YouTube Subtitles API
List all subtitle and caption tracks for any YouTube video — language codes, names, and translatability. Localization planning from $0.01/call.
Retrieve a list of all available subtitle and caption tracks for a given video, including language names, language codes, and whether each track is translatable.
Try it live
Fill in the fields and hit Run to see a real response.
{
"ok": true,
"data": {
"subtitles": [
{
"languageName": "English",
"languageCode": "en",
"isTranslatable": true
},
{
"languageName": "Spanish",
"languageCode": "es",
"isTranslatable": true
}
]
}
}Features
Call /v1/youtube/subtitles with a video ID to get every caption track the video offers, returned as a subtitles array.
Each track includes languageName (e.g. English) and languageCode (e.g. en), so you know exactly which lang value to pass to the Transcript endpoint.
Every track carries an isTranslatable boolean, telling you whether YouTube can auto-translate it into other languages.
Lists both creator-uploaded tracks and YouTube's auto-generated captions in the same response.
Use cases
Language Detection
Determine which languages a video supports before fetching transcripts.
Localization Workflow
Check subtitle availability to plan localization and translation pipelines.
Content Filtering
Filter video libraries by available subtitle languages for multilingual platforms.
Quick start
Copy this snippet and start making calls.
const res = await fetch('https://api.yepapi.com/v1/youtube/subtitles', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ"
}),
});
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);The YouTube Subtitles API — discover available caption tracks
The YouTube Subtitles API tells you which caption tracks a video has before you fetch any text. Send a video ID to /v1/youtube/subtitles and get a subtitles array — each entry with a languageName (English, Spanish), a languageCode (en, es), and an isTranslatable flag. It covers both uploaded and auto-generated tracks.
At $0.01 per call it's the lookup step that makes the Transcript endpoint reliable: check what languages exist, then request exactly that lang. It's also the data behind localization planning and filtering video libraries by caption availability.
What is a YouTube Subtitles API?
A YouTube Subtitles API returns the catalog of caption tracks available for a video — not the caption text, but the list of which tracks exist. For a given video ID you get a subtitles array where each entry has a languageName, a languageCode, and an isTranslatable boolean indicating whether YouTube can auto-translate that track. It covers both creator-uploaded and auto-generated captions. Think of it as the table of contents for a video's captions: it answers "what languages can I get?" so you can request the right one, rather than guessing and handling failures.
Build your own localization-planning tool
Run Subtitles across a video library and you can map exactly which content is captioned in which languages — the foundation for a localization roadmap that shows where translation effort is needed. Build a multilingual video platform that filters its catalog to only videos with, say, Spanish captions, by reading each video's subtitles list. The isTranslatable flag lets you flag which tracks YouTube can auto-translate versus which need manual work. It's the planning layer that sits in front of any transcript or caption pipeline.
YouTube Subtitles API pricing — $0.01/call
Each track listing costs $0.01 and returns the full subtitles array for the video. There's no daily quota. Because it's a lightweight lookup, it's cheap to run across an entire library to audit caption coverage. Used as a precheck before the Transcript endpoint, it can actually save calls — you only request transcripts in languages you've confirmed exist, instead of probing and failing.
Subtitles before Transcript — the efficient pattern
Subtitles and Transcript are designed to work together. Subtitles enumerates the languages a video offers; Transcript fetches the actual timestamped text for one of them. Calling Subtitles first means you pass a valid lang to Transcript every time, which matters for multilingual workflows where a target language may not be present. For a library, audit coverage with Subtitles, then pull only the transcripts you need — both endpoints on the same YepAPI key.
Try the YouTube Subtitles API free
Sign up for $5 in free credit, no card required — 500 track listings. Check the available caption languages on any video and confirm the languageCode values before pairing it with the Transcript endpoint.
Start making API calls in 30 seconds
$5 free credit on signup. No credit card required. Pay per call.
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Frequently asked questions
Retrieve a list of all available subtitle and caption tracks for a given video, including language names, language codes, and whether each track is translatable.
Each API call costs $0.01. No monthly minimums or subscriptions — you only pay for what you use.
Sign up for a free API key, then send a POST request to /v1/youtube/subtitles. Check the code example above for a ready-to-use snippet in JavaScript, cURL, or Python.
YepAPI bundles SEO, AI, and web scraping APIs under one key with no monthly minimums. You get lower per-call pricing, a unified dashboard, and one billing account instead of managing multiple providers.
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