Collectors · Social & communities

YouTube scraper API in Python

YouTube search results without the Data API — views, channel, duration. One POST from Python with query, rows back as JSON with 18 fields, $0.0008 per delivered video. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts query and country to the youtube_search collector, a line-drawn page titled YouTube search, and a white card with the fields title, channel, views, published and duration, at $0.0008 per video ($0.80 per 1,000). — A Python requests call to the youtube_search collector returns one dict per video, at $0.0008 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_search/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "query": "residential proxies explained",
        "country": "us",
        "max_results": 20,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("video_id"), row.get("title"), row.get("url"), row.get("channel"))

Python: one YouTube search run (Ricerca (US)), printing video_id, title, url, channel

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the YouTube search collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`query`	string	yes	What to search on YouTube.
`sort`	string: `relevance`, `upload_date`, `view_count`, `rating`	no (default relevance)	Result order.
`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 (default 20)	How many videos to deliver at most (1–100). You pay only for delivered videos.

Response fields

18 fields per video.

Fields of each row (video)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position.
`video_id`	string	YouTube video id.
`title`	string	Video title.
`url`	string	Watch URL.
`channel`	string, nullable	Channel name.
`channel_url`	string, nullable	Channel URL.
`views`	string, nullable	View count as shown.
`views_value`	integer, nullable	View count as a number (null for live viewer counts).
`published`	string, nullable	Publish age ("6 months ago").
`duration`	string, nullable	Duration (m:ss).
`live`	boolean	True for live streams.
`description`	string, nullable	Description snippet.
`thumbnail`	string, nullable	Thumbnail URL.
`badges`	string[]	Badges (4K, CC, New…).
`channel_id`	string, nullable	Channel id (UC…).
`channel_verified`	boolean	Channel has the verified badge.
`views_short`	string, nullable	Compact view count as shown on the tile (26K views).
`duration_seconds`	integer, nullable	Duration in seconds.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/youtube_search/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"query":"residential proxies explained","country":"us","max_results":20}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.0008 per delivered video.

What YouTube search rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.0008
1,000	$0.80
10,000	$8.00

Up to 100 videos per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 2,500 videos. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free YouTube search API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 2,500 videos of this collector at $0.0008 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 100 videos per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.0008 per delivered video, no subscription.

Get an API key YouTube scraper API