YouTube Transcript API that just works.
โ Extract transcripts in 49ms
โ Search videos, channels & playlists
โ REST API + MCP for ChatGPT & Claude
โ 1 credit = 1 request. That simple.
15M+ transcripts served every month.
100 free credits to start ๐
https://t.co/XbBBCq7Ee7
Every YouTube video is a blog post, a newsletter, and a Twitter thread waiting to happen.
The text already exists: it's the transcript.
Pull it. Clean it. Restructure it.
One 20-minute video = 3,000+ words of original content for inspiration.
Wrong: "Transcripts are only useful for subtitles."
Transcripts are text. Text is the universal input for LLMs, search engines, analytics, and content tools.
Every YouTube video is a document waiting to be indexed. 800M+ documents. Most untouched.
All of these run on a single endpoint:
GET /youtube/transcript?videoId=VIDEO_ID
49ms median response.
15M+ transcripts processed monthly.
100 free credits to start. No card required.
https://t.co/XbBBCq7Ee7
YouTube has 800 million videos.
Most of them have a transcript.
We analyzed how the top AI builders are using this data.
Most developers are leaving it completely untouched:
Use case 3: Automated course notes.
Index an online course playlist.
Pull all transcripts.
Run each through an LLM.
Output: chapter summaries, key terms, flashcards, and a study guide.
One builder shipped this as a SaaS and charges $12/month.
15M transcripts extracted last month.
Zero headless browsers.
Zero Selenium instances.
Zero puppeteer configs.
Just a GET request and a Bearer token.
YouTube transcript extraction doesn't need to be hard.
Most "YouTube transcript" tools:
โ Break when YouTube updates
โ Require browser automation
โ Rate limited to ~100 requests/day
โ No search, no playlists, no channels
TranscriptAPI:
โ Production-grade REST API
โ 49ms response times
โ Full search, channels, playlists
โ MCP Supported
โ 1K credits/mo for $5
Built for developers ๐ช
YouTube has 800M+ videos.
That's more knowledge than most libraries on Earth but it's locked inside video.
TranscriptAPI unlocks it:
โ Full-text search across channels
โ Instant transcripts via API
โ Structured data for AI agents
The next generation of AI apps will be built on video data.
thank you for this banger skill philip โค๏ธ
๐ announcing new coupon code - CHAPATI23
first 23 people to use this coupon will get 23% off on their first order!
Just published a new @clawhub_ai skill: yt-summary โ drop a YouTube link in chat, get a structured summary back. No copy-paste, no browser extensions, just paste and go.
https://t.co/YEhmIgMRTb
Real cost of building a YouTube transcript pipeline:
DIY with yt-dlp + Whisper: $0 API cost, 3 days of setup, breaks monthly
Google's YouTube Data API: free-ish, no transcript endpoint, quota headaches
TranscriptAPI: $5/mo for 1,000 transcripts, 15 min setup, it just works
Pick your adventure.
YouTube isn't a video platform.
It's the largest unstructured knowledge base on earth.
The teams building search, RAG, and AI agents on top of YouTube transcripts right now will look like geniuses in 12 months. ๐ช
Transcript #1: "does this thing even work?"
Transcript #10,000: "okay, people actually want this"
Transcript #1,000,000: "we might be onto something"
Transcript #10,000,000: today.
TranscriptAPI just processed its 10 millionth transcript.
What started as a simple YouTube transcript API is now powering research tools, AI apps, content pipelines, and things we didn't even know were possible.
We're just getting started!