live feed · substack top newsletters

Substack Trends API

The live Substack top-newsletters chart, overall and split by category, from one REST endpoint. Newsletter rankings are a clean read on what audiences pay to read, served as JSON without scraping the leaderboards.

POST get_top_trends · Substack

# one POST, every source
POST https://api.trendsapi.ai/api
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

{ "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack",
  "limit": 10 }

200 OKlive feed

response

{
  "type": "Substack",
  "trends": [
    { "rank": 1, "newsletter": "The Pragmatic Engineer" },
    { "rank": 2, "newsletter": "Lenny's Newsletter" },
    { "rank": 3, "newsletter": "Slow Boring" }
  ],
  "timestamp": "2026-08-03T12:00:00Z"
}

application/jsontimestamped

Why it exists

Substack trend data, without the plumbing

Substack leaderboards move slower than social feeds, which makes them a useful filter: a newsletter climbing the chart is converting attention into subscribers, not just catching a spike. For media, advertising and audience research, that is a signal worth tracking.

Substack has no public API for its leaderboards, so getting this data means scraping the chart pages. Trends API serves the top-newsletters chart as JSON in the same shape as the other live feeds, so you can line newsletter attention up against podcasts, news and search.

Use cases

What people build with it

Media / publishing

See which newsletters are climbing before they hit mainstream attention.

Advertising / sponsorships

Spot rising publications before sponsorship prices catch up.

Creator research

Track which categories and formats are holding subscriber attention.

PR / partnerships

Find climbing newsletters for placements and collaborations.

Comparison

How it compares

	Scraping the leaderboards	Trends API
Public API	none for charts	one call, JSON
Breakage	page changes break scrapers	managed
Category boards	scrape each chart page	one feed per category
Cross-platform compare	no	same shape as the other feeds
Free tier	n/a	100 requests/month

Three modes, one endpoint

get_top_trends

This page is a live feed. Call with type set to Substack. No keyword needed.

get_time_series

Historical 0-100 series on keyword sources (Google, TikTok, Amazon, and the rest).

get_growth

Percent change over 3M / 6M / 12M / 5Y on those same keyword sources.

FAQ

Common questions

What Substack data does Trends API provide?

The live Substack top-newsletters chart, overall and by category, via get_top_trends with type "Substack" or "Substack by Category". No keyword needed.

Is there an official Substack API for this?

No. Substack does not expose its leaderboards through a public API. Trends API serves the chart as JSON.

How fresh is the chart?

It updates with the Substack leaderboard. Every response includes its own timestamp.

Can I filter by category?

Yes. Call get_top_trends with type "Substack by Category" and a category name for a specific board.

Can I compare newsletter attention with podcasts or search?

Yes. Pull the Substack feed alongside Spotify Top Podcasts or a Google search series and compare in the same normalized shape.

Keep exploring

Related trend sources

NewsNews trend data as JSON SpotifySpotify trend data as JSON X (Twitter)X (Twitter) trend data as JSON

Start pulling Substack trends in 60 seconds.

100 requests a month free. No credit card, no sales call. One key works for every source.