Best YouTube transcript APIs, 2026Every main way to get YouTube transcripts.YouTube’s own captions API, Gemini, an open-source library and the main transcript APIs, compared on timestamps, languages, batches, pricing and access.
An editorial comparison of what each vendor publishes, checked 26 Sept 2026. Monocrawl is ours and listed first. How we compared
What are you building?
Transcripts of public videos for AI, RAG or search indexesA hosted transcript API with an API key, or the open-source library if you run your own servers. They differ in timestamps, languages, batches and pricing.
Transcripts from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other platformsAn option that also covers other platforms’ videos with the same key. Their platform lists differ, so check each one.
An AI agent that reads YouTube videosAn option with its own MCP server and a YouTube tool, so the agent can call it directly.
Caption files for videos on your own channelYouTube’s official API, which downloads a caption track when you have permission to edit the video.
11options compared
7with an MCP server
10free to start
37sources, checked 26 Sept 2026
Four routes
YouTube’s official API downloads captions only for videos you can edit, and the Gemini API writes about public videos with an AI model. Hosted transcript APIs read public videos with an API key, and the open-source library runs on your own servers.
YouTube’s official API
Gemini API
Monocrawl and the vendors below
youtube-transcript-api for Python
What they return
What each option lists on its own pages, and how you connect. Auto captions: returns or flags YouTube’s auto-generated captions. Batch: several videos in one request.
| Transcript data | Connect | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Option | Plain text | Timestamps | Languages | Auto captions | Batch | Other platforms | REST API | MCP server | Sources |
| MonocrawlOur product | Our API | ||||||||
| YouTube’s official APIOfficial, captions endpoints | – | – | – | – | 1234 | ||||
| Gemini APIOfficial, Google AI model | – | – | – | – | 567 | ||||
| ApifyYouTube Scraper actor | 89101112 | ||||||||
| Bright DataYouTube Scraper API | – | – | – | 1314151617 | |||||
| SearchApiSearch data API | – | – | 18192021 | ||||||
| SocialKitSocial data API | – | 2223242526 | |||||||
| TranscriptAPIYouTube transcript API | – | – | 272829 | ||||||
| TubeAlfredYouTube API and MCP server | – | – | 30313233 | ||||||
| YouTube-Transcript.ioYouTube transcript API | – | – | – | – | – | 343536 | |||
| youtube-transcript-apiOpen-source Python library | – | – | – | – | 37 | ||||
Pricing
A request, a result, a record and a unit are not the same size, and allowances reset on different schedules. Price your own workload with each vendor.
One key and one response format across 70+ platforms, with monitors for alerts.
Monthly plans
No published price Projects get 10,000 quota units a day by default; a caption download costs 200.
Listing a video’s caption tracks costs 50 units. Both calls need OAuth authorisation.
Worth knowingIts caption download method requires the user to have permission to edit the video, and costs 200 quota units a call.
No published price
No charge for YouTube URL input while it is in preview
Google says pricing and rate limits are likely to change. Public videos only.
Worth knowingGoogle’s own transcription example passes a YouTube URL and asks for speakers, MM:SS timestamps and English translations.
Free tier, 8 hours of YouTube video a day
$4.00 per 1,000 videos on the free plan
Speech to text adds $48 per 1,000 transcript minutes on that plan. From $2.40 per 1,000 videos on higher plans; Starter is $19 a month.
Worth knowingIts YouTube Scraper, maintained by Apify, downloads existing subtitles and can transcribe videos without any, at extra cost.
$5 of usage a month
$1.50 per 1,000 records, pay as you go
Only successful deliveries are charged. $499 a month includes 384,000 records.
Worth knowingThe transcript comes as a field on each video record, and you can set the transcription language per video.
5,000 records a month
$40 a month for 10,000 searches
Only successful searches are billed. From $1 per 1,000 on its largest listed plan.
Worth knowingCan prefer auto-generated or uploaded transcripts, and translate auto-generated ones into any language.
100 free requests
$20.30 a month for 12,000 credits, billed yearly
Billed $243.60 a year. Most requests cost 1 credit; longer videos may use more.
Worth knowingReturns full text and timed segments in one response; a video without captions returns an error and costs no credits.
20 free credits
$5 a month for 1,000 credits, billed monthly
A transcript costs 1 credit, charged only on success. Top-ups $2.50 per 1,000; $54 a year on yearly billing.
Worth knowingA free info call lists the caption languages a video offers, auto-generated ones included, before you spend a credit.
100 credits
$5 a month for 3,500 credits
A launch price; it lists $20 a month as the standard price. An available transcript costs 1 credit.
Worth knowingLets you ask for manual or auto-generated captions, and charges nothing when a video has none.
50 credits, valid for 14 days
$9.99 a month for 1,000 transcripts, billed monthly
Pro is $24.99 a month for 3,000. Unused tokens don’t roll over.
Worth knowingTakes up to 50 video IDs per request, 5 requests every 10 seconds. It doesn’t create transcripts from audio.
25 tokens a month
Free open-source code under the MIT licence, run on your own machines
YouTube blocks most cloud-provider IPs, so for servers its README points to rotating residential proxies.
Worth knowingIts README warns that it uses an undocumented part of YouTube’s web client, with no guarantee it keeps working.
Free and open source
Try a call
The same request in cURL, TypeScript or Python, and the recorded transcript of Marques Brownlee’s iPhone 18 Pro review: English captions as timed segments. No Google Cloud project, no OAuth and no proxies.
GET /v1/youtube/post-transcriptcurl "https://www.monocrawl.com/v1/youtube/post-transcript?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DohqxP8EEumo" \
-H "x-api-key: mn_your_key_here"iPhone 18 Pro Review: All About that Chip
Marques Brownlee · YouTube video
Selected public fields from the recorded response. Live values will differ.
YouTube transcript2 creditsCaption tracks1 creditChannel uploads1 creditPlaylist videos1 credit
TikTok transcript5 credits
Instagram reel transcript5 credits
X video transcript5 credits2.1sMedian response in our benchmark. 22 September 2026 catalogue benchmark. Median of recorded endpoint timings across 636 operations with a successful HTTP response. Includes network time; individual requests vary.
Questions
No. Its caption download method requires the user to have permission to edit the video, and each call costs 200 of the default 10,000 quota units a day. Listing a video’s caption tracks costs 50 units, and the list does not contain the captions themselves. Hosted transcript APIs, the open-source youtube-transcript-api library and the Gemini API work with other public videos.
The open-source youtube-transcript-api library is free, but its README says YouTube blocks most cloud-provider IPs, so servers need proxies. The Gemini API’s YouTube URL input is at no charge while in preview. Most hosted APIs let you start free: Monocrawl gives 1,000 credits every month, Bright Data 5,000 records a month, Apify $5 of usage a month, TranscriptAPI 100 credits, SearchApi 100 requests, TubeAlfred 50 credits for 14 days, YouTube-Transcript.io 25 tokens a month and SocialKit 20 credits.
Most transcript APIs read the captions a video already has. Monocrawl returns a null transcript, and a batch request doesn’t charge for empty items. SocialKit and TubeAlfred don’t charge when captions are missing, and TranscriptAPI charges only successful responses. Apify’s YouTube Scraper can transcribe such videos with speech to text for an extra fee, and the Gemini API writes text from a video’s audio and frames.
Often. TranscriptAPI and TubeAlfred take a language code, SearchApi can translate YouTube’s auto-generated transcripts into any language, and Apify and Bright Data take a subtitle or transcription language. The open-source library can use YouTube’s own translation feature, and YouTube’s official API can machine-translate a caption track of a video you can edit. Monocrawl lists a video’s caption tracks by language, with each track’s link; its transcript call has no language option.
Monocrawl, Apify, Bright Data, SearchApi, SocialKit, TranscriptAPI and TubeAlfred publish their own MCP servers with YouTube tools, so assistants such as Claude or Cursor can call them directly.
Yes, from some. Monocrawl returns transcripts from TikTok, Instagram reels, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Reddit and Rumble with the same key; its Facebook, LinkedIn and X transcripts are for videos under about 2 minutes. SocialKit covers TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and LinkedIn, SearchApi covers TikTok, and Apify’s Instagram Reel Scraper extracts reel transcripts.
Method
What’s includedYouTube’s official captions endpoints, the Gemini API’s YouTube input and the open-source youtube-transcript-api library, plus hosted transcript APIs that come up across YouTube transcript API searches and comparison lists, list YouTube transcripts on their own pages, and publish their pricing or offer a trial.
What we comparedWhat each option publishes about its transcripts, pricing, free allowance and access, read on its own pages. “Best” here means worth comparing, not a ranking from tests: we have not run their APIs.
About MonocrawlMonocrawl is our product and is listed first. Its details come from our live plans and catalogue.
1,000 free credits every month. No card required.
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