What YT-API does and who it is for

YT-API is a third-party YouTube API that consolidates two distinct needs under one key: fetching structured metadata (video details, channel stats, search results, comments, trending lists, and more) and retrieving download or streaming URLs for videos. Most developers who reach for a third-party YouTube API do so because the official YouTube Data API v3 does not expose streaming URLs, has strict per-project quotas, and lacks some discovery endpoints. YT-API fills that gap with a broad endpoint set and a quota system that scales predictably with paid tiers.

The API is suited for a range of projects — YouTube analytics dashboards, content aggregators, video download utilities, Shorts discovery feeds, and apps that need region-aware trending or hashtag feeds. With nearly 18,000 marketplace subscribers and a near-perfect popularity score, it has clear community adoption.

Endpoint walkthrough

YT-API exposes more than 40 GET endpoints. Below is a breakdown of the functional groups and what each returns, along with their quota unit costs — relevant because every pricing tier is denominated in monthly quota units rather than raw HTTP requests.

Video and shorts

  • /video or /video/info — Full metadata for a video: title, description, view count, likes, publish date, and more. Costs 1 unit.
  • /shorts/info — Shorts metadata. Fetching a specific Shorts video costs 1 unit; fetching suggested Shorts (a feed continuation) costs 2 units.
  • /shorts/sequence — Returns a Shorts sequence, useful for replicating the Shorts scrolling experience. Costs 2 units.
  • /dl — Download and streaming info. This is the most expensive standard call at 5 units. It returns stream URLs and format details for a given video, optionally filtered by a geo code.
  • /video/screenshot — Returns a JPG screenshot of the video. Costs 4 additional units on top of base cost.
  • /subtitles — Lists available subtitle tracks for a video. 1 unit.
  • /subtitle — Converts, translates, or downloads a subtitle by URL obtained from the subtitles or video/info endpoint. 1 unit.
  • /get_transcript — Returns the video transcript. Costs +1 unit.
  • /updated_metadata — Refreshes view count and like count; particularly useful when tracking live videos. Costs +1 unit.

Channel

The channel group is split into several focused endpoints rather than one monolithic call:

  • /channel — Channel details plus a video listing of up to 30 videos, sortable by newest, oldest, or popular, with pagination support.
  • /channel/home — Home tab layout.
  • /channel/videos, /channel/shorts, /channel/liveStreams, /channel/playlists, /channel/community, /channel/channels — Dedicated tabs for each content type. All cost 1 unit.

Search

/search is one of the more flexible endpoints. It accepts a query parameter and supports:

  • Type filter: video, channel, playlist, movie, show (default returns all)
  • Sort: relevance (default), date, rating, views
  • Duration filter: short (under 4 min), medium (4–20 min), long (over 20 min) — video/movie/show types only
  • Upload date filter: hour, today, week, month, year
  • Features filter: HD, subtitles, CCommons, 3D, Live, Purchased, 4K, 360, Location, HDR, VR180 — combinable with commas
  • Pagination via a token

Search typically costs 1 unit, though one endpoint variant is listed at 2 units (likely the more enriched result set).

Discovery and social

  • /trending — Trending videos by region and category: now (default), music, games, movies. Result counts vary by location.
  • /hashtag — Videos and Shorts tied to a hashtag.
  • /related — Related videos or playlists for a given video ID, paginated in sets of 20.
  • /playlist — Playlist metadata and video listing with pagination.
  • /comments — Video or Shorts comments and threads, paginated.
  • /post/info and /post/comments — Community post details and comments.
  • /home — Region- and niche-aware home feed.
  • /resolve — Resolves YouTube handles and shortened URLs to canonical IDs.
  • /shorts/soundAttribution — Lists Shorts that used a particular original sound, enabling sound-based discovery.

Global parameters

Every endpoint supports three optional global parameters:

  • geo — ISO 3166-2 country code (default: US) to localize results.
  • lang — Locale code (e.g., en, it, hi) for language-aware responses.
  • pretty=1 — Returns formatted JSON for debugging.
  • X-CACHEBYPASS: 1 header — Forces a fresh response, skipping any cache. Costs +1 unit.

Pricing

YT-API uses a freemium model. Units are the currency — each endpoint call deducts one or more units from the monthly pool.

Plan Price / month Monthly units Effective cost per unit
BASIC $0 300 —
PRO $51 1,770,500 ~$0.000029
ULTRA $144 5,000,000 ~$0.000029
MEGA $240 8,400,000 ~$0.000029

The free BASIC tier is intentionally minimal at 300 units per month — enough to validate integration or support very light personal tooling, but not enough for a production app. At 1 unit per call, 300 units means 300 standard metadata requests a month. Switch to download endpoints (5 units each) and the ceiling drops to 60 calls.

The jump from BASIC to PRO is the largest in absolute terms but brings a dramatic increase in capacity — nearly 1.8 million units. The per-unit cost is essentially identical across PRO, ULTRA, and MEGA, so the choice between paid tiers is purely about volume. Custom plans are available via the support channel for requirements beyond MEGA.

Practical use cases

Content aggregation apps — Combine /trending, /hashtag, and /search with geo and lang parameters to surface region-specific feeds without touching the official API quota.

Video download utilities — The /dl endpoint returns stream and download URLs. At 5 units per call, budget accordingly: on PRO you have roughly 354,000 download-info calls per month.

YouTube analytics tools — /video/info, /updated_metadata, and /comments together let you track a video's engagement over time. /updated_metadata is particularly handy for live video monitoring since it refreshes counts without pulling full metadata.

Shorts-native features — /shorts/sequence, /shorts/soundAttribution, and /channel/shorts are uncommon in other third-party YouTube APIs. If your app is Shorts-focused, YT-API has dedicated endpoints rather than forcing you through the generic video path.

Subtitle and transcript workflows — The combination of /subtitles (list available tracks), /subtitle (fetch/translate a specific track), and /get_transcript covers most captioning and accessibility automation needs.

Limitations and things to check before integrating

  • Free tier is very small. 300 units per month is enough for testing but will not sustain even a modest production workload. Plan to upgrade to PRO from the start if you expect regular usage.
  • Quota unit costs vary. Most calls are 1 unit, but download/stream info costs 5, screenshots cost +4, and cache bypass adds +1. Build quota tracking into your integration from day one to avoid unexpected overages.
  • No official YouTube affiliation. Like all third-party YouTube APIs, this service depends on YouTube's internal structure remaining stable. Endpoint behavior can change without notice if YouTube modifies its platform.
  • Support channel. The primary support contact is a Telegram channel (t.me/api_chat_support) rather than a ticketing system. Response times and SLAs are not formally documented.
  • 700 ms average latency. This is acceptable for background jobs, analytics, and server-side data fetching, but may be noticeable in latency-sensitive user-facing flows. Consider caching responses where freshness is not critical — and note that bypassing cache costs an extra unit.

Getting started

Authentication follows the standard marketplace API key pattern. Pass your key with each request. To explore the response shape before committing to a plan, use the BASIC tier with pretty=1 appended to any request. A useful first sequence:

  1. Call /video?id=VIDEO_ID&pretty=1 to inspect the full metadata structure.
  2. Call /search?query=YOUR_QUERY&type=video&sort=views&pretty=1 to validate search filtering.
  3. Call /trending?geo=US&type=music&pretty=1 to see a regional trending feed.
  4. Only then call /dl?id=VIDEO_ID — it costs 5 units and you will want to understand the response format before consuming quota on it.

For volume requirements above the MEGA plan, the provider offers custom plans negotiated through the Telegram support channel.