com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper

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Substack publications, posts, subscriber counts, and keyword search.

What can you do with com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper?

  • Publications: name, author, tagline, subscriber count as Substack shows it (subscriber_count_text, and subscriber_count_min as a number), subscriber tier text, and monthly, yearly, and founding plan prices.
  • Posts: title, URL, date, audience (free, paid, or founding), likes, comments, restacks, word count, bylines, and tags. Optional post text with include_body.
  • Search: keyword search across Substack posts, returned as posts or as the publications behind them.

Install

Add this to your client's MCP configuration (Claude Desktop: claude_desktop_config.json; Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json; VS Code and others use the same "mcpServers" shape).

NPM package @mambalabsdev/mcp-substack-scraper
Claude Code
claude mcp add mcp-substack-scraper -e 'APIFY_TOKEN=<your apify_token>' -- npx -y @mambalabsdev/mcp-substack-scraper@1.0.0
JSON configuration (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code)
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-substack-scraper": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@mambalabsdev/mcp-substack-scraper@1.0.0"
            ],
            "env": {
                "APIFY_TOKEN": "<your apify_token>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Environment variables

  • APIFY_TOKEN required secret Apify API token from https://console.apify.com/account/integrations

Documentation

From the project's README on GitHub, refreshed weekly. Links open on GitHub.

Contents
  1. Substack Scraper MCP Server
  2. What's Inside
  3. What it does
  4. Quick start
  5. Prerequisites
  6. Example prompts
  7. Tool
  8. Inputs
  9. Pricing
  10. Your keys
  11. Full actor documentation
  12. License

Substack Scraper MCP Server

An MCP server for the Mamba Labs Substack Scraper actor on Apify. Give it Substack publications or keywords. It returns publication profiles and posts as flat rows.

What's Inside

What it does

  • Publications: name, author, tagline, subscriber count as Substack shows it (subscriber_count_text, and subscriber_count_min as a number), subscriber tier text, and monthly, yearly, and founding plan prices.
  • Posts: title, URL, date, audience (free, paid, or founding), likes, comments, restacks, word count, bylines, and tags. Optional post text with include_body.
  • Search: keyword search across Substack posts, returned as posts or as the publications behind them.

All of the work runs on Apify. This package is a thin client that starts the actor run, waits for it, and hands back the dataset rows.

Quick start

You need Node.js 18 or newer and an Apify account with an API token.

Add this to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json), Cursor, or any MCP client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mamba-substack-scraper": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@mambalabsdev/mcp-substack-scraper"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_TOKEN": "your-apify-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart the client. The scrape_substack tool appears.

Prerequisites

Example prompts

  • "How many subscribers does Lenny's Newsletter have, and what does a paid plan cost?"
  • "Find Substack newsletters that write about cold email and list their subscriber counts."
  • "What did notboring.co publish in the last 30 days, and which posts were paid only?"

Tool

scrape_substack. One tool. Example arguments:

{
  "publications": [
    "lenny.substack.com"
  ],
  "search_queries": [
    "cold email"
  ],
  "max_posts_per_publication": "5",
  "max_search_results": "5"
}

Inputs

Every buyer facing input of the actor, unchanged. Omitted inputs take the actor's own defaults. Numbers and booleans are sent as strings.

InputTypeDescription
publicationsarraySubstack publications, one per line, up to 100: a URL (https://www.lennysnewsletter.com), a domain (lenny.substack.com), a profile (substack.com/@lenny), or a bare Substack name (lenny). Each one returns a publication row and its newest posts
search_queriesarrayKeywords to search across Substack posts, one per line, up to 20. Each query returns matching posts, or the publications behind them when Search output is publications
search_outputstringWhat a search query returns Default posts
max_posts_per_publicationstringNewest posts returned per publication, 0 to 1000. 0 returns only the publication row Default 20
max_search_resultsstringRows returned per search query, 1 to 1000 Default 50
since_daysstringOptional. Skip posts older than this many days. 0 or empty keeps every post up to the max Default 0
include_publication_rowstringtrue to return one publication row per listed publication (name, author, subscribers, paid plan prices), billed as a publication row. false returns only post rows Default true
include_bodystringtrue to add the post text (up to 20,000 characters) to each post row of a listed publication. A paid post gives its free preview. Reads one more page per post; no extra charge Default false
max_charge_usdstringOptional. The run stops before it would charge more than this
proxy_modestringHow pages are fetched Default auto

Pricing

Pay per event on Apify, billed to your Apify account. Prices in USD.

EventFree planBronzeSilverGold
post-row, one Substack post returned as a row: from a listed publication or from a search$0.00115$0.001093$0.001035$0.000977
publication-row, one Substack publication profile returned as a row: name, author, subscriber count as shown, and paid plan prices$0.002$0.0019$0.0018$0.0017
apify-actor-start, per run start$0.001057$0.001057$0.001057$0.001057

no_results and error rows are free, including the one row a refused input returns.

Your keys

The actor needs no key. It reads Substack's public pages and public JSON routes and holds no key of any kind. Proxy traffic adds nothing to your price: Mamba Labs pays the platform costs of the run.

Full actor documentation

apify.com/mambalabs/substack-scraper

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Frequently asked questions

What is com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper?

Substack publications, posts, subscriber counts, and keyword search.

How do I install com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper?

It runs on your machine. In Claude Code: claude mcp add mcp-substack-scraper -e 'APIFY_TOKEN=<your apify_token>' -- npx -y @mambalabsdev/mcp-substack-scraper@1.0.0. For other clients, paste the JSON configuration from this page into their MCP settings.

Does com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper need an API key?

Yes. It expects APIFY_TOKEN, which you set in its configuration.

Is com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper open source?

Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the MIT license.

Who maintains com.mambabuilt/mcp-substack-scraper?

It is published by mambalabsdev. AI.tn lists it but does not maintain or endorse it.

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