How to scrape YouTube Transcript with Node.js

A YouTube video's captions as text, with timestamps. This tutorial gets it with a short Node.js program and the YouTube Transcript API. Each successful call costs 1 credit; errors and not-found answers are free.

1. Get an API key

Sign in to get a key and 100 free credits, no card. Then put the key in an environment variable so it stays out of your code:

export SCRAPEIO_API_KEY="your_key_here"

2. Set up Node.js

Node 18 or newer; fetch is built in

3. Write the code

Save this as scrape.mjs. Replace PASTE_URL_HERE with a real url.

const url = new URL("https://scrapeio.com/v1/youtube/video/transcript");
url.searchParams.set("url", "PASTE_URL_HERE");
const headers = { "x-api-key": process.env.SCRAPEIO_API_KEY };

const res = await fetch(url, { headers });
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}`);
const { data } = await res.json();
console.log(data);

4. Run it

node scrape.mjs

The response has the same envelope on every endpoint: success, cached, credits_used, credits_remaining and data. Shared fields such as handle, followers, plays, likes and created_at have the same names on every platform.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`url` (required)	string	YouTube video or Short URL.
`language`	string	Preferred language code, e.g. en.

Errors and what you pay

Status	Meaning	Charged
`200`	Success	Yes, unless cached
`400`	A parameter is missing or wrong	No
`401`	The key is missing or invalid	No
`402`	Not enough credits	No
`403`	The account or post is private	No
`404`	Not found on the platform	No
`429`	More than 300 requests a minute	No
`502`	Every source is down; retry shortly	No

Same endpoint in other languages

Python · JavaScript · TypeScript · Go · Rust · Java · C# · PHP · Ruby · Kotlin · Swift · R

Prefer no code?

Connect the MCP server to Claude Code, Cursor or Codex and ask in plain English. The agent uses the youtube_transcript tool for you.

100 free credits, no card. Credits never expire.

Get API key