Video search API

A video search API that returns Google's video results as rows: title, link, hosting platform, channel, publish date and duration. One query in, a ranked list out, billed per delivered video.

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$0.0004 per delivered video · $2 free every month · Failed runs never billed

POST /v1/scraper/collectors/search_videos/run

$ curl $QD/search_videos/run \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
    -d '{"query": "residential proxies explained", "country": "us", "max_results": 20}'
{ "status": "done", "count": 20,
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "…",
      "link": "…",
      "source": "…",
      "channel": "…" } ],
  "cost": 0.008 }
# 20 videos × $0.0004 · nothing delivered, nothing charged

$0.0004 / video5,000 videos on the free $2 every month

Semantic inputquery, country, lang — no URL lists

Up to 100videos per run, pagination handled for you

No browserread over HTTP/TLS — cheaper and faster than rendering

What a video search API does

Video results mix YouTube with everything else — Vimeo, TikTok, publisher players. Collecting them from the video vertical rather than from one platform is what tells you who owns a topic in search, not just who owns it on YouTube.

The vertical is read from the same HTTP tier as web search, so there is no browser in the path and no Data API quota to manage. For channel-level or per-video metrics, the YouTube collectors go deeper.

What one video looks like

Every delivered video carries these fields. Nullable means the source did not publish it — the field stays empty instead of being guessed.

Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position across pages.
`title`	string	Video title.
`link`	string	Video URL.
`source`	string · nullable	Hosting platform (YouTube, Vimeo…).
`channel`	string · nullable	Channel/uploader when shown.
`date`	string · nullable	Publish date/age as shown.
`duration`	string · nullable	Duration as shown (m:ss).

Inputs

The whole request. Anything you leave out falls back to the default shown in the catalog.

Input	Type	Required	What it does
`query`	string	yes	What to search, e.g. "residential proxies explained".
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo and Google locale (gl). Omit for the default pool.
`lang`	string	no	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, it, de.
`max_results`	integer	no	How many videos to deliver at most (1–100). You pay only for delivered videos.

Pricing

Video search API pricing

$0.0004 per delivered video. A run that delivers nothing costs nothing: blocked pages, challenges and retries are on us, and the $2 monthly allowance covers about 5,000 videos before you spend anything.

$0.0004per delivered video$0.4 per 1,000 delivered videos

5,000 videoson the free allowance$2 every month, no card

Zero rowszero chargeblocks, captchas and retries are on us

−30%on volume tiersthe catalog returns your key's price

Pay as you go

$0/mo

$2 free credit / month
60 requests / min
List unit prices

Starter

$19/mo

$15 free credit / month
300 requests / min
10% off unit prices

Growth

$79/mo

$50 free credit / month
600 requests / min
20% off unit prices

Scale

$299/mo

$250 free credit / month
1,200 requests / min
30% off unit prices

Same wallet, same key and same $2 monthly allowance as every other Data API. Prices are launch pricing read live from the billing config — GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Integration

One POST, typed rows

Base URL https://api.quanticdata.io/v1, Bearer auth, the same key as every other Data API. Endpoint: POST /v1/scraper/collectors/search_videos/run.

curl -X POST https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/search_videos/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"residential proxies explained","country":"us","max_results":20}'

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/search_videos/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {QD_API_KEY}"},
    json={
        "query": "residential proxies explained",
        "country": "us",
        "max_results": 20
    },
    timeout=120,
)
for row in r.json()["payload"]["results"]:
    print(row)

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/search_videos/run",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.QD_API_KEY}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({"query":"residential proxies explained","country":"us","max_results":20}),
  },
);
const { payload } = await res.json();
console.table(payload.results);

claude mcp add quantumproxies \
  -e QUANTUMPROXIES_API_KEY=qd_live_your_key_here \
  -- npx -y quantumproxies-mcp

# then, in the chat:
> run the search_videos collector with query="residential proxies explained" and country="us"

What people build with the video search API

Three shapes of work this endpoint was designed around.

Content gap analysis

See which videos rank for a query and on which platform before producing your own.

Publisher monitoring

Track when your videos enter or leave the video vertical for target queries.

Media datasets

Collect duration and publish age alongside the link for a topic corpus.

Video search API versus rolling your own

The differences that actually cost time when you build this in-house.

	DIY scraper	This collector
Scope	One platform only	Whatever ranks: YouTube, Vimeo, publishers
Quota	API keys and daily caps	No quota — pay per delivered video

One schema across every platform

A platform API answers about its own platform. Ask YouTube's Data API what video content exists for a topic and you get YouTube's answer, ranked YouTube's way, with a quota that makes search the most expensive call you can make. Ask the video vertical and you get what a searcher actually finds — which routinely spans YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, TikTok, news sites and embedded players.

For anything that feeds a model or a dataset, the value is the single schema. Merging four platform APIs means reconciling four duration formats, four date conventions and four ranking systems into a table that nobody actually saw. One row shape across every source removes that reconciliation entirely, and source keeps the platform as data rather than as a pipeline branch.

Limits, coverage and the legal bit

Up to 100 videos per run. channel and duration are nullable because not every platform publishes them in a search result — an embedded player on a general site frequently has neither. Nullable means absent, not failed. Throughput is your plan's rate limit rather than anything about the collector: 60 requests/minute on pay-as-you-go, up to 1,200 on the top tier.

Collecting publicly visible data is generally lawful in most jurisdictions, and courts have repeatedly declined to treat reading a public page as unauthorised access. What comes back is metadata and links; no media is fetched, and video content belongs to its creators. Channel names can be personal data where the creator is an individual. None of this is legal advice — get some for your actual use case.

FAQ

Questions we get about the video search API.

Something else? Ask us →

Is this the same as the YouTube collector?

No. This reads Google's video vertical, so it returns whatever platform ranks. youtube_search and youtube_channel read YouTube itself and return channel and view-count detail.

Do I get view counts?

The video vertical publishes duration, platform, channel and publish age. Exact view counts come from the YouTube collectors.

Is there a free video search API?

Every account gets $2 of credit every month with no card, which is about 5,000 delivered videos on this endpoint at $0.0004 each. It renews monthly, and a run that delivers nothing is never billed — so a failed or blocked attempt does not eat the allowance.

How much does one run cost?

Multiply the rows you actually receive by $0.0004. A run capped at 100 videos — the maximum for this collector — costs $0.04 if every row comes back, and less when the source has fewer. Volume tiers take up to 30% off, and GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Can I use it to build a video dataset?

For metadata, yes — title, platform, channel, date and duration in one schema across sources is exactly what a cross-platform dataset needs. For the media itself, no: nothing here downloads video, and video content is copyrighted by its creators.

Why not just use the YouTube API?

Because it only knows about YouTube, and its search quota is small enough that continuous topic monitoring hits the ceiling quickly. If your question is specifically about YouTube, use it. If it is about a topic, one platform is a biased sample.

Run the video search API now

$2 of free credit every month, no card. Your key returns its own prices from GET /v1/scraper/collectors.

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