YouTube autocomplete API

SEO & keywords · v1.0.0 · youtube_autocomplete

$0.0002 / suggestion

$0.20 / 1K · pay per delivered suggestion

A YouTube autocomplete API that returns what people type in the YouTube search box. Send a seed, a country and a language and get YouTube’s own suggestions in its order, or expand the seed across the alphabet and question words to map a whole topic in one run, each suggestion once, billed per suggestion delivered.

By Aldo Morese, founder of QuanticData · Published Oct 28, 2026

Get my free API key See the request

$0.0002 per delivered suggestion · $2 free every month · Failed runs never billed

What it does

What a YouTube autocomplete API does

YouTube’s search box has its own suggestion list, separate from Google’s, because people look for videos differently than they look for pages. On 28 October 2026 we sent “web scraping” to both from the United States: Google’s box offered 15 completions and YouTube’s 14, and only one, “web scraping python”, was on both lists. YouTube’s side was projects and tutorials, such as “web scraping weather data python” and “web scraping amazon product”. If you are picking the title or the topic of a video, the second list is the one that counts.

The official YouTube Data API v3 searches videos, channels and playlists, but it has no endpoint for these suggestions. The collector reads the list the search box itself shows, for the country you set, and returns each suggestion as a row with its rank. Add modes to expand the seed: the alphabet (seed + a to z), question words, prepositions and comparison words, up to 500 suggestions in one run. A suggestion that several probes return is delivered and billed once, with the probe that found it first. Sent with alphabet for Italy, “lista aziende” came back as 80 distinct suggestions.

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	The query to complete, e.g. "web scraping".
`modes`	string[]	no	Which probe families to run: the seed alone (default), seed + a to z, question words, prepositions, comparison words.
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code: whose YouTube suggestions you read. Default us.
`lang`	string	no	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, it, de.
`max_results`	integer	no	How many suggestions to deliver at most (1–500). You pay only for delivered suggestions.

Outputs — 6 fields, one row per suggestion

What one suggestion looks like

Every delivered suggestion 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 delivery order: YouTube's order within each probe, probes in order.
`suggestion`	string	The suggested query, as the YouTube search box shows it.
`seed`	string	The seed it was expanded from.
`probe`	string	The query sent to autocomplete that returned this suggestion first.
`mode`	string	Probe family: seed, alphabet, questions, prepositions, comparisons.
`country`	string	Country the suggestions were read for.

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/youtube_autocomplete/run.

curl -X POST https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_autocomplete/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"web scraping","country":"us","lang":"en","max_results":10}'

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_autocomplete/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {QD_API_KEY}"},
    json={
        "query": "web scraping",
        "country": "us",
        "lang": "en",
        "max_results": 10
    },
    timeout=120,
)
for row in r.json()["payload"]["results"]:
    print(row)

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_autocomplete/run",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.QD_API_KEY}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({"query":"web scraping","country":"us","lang":"en","max_results":10}),
  },
);
const { payload } = await res.json();
console.table(payload.results);

claude mcp add quanticdata \
  -e QUANTICDATA_API_KEY=qd_live_your_key_here \
  -- npx -y quanticdata-mcp

# then, in the chat:
> run the youtube_autocomplete collector with query="web scraping" and country="us" and lang="en"

Example response

POST /v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_autocomplete/run

$ curl $QD/youtube_autocomplete/run \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
    -d '{"query": "web scraping", "country": "us", "lang": "en", "max_results": 10}'
{ "status": "done", "count": 10,
  "results": [
    {
      "rank": "…",
      "suggestion": "…",
      "probe": "…",
      "mode": "…" } ],
  "cost": 0.002 }
# 10 suggestions × $0.0002 · nothing delivered, nothing charged

Try it

YouTube Autocomplete, running now

Change the input and run it against the live collector — nothing to install, no sign-up.

Run it from your own code, on your own inputs

Same collector, same rows — $2 of free API credit every month, no card.

Get my free API key

YouTube autocomplete API: from query, country and lang, QuanticData reads the YouTube autocomplete page and returns one row per suggestion with suggestion, seed and probe, at $0.0002 per delivered suggestion. — You send a seed and a country; the YouTube search box’s suggestions come back as rows with rank, suggestion and the probe that found them — 6 fields on every row — and you are billed $0.0002 for each suggestion actually delivered, nothing for a run that delivers none.

$0.0002 / suggestion10,000 suggestions on the free $2 every month

Semantic inputquery, modes, country — no URL lists

Up to 500suggestions per run, pagination handled for you

6 fieldsone row per suggestion

Pricing

YouTube Autocomplete API pricing

$0.0002 per delivered suggestion. A run that delivers nothing costs nothing, and the $2 monthly allowance covers about 10,000 suggestions before you spend anything.

$0.0002per delivered suggestion$0.20 per 1,000 delivered suggestions

10,000 suggestionson the free allowance$2 every month, no card

Zero rowszero chargea run that delivers nothing is free

−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.

What people build with the YouTube autocomplete API

Three shapes of work this endpoint was designed around.

Video titles and topics

Read what people type after a topic before a video is scripted, and take the title from a phrase YouTube already suggests instead of one nobody searches for.

Channel keyword maps

Expand each seed a to z for every market you publish in and store the rows by probe and country: the same topic in the US and in Italy rarely completes the same way.

Content gap checks

Pair the suggestions with the YouTube scraper API: for each suggested query, how many videos rank and how many views they have, so you see where demand is high and the results are old.

YouTube Autocomplete API versus rolling your own

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

	DIY scraper	This collector
Official API	YouTube Data API v3: no suggestions endpoint	The search box’s own list, per country
What you send	A JSONP URL to build, call and parse	A seed, a country, a language
Expansion	One call per letter, merged by hand	a–z, questions, prepositions and comparisons in one run
Duplicates	The same suggestion from many probes	Each suggestion once, with the probe that found it
Billing	Requests, successful or not	Only delivered suggestions

YouTube autocomplete API: the POST to the youtube_autocomplete collector, 10 suggestions delivered and the bill, 10 × $0.0002 = $0.002 in usage.cost_usd; zero suggestions would cost $0. — The same call you would paste into a terminal: a Bearer key, query and country in the body, and back the envelope every QuanticData endpoint returns — type, message, payload — where count is how many suggestions arrived and usage.cost_usd is $0.002, which is 10 × $0.0002. A run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Sources and standards

The platform documentation and standards this collector is built against — check any claim on this page against the primary source:

FAQ

Questions we get about the YouTube autocomplete API.

Something else? Ask us

Is there an official YouTube autocomplete API?

No. The YouTube Data API v3 has search endpoints for videos, channels and playlists, but none for the suggestions under the search box. This collector reads the list the box itself shows and returns it as rows, with no API key or quota on the YouTube side.

How is it different from the Google Autocomplete API?

The source. The Google Autocomplete API returns what people type into Google; this returns what they type into YouTube, and the two lists differ: for “web scraping” in the US they shared one suggestion out of 15 and 14. Same price per suggestion; this one also expands a seed a to z in the same run.

Does it return search volume?

No. YouTube publishes neither a volume nor a relevance score for its suggestions, so the collector returns the order as the rank and never an invented number. To weigh a suggestion, run it through the YouTube scraper API and look at the views of the videos that rank for it.

How many suggestions does one seed give?

The seed alone returns YouTube’s list for it: 14 for “web scraping” in the US on 28 October 2026, fewer for rarer seeds. With alphabet the run sends the seed plus 26 letters and keeps every distinct suggestion, up to 500 per run.

Can I get suggestions for another country or language?

Yes. country sets whose suggestions you read, with the United States as the default, and lang sets the interface language. Every row carries the country it was read for, so runs for different markets can share one table.

Is there a free YouTube autocomplete API?

Every account gets $2 of credit every month with no card, which is about 10,000 delivered suggestions on this endpoint at $0.0002 each. It renews monthly, and a run that delivers nothing is never billed.

How much does one run cost?

Multiply the rows you actually receive by $0.0002. A run capped at 500 suggestions — the maximum for this collector — costs $0.1 if every row comes back, and less when the listing has fewer. Volume tiers take up to 30% off, and GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Run the YouTube autocomplete API now

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

Get my free API key

Illustration: three coloured zones of the page that is read (YouTube autocomplete page) turn into clean JSON with the fields suggestion, seed and probe; 6 fields on every row.