Getting Started

Introduction

Captapi gives you structured data from social media video through one consistent REST API. Send a public URL from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook and get back clean JSON — transcripts, AI summaries, video details, comments, and search results. No OAuth, no per-platform SDKs, no data-collection infrastructure to maintain.

• • One API key works across all 27 platforms.
• • Pass cache=true to serve from the 24h shared cache (0 credits on hit). Default is always fresh.
• • You are only charged for successful requests.

Quickstart

After signing up and copying your API key from the dashboard, make your first request:

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/youtube/transcript?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdQw4w9WgXcQ" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."

Authentication

All requests are authenticated with a Bearer token. Generate keys in your dashboard and send them in the Authorization header. Keep keys secret — never expose capt_live_ keys in client-side code.

Authorization: Bearer capt_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Making Requests

Most endpoints take a url or q query parameter. Some need a different identifier instead — for example userId, username, repo, advertiser, or comment_id. Check each endpoint's docs for the exact params. When building a query string, you must URL-encode URL values so they aren't misinterpreted as multiple parameters.

# URL-encode the target URL before passing it
urlencode "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Response Format

Every response is JSON with a top-level success boolean. Successful responses include cached, creditsUsed, and a data object.

{
  "success": true,
  "cached": false,
  "creditsUsed": 2,
  "data": {
    "language": "en",
    "segments": [
      { "start": 0.0, "end": 4.12, "text": "Hey everyone, welcome back." }
    ],
    "text": "Hey everyone, welcome back."
  }
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "no_captions",
    "message": "This video has no captions and audio transcription failed."
  }
}

Credits & Caching

Credits are the unit of billing. Cost is per endpoint (see each docs page) — typically 1–4 for simple lookups; many native list/search/comment endpoints are a flat 2 credits per call, while some Apify-backed lists still scale with results (often higher). Failed and empty results are never charged.

By default every data request fetches fresh data (cache=false). Pass cache=true to serve from the shared 24h response cache — then cached is true and creditsUsed is 0.

Errors

Errors return a non-2xx status and an error object with a stable code and a human-readable message.

Rate Limits

Rate limits scale with your plan and are returned on every response via X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, and X-RateLimit-Reset headers. When you exceed the limit you'll get a 429 — back off and retry after the reset window.

API Reference

173 endpoints across 30 groups. Click any endpoint for full parameters, examples, and FAQs.

The read-side companion to publishing and scheduling tools: pass any supported post, video, or reel URL (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Reddit, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Rumble) and get one normalized metrics object — views, likes, comments, shares, saves, and an engagement rate — with the platform auto-detected.

# Platform is auto-detected from the URL
curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/analytics/post?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40user%2Fvideo%2F7311234567890123456" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."

# Compare several posts across platforms in one call
curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/analytics/compare?urls=URL1,URL2,URL3" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."

Integrations