The Tool Desk
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What you can retrieve through documented channels
There are three different goals that are often called “scraping Substack.” They should not be treated as interchangeable:
| Goal | Documented route | What is established |
|---|---|---|
| Read a publication’s feed items | https://your.substack.com/feed |
Substack Support documents this RSS pattern. It confirms that a publication feed exists, but does not promise a complete archive, full text for every item, paid posts, or restricted material. |
| Read creator or publication metadata | Substack Developer API | The API terms list public Authorized Data such as names, social URLs, subscriber counts, bestseller status, leaderboard recognitions, summaries, and profile or publication URLs. |
| Copy pages or post bodies by fetching Substack web pages | Not an authorized method | Substack’s Terms of Use prohibit crawling, scraping, or spidering any page or data, manually or automatically, and prohibit copying or storing a significant portion of Substack content. |
The distinction matters for compliance and for engineering accuracy. The cited API terms do not establish a post-body endpoint, pagination scheme, authentication request, or response schema for posts. Do not treat an unofficial reverse-engineered endpoint as a supported API.
Use the publication RSS feed
Find the feed URL
For a publication named example, request:
https://example.substack.com/feedCustom domains can make the hostname different, so confirm the publication’s own feed link when the standard subdomain does not resolve. A feed is normally XML (RSS or an RSS-compatible variant). Its entries can include titles, links, publication dates, authors, summaries, and sometimes content. The documented support guidance does not establish that every entry contains the complete article, that older posts are retained indefinitely, or that paid-only text is exposed.
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Inspect a feed with cURL
curl -L --fail --silent --show-error
-H "Accept: application/rss+xml, application/xml"
"https://your.substack.com/feed"
-o substack-feed.xml-L follows redirects, while --fail makes HTTP errors return a failure status. Keep the response for your own permitted processing rather than building a crawler that repeatedly fetches article pages.
Parse entries with Python
import requests
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
from email.utils import parsedate_to_datetime
FEED_URL = "https://your.substack.com/feed"
r = requests.get(
FEED_URL,
headers={"User-Agent": "MyFeedReader/1.0", "Accept": "application/rss+xml, application/xml"},
timeout=30,
)
r.raise_for_status()
root = ET.fromstring(r.content)
channel = root.find("channel")
if channel is None:
raise ValueError("The response is not an RSS channel")
for item in channel.findall("item"):
def text(name):
node = item.find(name)
return node.text.strip() if node is not None and node.text else ""
published = text("pubDate")
try:
published = parsedate_to_datetime(published).isoformat() if published else ""
except ValueError:
pass
print({
"title": text("title"),
"url": text("link"),
"published": published,
"author": text("author"),
"summary": text("description"),
})This example extracts fields that are common in RSS. Treat missing elements as normal: a publisher can omit an author, description, or date, and a feed may use namespaces or a different XML structure. Validate the feed before storing records.
Parse entries with Node.js
const res = await fetch('https://your.substack.com/feed', {
headers: { 'User-Agent': 'MyFeedReader/1.0', 'Accept': 'application/rss+xml, application/xml' }
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Feed request failed: ${res.status}`);
const xml = await res.text();
// npm install fast-xml-parser
const { XMLParser } = await import('fast-xml-parser');
const parser = new XMLParser({ ignoreAttributes: false });
const data = parser.parse(xml);
const items = data?.rss?.channel?.item ?? [];
for (const item of (Array.isArray(items) ? items : [items])) {
console.log({
title: item.title ?? '',
url: item.link ?? '',
published: item.pubDate ?? '',
author: item.author ?? '',
summary: item.description ?? ''
});
}Pin your XML parser version and add tests for an empty channel, one item, multiple items, and malformed XML. Never assume that a description equals the complete post.
What the Developer API terms actually establish
Substack’s Developer API Terms of Use describe API access to public Authorized Data. Their examples include a creator or publication name, LinkedIn and other social identity URLs, total subscriber count, bestseller status, leaderboard recognitions, a profile summary, a profile URL, and a publication URL. The terms describe uses such as displaying public creator or publication information, discovery, analytics, integrations, and user-facing features that link to the original source.
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Those categories are metadata, not a documented article-download interface. The official terms cited here do not verify an endpoint for complete post bodies, an API resource for paid posts, pagination parameters, authentication headers, or a stable response format. They also state that API use is subject to rate limits, quotas, and other technical restrictions determined by Substack.
The API terms link to technical documentation for API-key generation and instructions. That linked documentation returned HTTP 404 when checked on September 29, 2026. Consequently, do not publish a request such as GET /posts, invent an API-key flow, or promise that an API key grants access to article text. Recheck Substack’s current documentation before implementing any API integration.
Why direct scraping is not a safe workaround
Substack’s Terms of Use, effective April 21, 2025, expressly say users may not “Crawls,” “scrapes,” or “spiders” any page, data, or portion of Substack through manual or automated means. The same terms prohibit copying or storing a significant portion of Substack content. This is a contractual restriction, not merely a suggestion to slow down requests.
- Do not automate browser visits to collect article HTML, rendered text, or archives.
- Do not use proxies, CAPTCHA-solving, bot-evasion, rotating accounts, or undocumented endpoints to bypass controls.
- Do not assume that publicly visible text is licensed for bulk copying or republication.
- For a legitimate integration, obtain permission from the publisher and agree on the fields, retention, and redistribution terms.
Paid, private, or otherwise restricted material is not established as available through the documented RSS or API information described above. Design your system around links and metadata unless you have an explicit license for more.
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A compliant ingestion design
1. Prefer publisher-provided data
Ask the publication owner for the RSS URL and written permission for your use case. Store the feed URL as configuration rather than discovering and crawling pages.
2. Fetch conservatively
Use a long polling interval appropriate to your application, honor HTTP caching headers when present, set a descriptive user agent, and stop on repeated errors. RSS is not a guarantee of historical completeness, so record the retrieval time and the source URL for each item.
3. Store only what you need
For discovery, a database containing the item URL, title, date, author, and a short summary is usually sufficient. Keep the canonical link so users can read the post at the original publication. Set retention limits and document who can access stored data.
4. Handle duplicates and edits
Use the item’s GUID when supplied; otherwise use a normalized canonical URL. Keep the latest metadata you are allowed to retain, and do not assume that an unchanged URL means unchanged permission to copy its body.
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5. Separate API metadata from feed records
If Substack grants your application API access, keep public creator/publication metadata in separate fields and label its provenance. Do not merge an unverified “post body” field into your schema merely because a third-party library exposes one.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Troubleshooting
404 or DNS failure
Check the publication name, spelling, and whether it uses a custom domain. A 404 on the API documentation link is different from a feed error: it means the technical instructions were unavailable at the time checked, not that a post endpoint exists elsewhere.
403, 429, or intermittent failures
Stop aggressive polling, respect retry-after responses, and reduce concurrency. Do not respond by evading controls. Ask the publisher or Substack for an approved access method.
XML parsing errors
Save the raw response and inspect its content type and first bytes. You may have received an HTML error page, a login page, or a transient gateway response instead of XML. Retry with bounded exponential backoff, then fail visibly.
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Missing full text
That can be normal. The documented feed pattern does not promise full article bodies or paid content. Use the item’s canonical link and obtain a license if your product needs to reproduce text.
Missing old posts
Do not infer an archive boundary or invent pagination. The support guidance confirms a feed exists but does not establish complete historical coverage. Import only what the feed currently exposes.
Performance, reliability, and cost considerations
- Polling: schedule periodic fetches instead of per-user requests, then serve cached records from your own application.
- Reliability: retain the last successful fetch, validate XML, and alert on a sudden empty feed or schema change.
- Freshness: record both the item’s published date and your retrieval timestamp.
- Compliance: rate limits and quotas apply to API use, and your storage policy should reflect the permission you actually have.
- Scope: treat RSS and public metadata as separate products; neither is documented here as a general post-scraping API.
Or skip the browser setup
If your actual task is to capture a visual snapshot of a public Substack page—not to extract and store its post text—ScreenshotNeo provides a website screenshot API. A single request can return PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF. It accepts consent banners before capture and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets; each cleanup step can be disabled. Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and the response identifies the result with X-Page-Verdict and X-Billed headers. This is a visual-capture service, not permission to copy Substack article content.
cURL:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://your.substack.com -o shot.webpPython:
import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://your.substack.com"}, timeout=90)
r.raise_for_status()
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)Node.js:
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://your.substack.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Screenshot failed: ${res.status}`);See the ScreenshotNeo documentation for options such as full-page capture, selector capture, device presets, PDF output, custom CSS or JavaScript, waits, blocking rules, caching, signed links, asynchronous jobs, bulk capture, and usage reporting. The MCP server exposes take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf to Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The Free plan includes 1,000 screenshots per month without a card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Sign up for the free plan.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does the RSS URL guarantee every Substack post?
No. Substack documents the publication feed pattern, but the cited guidance does not guarantee complete archives, full text, or paid-only entries.
Can I use the Developer API to download article bodies?
The official API terms reviewed here list public creator and publication metadata, not a verified post-body endpoint. API documentation and authentication details should be confirmed directly with Substack before development.
Is a screenshot of a Substack page the same as an API export of its text?
No. A screenshot is a visual image or PDF. It does not establish permission to reproduce, index, or redistribute the underlying article content.
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