How to scrape Substack: settings that work today

Extraction recipe

The API returns the rendered HTML of the page. Select the fields you need with extract rules (CSS selectors) or parse the HTML on your side. The recipe below is a set of Scrape API extract rules: we ran it through our API on two real Substack pages with the settings on this page and kept only the fields that came back on both. It is checked again every week, and hidden if it stops working.

Articles

Validated 2026-10-13

Field	Type	Example
`title`	text	Will data centers crash the economy?
`description`	text	This time let's think about a financial crisis before it happens.
`image`	URL	https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Qlx9!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f...
`url`	URL	https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/c...

Examples from www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments on 2026-10-13, shortened.

Sample output (real, trimmed)

{
    "title": "Will data centers crash the economy?",
    "description": "This time let's think about a financial crisis before it happens.",
    "image": "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Qlx9!,w_1200,h_675,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaw...",
    "url": "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments"
}

extract_rules (4 rules)

{
    "title": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "description": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "image": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "url": {
        "selector": "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "href"
    }
}

Code

Complete scripts: set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable and run them as they are. Each one sends the settings on this page and the extraction recipe, prints the extracted JSON, and prints the credits the request cost (the Ujb-Credits response header) on stderr. A non-200 answer stops the script with the API's error message.

Articles

Runs the recipe on the two pages it was validated on, one after the other.

substack_detail_sdk.py pip install ujeebu-python==0.1.5

# Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
# Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
# Uses the official SDK ujeebu-python 0.1.5: pip install ujeebu-python==0.1.5
# Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key python3 substack_detail_sdk.py

import json
import os
import sys
import time

import requests
from ujeebu_python import UjeebuClient

API_KEY = os.environ.get("UJEEBU_API_KEY")
URLS = [
    "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
    "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164",
]
SETTINGS = {
    "js": True,
}
EXTRACT_RULES = {
    "title": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "description": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "image": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "url": {
        "selector": "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "href",
    },
}


def scrape(client, url):
    # with extract_rules, client.scrape sends a JSON POST and the API answers {"result": {...}}
    try:
        response = client.scrape(url, params={**SETTINGS, "extract_rules": EXTRACT_RULES})
    except requests.RequestException as error:
        sys.exit(f"Request failed for {url}: {error}")
    if response.status_code != 200:
        try:
            message = response.json().get("message", response.text)
        except ValueError:
            message = response.text
        sys.exit(f"HTTP {response.status_code} for {url}: {str(message)[:300]}")
    print(f"Ujb-Credits: {response.headers.get('Ujb-Credits')}", file=sys.stderr)
    return response.json()["result"]


if not API_KEY:
    sys.exit("Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.")

client = UjeebuClient(api_key=API_KEY)

for i, url in enumerate(URLS):
    if i:
        time.sleep(2)  # be polite: one page at a time
    print(json.dumps(scrape(client, url), indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))

substack_detail_sdk.mjs npm install @ujeebu-org/ujeebu-sdk@0.1.2

// Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
// Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
// Uses the official SDK @ujeebu-org/ujeebu-sdk 0.1.2: npm install @ujeebu-org/ujeebu-sdk@0.1.2
// Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key node substack_detail_sdk.mjs

import { UjeebuClient } from '@ujeebu-org/ujeebu-sdk';

const API_KEY = process.env.UJEEBU_API_KEY;
const URLS = [
  "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
  "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164",
];
const SETTINGS = {
  js: true,
};
const EXTRACT_RULES = {
  title: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  description: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  image: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  url: {
    selector: "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "href",
  },
};

async function scrape(client, url) {
  let res;
  try {
    // client.scrape POSTs JSON when extract_rules is set (scrapeWithRules would send it as a GET query, which the API ignores)
    res = await client.scrape(url, { ...SETTINGS, extract_rules: EXTRACT_RULES });
  } catch (err) {
    const status = err.response?.status ?? 'error';
    const message = err.response?.data?.message ?? err.message;
    console.error(`HTTP ${status} for ${url}: ${String(message).slice(0, 300)}`);
    process.exit(1);
  }
  console.error(`Ujb-Credits: ${res.headers['ujb-credits']}`);
  return res.data.result;
}

if (!API_KEY) {
  console.error('Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.');
  process.exit(1);
}

const client = new UjeebuClient(API_KEY);
const pause = (ms) => new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, ms));

for (const [i, url] of URLS.entries()) {
  if (i) await pause(2000); // be polite: one page at a time
  console.log(JSON.stringify(await scrape(client, url), null, 2));
}

substack_detail.py pip install requests

# Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
# Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
# Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key python3 substack_detail.py   (pip install requests)

import json
import os
import sys
import time

import requests

API_URL = "https://api.ujeebu.com/scrape"
API_KEY = os.environ.get("UJEEBU_API_KEY")
URLS = [
    "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
    "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164",
]
SETTINGS = {
    "js": True,
}
EXTRACT_RULES = {
    "title": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "description": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "image": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content",
    },
    "url": {
        "selector": "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "href",
    },
}


def scrape(url):
    response = requests.post(
        API_URL,
        headers={"ApiKey": API_KEY},
        json={"url": url, **SETTINGS, "extract_rules": EXTRACT_RULES},
        timeout=180,
    )
    if response.status_code != 200:
        try:
            message = response.json().get("message", response.text)
        except ValueError:
            message = response.text
        sys.exit(f"HTTP {response.status_code} for {url}: {str(message)[:300]}")
    print(f"Ujb-Credits: {response.headers.get('Ujb-Credits')}", file=sys.stderr)
    return response.json()["result"]


if not API_KEY:
    sys.exit("Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.")

for i, url in enumerate(URLS):
    if i:
        time.sleep(2)  # be polite: one page at a time
    print(json.dumps(scrape(url), indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))

substack_detail.mjs

// Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
// Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
// Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key node substack_detail.mjs   (Node.js 18 or later)

const API_URL = 'https://api.ujeebu.com/scrape';
const API_KEY = process.env.UJEEBU_API_KEY;
const URLS = [
  "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
  "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164",
];
const SETTINGS = {
  js: true,
};
const EXTRACT_RULES = {
  title: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  description: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  image: {
    selector: "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "content",
  },
  url: {
    selector: "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
    type: "attr",
    attribute: "href",
  },
};

async function scrape(url) {
  const res = await fetch(API_URL, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { ApiKey: API_KEY, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ url, ...SETTINGS, extract_rules: EXTRACT_RULES }),
    signal: AbortSignal.timeout(180000),
  });
  const text = await res.text();
  if (res.status !== 200) {
    let message = text;
    try {
      message = JSON.parse(text).message ?? text;
    } catch {}
    console.error(`HTTP ${res.status} for ${url}: ${String(message).slice(0, 300)}`);
    process.exit(1);
  }
  console.error(`Ujb-Credits: ${res.headers.get('ujb-credits')}`);
  return JSON.parse(text).result;
}

if (!API_KEY) {
  console.error('Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.');
  process.exit(1);
}

const pause = (ms) => new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, ms));

for (const [i, url] of URLS.entries()) {
  if (i) await pause(2000); // be polite: one page at a time
  console.log(JSON.stringify(await scrape(url), null, 2));
}

substack_detail.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
# Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
# Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key bash substack_detail.sh   (curl 7.76 or later)
set -euo pipefail

curl -sS --fail-with-body --max-time 180 -D headers.txt \
  -X POST 'https://api.ujeebu.com/scrape' \
  -H "ApiKey: ${UJEEBU_API_KEY:?Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.}" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary @- <<'JSON'
{
  "url": "https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
  "js": true,
  "extract_rules": {
    "title": {
      "selector": "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
      "type": "attr",
      "attribute": "content"
    },
    "description": {
      "selector": "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
      "type": "attr",
      "attribute": "content"
    },
    "image": {
      "selector": "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
      "type": "attr",
      "attribute": "content"
    },
    "url": {
      "selector": "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
      "type": "attr",
      "attribute": "href"
    }
  }
}
JSON
echo
grep -i '^ujb-credits' headers.txt >&2

substack_detail.php

<?php
// Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
// Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
// Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key php substack_detail.php   (PHP 7.4 or later with curl)

$apiKey = getenv('UJEEBU_API_KEY') ?: exit("Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.\n");
$urls = [
    'https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments',
    'https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164',
];
$settings = [
    'js' => true,
];
$extractRules = [
    'title' => [
        'selector' => 'meta[property="og:title"]',
        'type' => 'attr',
        'attribute' => 'content',
    ],
    'description' => [
        'selector' => 'meta[property="og:description"]',
        'type' => 'attr',
        'attribute' => 'content',
    ],
    'image' => [
        'selector' => 'meta[property="og:image"]',
        'type' => 'attr',
        'attribute' => 'content',
    ],
    'url' => [
        'selector' => 'link[rel="canonical"]',
        'type' => 'attr',
        'attribute' => 'href',
    ],
];

function scrape(string $url, string $apiKey, array $settings, array $extractRules)
{
    $ch = curl_init('https://api.ujeebu.com/scrape');
    $headers = [];
    curl_setopt_array($ch, [
        CURLOPT_POST => true,
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 180,
        CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['ApiKey: ' . $apiKey, 'Content-Type: application/json'],
        CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode(['url' => $url] + $settings + ['extract_rules' => $extractRules]),
        CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION => function ($ch, $line) use (&$headers) {
            if (strpos($line, ':') !== false) {
                [$k, $v] = explode(':', $line, 2);
                $headers[strtolower(trim($k))] = trim($v);
            }
            return strlen($line);
        },
    ]);
    $body = curl_exec($ch);
    if ($body === false) {
        fwrite(STDERR, 'Request failed: ' . curl_error($ch) . "\n");
        exit(1);
    }
    $status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE);
    if ($status !== 200) {
        $message = json_decode($body, true)['message'] ?? $body;
        fwrite(STDERR, "HTTP $status for $url: " . substr((string) $message, 0, 300) . "\n");
        exit(1);
    }
    fwrite(STDERR, 'Ujb-Credits: ' . ($headers['ujb-credits'] ?? '?') . "\n");
    return json_decode($body, true)['result'];
}

foreach ($urls as $i => $url) {
    if ($i > 0) {
        sleep(2); // be polite: one page at a time
    }
    echo json_encode(scrape($url, $apiKey, $settings, $extractRules), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT | JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES | JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE), "\n";
}

substack_detail.go go mod init scraper && go get github.com/ujeebu/ujeebu-go@v0.1.8

// Scrape Substack articles with the Ujeebu Scrape API.
// Settings and extract rules validated on real pages on 2026-10-13 (Ujeebu site guide).
// Uses the official SDK github.com/ujeebu/ujeebu-go v0.1.8: go mod init scraper && go get github.com/ujeebu/ujeebu-go@v0.1.8
// Run: UJEEBU_API_KEY=your_key go run substack_detail.go

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"errors"
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"time"

	ujeebu "github.com/ujeebu/ujeebu-go"
)

var urls = []string{
	"https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-data-centers-crash-the-economy/comments",
	"https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/roundup-88-is-it-time-to-panic-yet/comment/340130164",
}

// The extract rules of the recipe, as the JSON the API takes.
const extractRulesJSON = `{
    "title": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:title\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "description": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:description\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "image": {
        "selector": "meta[property=\"og:image\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "content"
    },
    "url": {
        "selector": "link[rel=\"canonical\"]",
        "type": "attr",
        "attribute": "href"
    }
}`

var extractRules map[string]any

func fail(format string, args ...any) {
	fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, format+"\n", args...)
	os.Exit(1)
}

func short(s string) string {
	if len(s) > 300 {
		return s[:300]
	}
	return s
}

func params(target string) ujeebu.ScrapeParams {
	p := ujeebu.ScrapeParams{URL: target}
	p.JS = true
	p.ExtractRules = extractRules
	return p
}

func scrape(client *ujeebu.Client, target string) map[string]any {
	// the int is the credits the request cost (the Ujb-Credits header), not an HTTP status
	resp, credits, err := client.Scrape(params(target))
	if err != nil {
		var apiErr *ujeebu.APIError
		if errors.As(err, &apiErr) {
			fail("HTTP %d for %s: %s", apiErr.StatusCode, target, short(apiErr.Message))
		}
		fail("Request failed for %s: %v", target, err)
	}
	fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Ujb-Credits: %d\n", credits)
	result, _ := resp.Result.(map[string]any)
	return result
}

func printJSON(v any) {
	enc := json.NewEncoder(os.Stdout)
	enc.SetEscapeHTML(false)
	enc.SetIndent("", "  ")
	if err := enc.Encode(v); err != nil {
		fail("Cannot print the result: %v", err)
	}
}

func main() {
	apiKey := os.Getenv("UJEEBU_API_KEY")
	if apiKey == "" {
		fail("Set the UJEEBU_API_KEY environment variable.")
	}
	if err := json.Unmarshal([]byte(extractRulesJSON), &extractRules); err != nil {
		fail("Bad extract rules: %v", err)
	}
	client, err := ujeebu.NewClient(apiKey, ujeebu.WithTimeout(180*time.Second))
	if err != nil {
		fail("%v", err)
	}

	for i, target := range urls {
		if i > 0 {
			time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) // be polite: one page at a time
		}
		printJSON(scrape(client, target))
	}
}

SDK tabs use the official Ujeebu SDKs (ujeebu-python 0.1.5, @ujeebu-org/ujeebu-sdk 0.1.2, github.com/ujeebu/ujeebu-go v0.1.8); there is no PHP SDK, so the PHP tab calls the API with curl. For agents and scripts, the same status and settings are at /scrape/substack.json.

Try it yourself

Run this on Substack with your own key

Get a free API key, set UJEEBU_API_KEY and run any script above as it is. 5,000 free credits for 7 days, no card.

Get a free API key or try these settings in the Playground first →

Settings that work today

From our health checks over the last 7 days: the cheapest settings that return the real page most of the time.

Endpoint	`/scrape`
`js`	`true`
Cost	up to 5 credits a request (only HTTP 200 and 404 are billed)

Collect detail page URLs from listing pages first, then fetch each detail page. Our checks run with JavaScript rendering on (js=true): keep it on. Start with the default (rotating) proxy, the cheapest one that passed most of its attempts in our checks.

Try it in the Playground

Proxy	Attempts	Passed
Default (rotating)	6	6

The cheapest proxy that passes most of our checks of this site.

Troubleshooting

The failures our own checks of substack.com ran into over the last 7 days, and what got the page in the same check.

What happened	Times	What fixed it
The page did not load in time	2	Nothing we tried in the same check. Retry later, one request at a time.

A failed request is not billed: only HTTP 200 and 404 responses cost credits.

What people build with Substack data

Media monitoringTrack the articles published on the topics and companies you follow.More on this use case
Content for AI and RAGCollect headlines, dates and summaries as structured input for search and LLM pipelines.More on this use case

Limits and etiquette

Public pages only. Pages behind a login, and data shown only to signed-in users, are out of scope.
Keep the rate modest: fetch pages one after another or with low concurrency, and cache what you already have.
robots.txt of www.astralcodexten.com (read 2026-10-13): public pages allowed for generic crawlers; no crawl delay set.
Read Substack's terms of service before you collect data at scale, and do not collect personal data you have no basis to process. This guide is not legal advice.

Questions

Can you scrape Substack with Ujeebu?

Yes. 18 of 20 checks of public Substack pages passed in the last 7 days with the settings on this page.

Which settings work for Substack?

Call /scrape with js=true. On the default (rotating) proxy, 6 of 6 attempts passed in the last 7 days.

How many credits does a Substack request cost?

With these settings a request costs up to 5 credits. Only responses with HTTP 200 or 404 are billed: a blocked or timed-out request is free.

Which fields can I extract from Substack?

With the extraction recipes on this page, validated on real Substack pages through our API: articles: title, description, image, url. Pass the recipe as extract_rules in a POST to /scrape and the API returns those fields as JSON.

Is it allowed to scrape Substack?

Its robots.txt allows generic crawlers on the page types in this guide. Collect public pages only, read Substack's terms of service, keep your request rate modest and do not collect personal data you have no basis to process. This is not legal advice.

How fresh is this page?

The status and settings come from our own health checks of substack.com, which run around the clock. Last check: 2026-10-13 19:04:26 UTC; last pass: 2026-10-13 19:04:26 UTC.

Related site guides

All site guides