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Scraping Substack Newsletters in 2026 — Free API vs Paid Solutions

#substack #webdev #api #scraping

Substack has no public API. If you want to programmatically access newsletter content — for research, monitoring, or competitive analysis — your options have traditionally been expensive scrapers or fragile browser automation.

We built a free API that handles Substack scraping with a single HTTP request. Here's how it compares to paid alternatives.

The Free Substack Scraping API

Our API at https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/substack scrapes any Substack publication and returns structured JSON — post titles, URLs, dates, and content previews.

Quick Start 

curl -H "X-API-Key: demo-key-2026" \
  "https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/substack?publication=platformer"
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This returns the latest posts from the "platformer" Substack, neatly formatted:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "title": "Why AI regulation is moving faster than expected",
      "url": "https://platformer.substack.com/p/...",
      "date": "2026-03-18",
      "subtitle": "A look at the latest policy moves..."
    }
  ],
  "count": 10,
  "source": "substack"
}
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No browser automation. No Puppeteer. No headless Chrome. Just a REST call.

Use Cases

1. Newsletter Research

Tracking what top writers in your niche are covering? Pull their latest posts programmatically:

import requests

publications = ["platformer", "stratechery", "lenny"]

for pub in publications:
    resp = requests.get(
        "https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/substack",
        params={"publication": pub},
        headers={"X-API-Key": "demo-key-2026"}
    )
    data = resp.json()
    if data["success"]:
        print(f"\n--- {pub} ---")
        for post in data["data"][:3]:
            print(f"  {post['title']}")
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2. Content Monitoring

Set up alerts when specific newsletters publish new content. Combine with a cron job and email/Slack notification.

3. Competitive Analysis

Track competitor newsletters — what topics they cover, how often they publish, what headlines perform. Feed the data into your content strategy.

Free API vs. ScraperAPI: When to Use What

Our free API is great for getting started, but it has limits. For production-scale scraping, ScraperAPI is the industry standard.

Here's how they compare:

Feature Our Free API ScraperAPI
Cost Free From $29/month
Rate limit 10 req/day 5,000+ req/month
Substack support Built-in Via custom scraping
JavaScript rendering Not needed Included
Proxy rotation N/A 40M+ proxies
Anti-bot bypass N/A Automatic
Other sites GitHub, HN Any website

When to use our free API:

  • You need quick Substack data for personal projects
  • You're scraping fewer than 10 publications per day
  • You want zero setup — no signup, no billing

When to upgrade to ScraperAPI:

  • You need to scrape at scale (hundreds of publications)
  • You need to scrape sites beyond Substack/GitHub/HN
  • You need proxy rotation and anti-bot bypass
  • You're building a production application

ScraperAPI handles JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving, and proxy management automatically. If you outgrow our free tier, it's the natural next step. Try ScraperAPI free — they offer 5,000 free API calls to get started.

Other Endpoints

Our free API also covers:

# Hacker News stories
curl -H "X-API-Key: demo-key-2026" \
  "https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/hn?q=AI"

# GitHub repo search
curl -H "X-API-Key: demo-key-2026" \
  "https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/github?q=scraping"
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Getting Started

Start free: Use demo-key-2026 with our API at https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/substack — no signup required.

Scale up: When you need more volume or broader site coverage, ScraperAPI is the most reliable option we've tested.

The best approach? Start with our free API to validate your use case, then graduate to a paid solution when you have proven demand.

We built this because every Substack scraping tutorial starts with "install Puppeteer" and ends with fighting anti-bot measures. Sometimes you just want the data.

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