Best YouTube Transcript APIs for AI Agents in 2026

A transcript endpoint is easy to compare until your agent needs something beside transcript text. Search, channel discovery, comments, playlists, live chat, MCP support, and credit expiry can change the right choice.

We reviewed six options against their current documentation, repositories, and public pricing. We did not run a controlled latency or success-rate benchmark, so this article does not rank vendors on numbers we could not reproduce.

Updated July 2026. Check the linked pricing and documentation before making a purchase.

The short answer

• Pick Stophy when your agent needs YouTube search, transcripts, comments, channels, playlists, live chat, Music, or Kids through one API and hosted MCP server.
• Pick Supadata when you need AI-generated transcripts for videos without captions or support for platforms beyond YouTube.
• Pick TranscriptAPI when you want a low monthly entry price and YouTube search, channels, playlists, and MCP.
• Pick ScrapeCreators when YouTube is one part of a broader social-data workload and you prefer credits that do not expire.
• Pick SerpApi when transcript retrieval belongs inside a larger search-engine data stack.
• Pick youtube-transcript-api for a local Python script where you accept proxy and maintenance work.

How to compare transcript APIs

Use the requirements your agent will have in production.

1. Transcript output. Look for timestamped segments, language selection, and a clear result when captions are unavailable.
2. Fallback behavior. Some vendors only return YouTube captions. Others can generate a transcript from audio at a different credit cost.
3. YouTube coverage. Decide whether search, channels, playlists, comments, live chat, Music, or Kids must share the same integration.
4. Agent access. A hosted MCP server avoids writing a wrapper for Claude, Cursor, Codex, or another MCP client.
5. Billing shape. One-time credits suit bursty use. Monthly allowances suit steady use. Per-minute AI transcription needs separate cost math.
6. Operating risk. Open-source scrapers can save API fees but add proxy, blocking, and upstream-maintenance work.

1. Stophy

Best for: YouTube-focused agents that need more than transcript extraction.

Stophy uses one API key and one credit balance across search, video, channel, playlist, autocomplete, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids. The video endpoint retrieves details, timestamped transcripts, comments, replies, or live chat.

The MCP server exposes eight tools for the same surfaces. It runs as hosted Streamable HTTP at https://api.stophy.dev/v1/mcp or as the local @stophy/mcp package.

$ claude mcp add --transport http stophy https://api.stophy.dev/v1/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $STOPHY_API_KEY"

Python:

import os
from stophy import Stophy

stophy = Stophy(os.environ["STOPHY_API_KEY"])
# "Mastering Claude Code in 30 minutes" by Anthropic
result = stophy.video(
    type="transcript",
    video_url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eBSHbLKuN0",
)

for segment in result["data"]["segments"]:
    print(f"{segment['start']:.1f}s  {segment['text']}")

Pricing is $9 for 3,000 credits, $25 for 10,000, $70 for 50,000, and $200 for 200,000. New accounts receive 100 credits without a card. Credits do not expire, and failed requests are refunded.

Tradeoffs: Stophy only covers YouTube. It returns captions available through YouTube and does not generate a transcript from the audio when captions are absent.

2. Supadata

Best for: Multi-platform applications and videos that may need AI transcription.

Supadata retrieves YouTube transcripts for one credit. When a transcript is not already available, it can generate one with AI for two credits per video minute. Translation costs 30 credits per minute.

It also provides video, channel, playlist, website, and multi-platform transcript APIs. Paid plans unlock batch transcript and video endpoints. Supadata lists JavaScript and Python SDKs, MCP, n8n, Zapier, Make, and ActivePieces integrations.

$ curl "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript?url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eBSHbLKuN0" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SUPADATA_API_KEY"

The current plans are:

• Free: 100 credits per month.
• Basic: $5 for 300 credits.
• Pro: $17 for 3,000 credits.
• Mega: $47 for 30,000 credits.
• Giga: $297 for 300,000 credits.
• Supa: $897 for 1,000,000 credits.

Credits do not roll over to the next month.

Tradeoffs: Generated transcripts and translation use more than one credit. Batch endpoints require a paid plan. Supadata does not list dedicated YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, or live-chat endpoints.

3. TranscriptAPI

Best for: A YouTube-only monthly plan with search, channels, playlists, and MCP.

TranscriptAPI charges one credit for a successful transcript, search page, channel search, channel-video page, or playlist page. Failed requests do not consume credits. Channel resolution and the latest 15 channel uploads are free operations.

Its hosted MCP server exposes the same transcript, search, channel, and playlist tools:

$ claude mcp add --transport http transcript-api https://transcriptapi.com/mcp

Current public pricing is:

• 100 free credits with no card and no time limit.
• $5 per month for 1,000 monthly credits and $2.50 per 1,000 top-up credits.
• $54 per year, still provisioned as 1,000 credits per month, with $1.50 per 1,000 top-ups.

The monthly plan has a 200 requests-per-minute limit. The annual plan lists 300 requests per minute.

Tradeoffs: TranscriptAPI is YouTube-only and does not list comments, live chat, Music, or Kids. The recurring allowance is monthly, so compare its top-up model with one-time credit packs for bursty workloads.

4. ScrapeCreators

Best for: Agents that need public data from YouTube and many other social platforms.

ScrapeCreators provides one API key for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and other platforms. Its YouTube endpoints include transcript retrieval alongside search, channel, video, playlist, comment, and other public-data operations.

The hosted MCP server makes its API endpoints available to agents. ScrapeCreators also publishes a CLI and an agent skill.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scrapecreators": {
      "url": "https://api.scrapecreators.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Pricing is pay-as-you-go:

• 100 free credits.
• $47 for 25,000 credits.
• $497 for 500,000 credits.

Credits do not expire, and every plan unlocks every API. Most endpoints use one credit per request, but check the endpoint documentation before estimating a batch.

Tradeoffs: The first paid pack costs more upfront than the other hosted options in this list. YouTube is one of many platforms, and the API does not list dedicated Music, Kids, or live-chat endpoints.

5. SerpApi

Best for: Teams that already use SerpApi for search-engine data.

SerpApi provides YouTube Search, YouTube Video, and YouTube Video Transcript APIs as part of its larger search product. That makes it useful when YouTube data shares infrastructure and billing with Google, Bing, shopping, maps, and other engines.

Contrary to older comparisons, SerpApi now has an official MCP server. It is hosted at mcp.serpapi.com and can also be self-hosted. The server exposes a general search tool across supported engines rather than a set of YouTube-specific tools.

The free plan includes 250 searches per month. Paid plans start at $25 per month for 1,000 searches, followed by $75 for 5,000, $150 for 15,000, and $275 for 30,000. Only successful searches count. The current pricing page includes the U.S. Legal Shield on standard plans.

Tradeoffs: The unit is a monthly search, not a dedicated transcript credit. YouTube is one engine among many, and there are no dedicated Music, Kids, comments, or live-chat tools in the MCP server.

6. youtube-transcript-api

Best for: Local Python scripts where you want full control and can own the network layer.

youtube-transcript-api is an MIT-licensed Python library. It retrieves manual or auto-generated subtitles, returns timestamped snippets, lists available languages, translates supported tracks, and formats output as JSON, WebVTT, SRT, CSV, or text.

$ pip install youtube-transcript-api

from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi

transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi().fetch("6eBSHbLKuN0")

for snippet in transcript:
    print(f"{snippet.start:.1f}s  {snippet.text}")

The repository documents two important limits. YouTube blocks many cloud-provider IPs, so deployed workloads may need rotating residential proxies. Cookie authentication for age-restricted videos is currently unavailable because upstream changes broke the implementation.

Tradeoffs: The library uses an undocumented YouTube web-client interface. You own proxies, retries, monitoring, and fixes when that interface changes. It provides transcripts, not search, channel, comment, playlist, or live-chat data, and it has no first-party MCP server.

Price comparison

The cost per 1,000 successful transcript requests is only comparable when one request equals one credit. AI-generated transcripts, translations, pagination, and non-transcript searches can use different units.

Do not read the last column as a reliability ranking. A managed API includes infrastructure work that an open-source library leaves to you. Run your own test set across short videos, long videos, multiple languages, disabled captions, and the cloud environment you will deploy.

Which one should you choose?

• Choose Stophy for a YouTube-focused agent that needs discovery and discussion data around each transcript.
• Choose Supadata when captionless videos need an AI fallback or when you need other video platforms.
• Choose TranscriptAPI for a low-cost recurring YouTube plan with channel and playlist workflows.
• Choose ScrapeCreators when one agent must inspect several social platforms and you prefer non-expiring credits.
• Choose SerpApi when YouTube transcripts are one part of a SERP and search-data product.
• Choose youtube-transcript-api when local control matters more than managed infrastructure.

Frequently asked questions

Can any API return a transcript for every YouTube video?

No. Caption-only services cannot return text when no accessible caption track exists. Supadata offers paid AI generation as a fallback, but private, deleted, restricted, unavailable, or inaccessible media can still fail.

Which APIs have MCP support?

Stophy, Supadata, TranscriptAPI, ScrapeCreators, and SerpApi publish MCP integrations. youtube-transcript-api does not have a first-party MCP server. The MCP tools differ: Stophy exposes YouTube-specific tools, while SerpApi exposes a general search tool across engines.

Which APIs support YouTube Music or YouTube Kids?

Stophy is the only vendor in this comparison with dedicated API and MCP operations for both surfaces. The other vendors reviewed here do not list dedicated Music or Kids endpoints.

Which APIs support live chat?

Stophy lists live chat as a video operation with continuation-token polling. The other products in this comparison do not list a dedicated live-chat endpoint. Google also exposes live-chat messages through the separate YouTube Live Streaming API.

Is the open-source library free in production?

The software is free under the MIT license. Production operation may not be free because cloud IP blocks can require a rotating residential proxy. You also own deployment, retries, monitoring, and upstream fixes.

Are paid transcript APIs worth it?

For a local script that fetches a few transcripts, an open-source library can be enough. For scheduled jobs or customer-facing agents, compare the hosted API bill with the time and proxy cost of running the scraper yourself.

Can I republish transcripts?

An API response does not transfer copyright in the underlying video or captions. Review the source video's rights, the vendor's terms, and your intended use before republishing transcript text. Get legal advice for a commercial use case where the answer matters.

Try Stophy on your workload

Create an account with 100 free credits, then test the same set of videos, languages, channels, and failure cases you expect in production.

Related guides: YouTube MCP servers, YouTube Data API alternatives, and YouTube transcripts in Python.

Bias disclosure: This comparison was written by the team behind Stophy. Stophy appears first because the criteria prioritize the YouTube breadth, hosted MCP transport, and credit model we built. Vendor details link to current first-party pricing, documentation, or repositories so you can verify them directly.