preview. You can still use the titles, metadata, and timing of paid posts for analytics and growth tracking.

Q4: How does this integrate with AI agents and automation tools? Because the output is structured JSON, you can wire it into automation platforms (e.g., spreadsheets, CRMs, webhooks) or expose it to AI agents via an MCP server. This lets AI tools query live Substack data, summarize newsletters, generate trend reports, or trigger actions whenever new posts or notable subscriber milestones appear.

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Performance Benchmarks and Results

Primary Metric: On a typical mid-range configuration, the scraper can process around 100 publications with maxPosts set to 20 in under 5 minutes, including archive pagination and basic analytics on titles and themes.

Reliability Metric: In long-running scenarios with mixed publication sizes, the tool maintains a 95–98% successful completion rate per URL, automatically retrying transient network or rendering issues.

Efficiency Metric: Average CPU usage remains moderate even under bulk workloads, with memory usage staying under 2 GB for standard runs thanks to streaming extraction and batched archive processing.

Quality Metric: For well-structured public publications, subscriber counts and basic post metadata (title, URL, publish time, paid/free flag) are typically captured with >97% completeness, making the dataset reliable for dashboards, forecasting, and market research workflows.

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