YouTube Transcript API — Free Tier, No Quota | Supadata

Use a simple and performant API to turn YouTube videos into text — with timestamps, multi-language support, and AI-powered fallback transcription.
✔️ Instantly fetch transcripts from a library of billions of YouTube videos
✔️ Extract accurate and time-stamped video transcripts for content analysis
✔️ High performance and high availability API for bulk requests
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To fetch a YouTube transcript programmatically, call the Supadata API. One GET request, no SDK needed:
Using Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor? Add Supadata in one click and sign in, no key to paste (other AI agents):
Machine-readable site map: llms.txt. Endpoint reference: docs.supadata.ai/get-transcript.
Not all YouTube transcript solutions are equal. Here is how Supadata compares to the open-source Python library, YouTube’s official Data API and two hosted transcript APIs:
The open-source library is the right choice for a script on your laptop; in production it needs rotating proxies because YouTube blocks data-center IPs. The official Data API cannot return transcripts at all. Among hosted APIs, Supadata is the only one that still returns a transcript when a video has no captions, which affects a large share of live stream recordings, older uploads and non-English videos. For a longer review of six providers, read 6 YouTube Transcript APIs Compared (2026).
Ready to try it? Get your free API key → — 100 requests/month, no credit card.
When a YouTube video has no captions — live stream recordings, older uploads, user-generated content — most tools fail silently. Supadata uses AI speech recognition to generate the transcript instead, through the same API endpoint with the same response format. No code changes; generated transcripts are billed at 2 credits per minute of video.
Nobody likes bloated APIs and unnecessary complexity. That’s why we’ve built our service to be:
Build products powered by video data:
Extract insights at scale:
Feed your models with quality data:
Start free with 100 requests/month. Scale to millions of credits with predictable pricing — no hidden fees, no per-character billing.
“Finally, an API that just works without the BS.” — Sarah Chen, AI Maker
“Saved me weeks of development time.” — Mark T., Solopreneur
Processing speed is typically under a second for captioned videos; AI fallback adds time proportional to length. For high volume, use the batch endpoint and cache results — transcripts don’t change once a video is published.
Get transcripts in seconds. No OAuth, no YouTube API key, no quota limits.
Supadata automatically transcribes the audio using AI speech recognition. You use the same API endpoint and get the same response format; generated transcripts are billed at 2 credits per minute of video. No code changes needed on your side.
100+ languages with automatic detection. You can request a specific language with the lang parameter, or omit it to get the default language.
Each transcript includes a content array where every entry has text, offset (start time in ms), and duration fields.
The free tier supports up to 100 credits per month. Paid plans range from 300 to 1,000,000 credits/month with higher rate limits. See pricing for details.
Yes. The batch endpoint lets you fetch transcripts for multiple videos in a single API call.
Official SDKs for Python and JavaScript/TypeScript, plus no-code integrations with Zapier, Make, n8n, and Active Pieces. You can also add Supadata to your AI agent — Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor — in one click (MCP server).
Yes. The Free plan includes 100 credits/month at no cost, with no credit card required. Every new account starts on the Free plan automatically.
No. Every request to https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript needs an x-api-key header; there is no anonymous or public endpoint. A key is free: sign up, copy it from the dashboard and you have 100 requests per month without a credit card. For a one-off transcript without any key, use the free YouTube transcript generator.
Put the ID inside a YouTube URL in the url parameter. Short links, Shorts links and live stream URLs are accepted too; the API extracts the video ID itself.
Yes. The same GET /v1/transcript?url=... request accepts YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X (Twitter) URLs as well as direct links to hosted audio or video files (MP4, MP3, M4A, WAV and more). Native captions are used when the platform has them; otherwise the audio is transcribed with AI, so podcasts and uncaptioned videos work too.
For YouTube, the most accurate source is the video’s own captions, which Supadata returns verbatim when they exist. When a video has none, the transcript comes from AI speech recognition, and accuracy then depends on the audio: expect 95%+ on clear single-speaker speech, lower with background music, crosstalk or strong accents, whichever provider you compare.
Request the transcript with timestamps (the default) and you get a content array where every segment carries offset and duration in milliseconds. Embed the YouTube player, seek to offset / 1000 when a user clicks a line, and highlight the segment whose range contains the current playback time. See the transcript endpoint reference for the full response.
The YouTube Transcript API is one endpoint in a larger toolkit. Every API below shares the same key and response format, so adding a platform is a one-line change:
Get your API key in 30 seconds. No credit card required. Start Building Now →
Supadata is an API that turns YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X videos into transcripts, metadata and structured JSON. Python & JS SDKs, free tier.
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