TranscriptAPI - Features, Pricing & What It Does
TranscriptAPI is a YouTube transcript API. It returns transcripts, search results, channel videos and playlist contents as JSON, over a REST endpoint or an MCP server, so pipelines and AI agents can pull YouTube data without scraping it themselves.
What Makes TranscriptAPI Different
- Built for volume: the vendor reports 500K+ transcripts processed daily and 15M+ served in the last month
- Reports a 49ms median response time
- One credit per successful request on every endpoint, so cost is easy to predict
- Native MCP server plus agent skills, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and similar clients can call it directly
- Aimed at the blocking problem: transcripts at scale without you running proxies and retries
- 100 free credits to start, no card required
Key Features
- Get transcript - with or without timestamps; JSON includes language, duration and video metadata (1 credit)
- Search YouTube - videos, channels or playlists (1 credit per page)
- Search inside a channel (1 credit per page)
- List channel videos (1 credit per page)
- Playlist videos (1 credit per page)
- Track new uploads via RSS - free
- Resolve channel handle - free
- MCP server and agent skills alongside the REST API
- Rate limit of 200 requests per minute on monthly billing, 300 on annual (more on request)
Pricing
One plan, two billing cycles. Both include 1,000 credits per month with API and MCP access.
- Monthly - $5.00/month. Top-up credits at $2.50 per 1,000. 200 requests per minute.
- Annual - $54.00/year, which works out at $4.50/month. Top-up credits at $1.50 per 1,000. 300 requests per minute.
There is no recurring free plan, but new accounts get 100 free credits with no card. One credit is one successful request. Top-up credits last at least 30 days from purchase or until the subscription period ends, whichever is later, and pause if the subscription lapses. Custom plans are available on request.
Who It Is For
Teams pulling YouTube transcripts in bulk: content repurposing, research and summarisation pipelines, search indexes, and AI agents that need video content as text. It is a developer API, not a meeting recorder, so it suits anyone building on top of it rather than someone who wants notes from their own calls.
Our Take
We have not run TranscriptAPI in production. The figures above come from the vendor's own site, checked in September 2026, and the volume and speed claims are theirs rather than something we have measured.
Alternatives
- Tactiq.io - live transcription and AI notes for meetings in Google Meet, rather than a bulk YouTube API
- YouTube Data API - Google's own API; its captions endpoint needs the video owner's authorisation, so it does not cover third-party videos
- youtube-transcript-api (open source) - free Python library, but you handle blocking, proxies and retries yourself
- Whisper and other speech-to-text services - transcribe the audio yourself when a video has no caption track
Frequently Asked Questions
What is TranscriptAPI?
TranscriptAPI is an API for getting YouTube transcripts and related data at scale. One request returns a video's transcript as JSON, with or without timestamps, plus language, duration and metadata. The same service also searches YouTube, lists a channel's videos and expands playlists. It can be called as a normal REST API or through its MCP server, which is what lets AI agents use it directly.
How much does TranscriptAPI cost?
There is one plan with two billing cycles: $5.00 per month, or $54.00 per year which works out at $4.50 per month. Both include 1,000 credits a month, and one credit is one successful request. Extra credits are $2.50 per 1,000 on monthly billing and $1.50 per 1,000 on annual. New accounts get 100 free credits without a card.
Does TranscriptAPI have a free plan?
No recurring free plan. New accounts get 100 free credits to test the API with no card required, after which you pick monthly or annual billing.
What are the best TranscriptAPI alternatives?
For meetings rather than YouTube, Tactiq.io transcribes calls live. For YouTube specifically, the official YouTube Data API only returns captions for videos you own, and the open-source youtube-transcript-api library is free but leaves you to deal with blocking and retries. Where a video has no caption track at all, a speech-to-text service such as Whisper is the fallback.