Spotify Scraper: Play Counts, Monthly Listeners & Playlists

Spotify Scraper: Play Counts, Monthly Listeners, Playlists & Podcasts

Get exact Spotify play counts and monthly listeners, which the official Spotify API does not provide. Search Spotify by keyword or paste artist, album, track, playlist, podcast show, and episode URLs. Export track play counts, top cities, labels, playlists up to 5,000 tracks, whole artist discographies, and podcast metadata in JSON, CSV, or Excel — no Spotify API key needed.

What does Spotify Scraper do?

Spotify Scraper extracts rich metadata from Spotify using its internal GraphQL API and public embed pages. Two modes:

• Search mode — Search by keyword and get tracks, artists, albums, or playlists. Turn on includeDetails for full records, such as monthly listeners from an artist name
• URL mode — Provide direct Spotify URLs for detailed data extraction. Turn on includeDiscography to add every release of an artist

What data you get

• Artists — Monthly listeners, followers, world rank, top cities, verified status, biography, top tracks with play counts, discography summary, related artists, external links (Wikipedia, Instagram, etc.)
• Albums — Cover art, full track listing with per-track play counts, total play count, release date, label, type, copyright
• Tracks — Play count, artists, album name and ID, track number, duration, release date, explicit flag, audio preview URL
• Playlists — Owner, followers, description, the real track total, up to 5,000 tracks with play counts and date added, cover image
• Podcast shows — Show name, publisher, description, cover image, and canonical Spotify URL
• Podcast episodes — Episode title and description, show linkage, release date, duration, explicit/playability/video flags, cover image, and audio preview when Spotify exposes one

Why scrape Spotify?

Spotify is the world's largest music streaming platform with 600M+ users and 100M+ tracks. Structured Spotify data is valuable for:

• 🎵 Music analytics — Monthly listeners, play counts, and follower trends
• 📊 Playlist research — Analyze editorial and user playlists for genre trends
• 🎤 Artist monitoring — Track world rank, top songs, new releases, and related artists
• 📰 Content creation — Build data-driven playlists, reviews, and music newsletters
• 🎧 App development — Power music recommendation engines and discovery tools
• 📈 Market research — Study music industry trends and playlist curation patterns

Who is it for?

Spotify Scraper is for music marketers, playlist researchers, artist managers, data teams, and developers who need structured Spotify catalog and popularity data without building a custom crawler.

Use cases

• Music journalists tracking new releases and artist popularity changes
• Record labels monitoring artist metrics (monthly listeners, world rank, play counts)
• Data scientists building music recommendation datasets
• Playlist curators researching top-performing tracks and artists
• Developers building music apps that need structured artist/track data
• Marketers analyzing playlist trends for brand partnerships

How to scrape Spotify

1. Go to Spotify Scraper on Apify Store
2. Choose a mode: Search by keyword or Scrape by URL
3. For search: enter keywords and select result type (tracks, artists, albums, or playlists)
4. For URLs: paste one or more Spotify URLs (artists, albums, tracks, playlists, shows, or episodes)
5. Set the max results limit
6. Click Start and wait for results
7. Download data as JSON, CSV, or Excel

Data you can extract

Artist data

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Artist name
monthlyListeners	number	Current monthly listener count
followers	number	Total follower count
worldRank	number	Spotify global rank
biography	string	Artist biography text
imageUrl	string	Profile image (high-res)
verified	boolean	Whether the profile is verified
topCities	array	Cities with the most listeners, with listener counts
headerImageUrl	string	Header image
topTracks	array	Top 10 tracks with play counts and durations
discography	object	Album, single and compilation counts, plus the latest 10 albums and singles
relatedArtists	array	Related artist names and IDs
externalLinks	array	Links to Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
genres	array	Always empty: Spotify's public pages no longer list artist genres. Kept so existing integrations don't break

Album data

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Album name
artist	string	Artist name
imageUrl	string	Album cover art
releaseDate	string	Release date
label	string	Record label
albumType	string	ALBUM, SINGLE, EP or COMPILATION
copyright	array	Copyright lines
totalPlayCount	number	Sum of all track play counts
trackCount	number	Number of tracks
tracks	array	All tracks with play counts and durations

Track data

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Track name
artists	string	Artist name(s)
playCount	number	Total play count
albumName, albumId, albumUrl	string	Album name, ID and URL
trackNumber	number	Position on the album
artistIds	array	Spotify artist IDs
albumArt	string	Album cover image URL
releaseDate	string	Release date
duration	number	Duration in milliseconds
durationFormatted	string	Duration (e.g., 3:46)
isExplicit	boolean	Explicit content flag
audioPreviewUrl	string	30-second audio preview URL

Playlist data

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Playlist name
owner, ownerId	string	Playlist owner name and ID
followers	number	Playlist followers
description	string	Playlist description
imageUrl	string	Playlist cover image
trackCount	number	Real number of tracks on the playlist
tracksComplete	boolean	false when maxTracksPerPlaylist stopped the list before trackCount
tracks	array	Tracks with titles, artists, durations, play counts, album, and addedAt

Podcast show and episode data

Field	Applies to	Description
name	show, episode	Show name or episode title
publisher	show	Public show publisher
showName, showId, showUrl	episode	Parent-show linkage
description	show, episode	Public Spotify description
imageUrl	show, episode	Show or episode artwork
releaseDate	episode	Episode release timestamp
duration, durationFormatted	episode	Duration in milliseconds and readable form
isExplicit, isPlayable, hasVideo	episode	Public content and playback flags
audioPreviewUrl	episode	Preview URL when Spotify exposes one

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	urls	search for keyword search, urls for direct URL scraping
urls	array	—	Spotify URLs to scrape (URL mode)
searchTerms	array	—	Keywords to search on Spotify (search mode)
searchType	string	tracks	Result type for search: tracks, artists, albums, playlists
maxResults	integer	50	Search: max items per search query. URL mode: max records in total
includeDetails	boolean	false	Search: fetch the full record for each result at the same price per item (slower)
includeDiscography	boolean	false	URL mode: add every release of each artist as an album record. Each record is one item charge. Releases are fetched newest first but in parallel: sort by releaseDate for strict date order
maxTracksPerPlaylist	integer	1000	Tracks to include per playlist. Up to 5,000 for one playlist per run; later ones stop at 1,000

Search mode example

{
    "mode": "search",
    "searchTerms": ["arctic monkeys", "indie rock"],
    "searchType": "artists",
    "maxResults": 10
}

Monthly listeners from an artist name

{
    "mode": "search",
    "searchTerms": ["arctic monkeys", "taylor swift"],
    "searchType": "artists",
    "maxResults": 1,
    "includeDetails": true
}

Whole discography with play counts

{
    "mode": "urls",
    "urls": ["https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02"],
    "includeDiscography": true,
    "maxResults": 100
}

URL mode example

{
    "mode": "urls",
    "urls": [
        "https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02",
        "https://open.spotify.com/album/78bpIziExqiI9qztvNFlQu",
        "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXcBWIGoYBM5M",
        "https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL",
        "https://open.spotify.com/episode/45lhw2Adbrsw0xSCOgIeg3"
    ],
    "maxResults": 50
}

Output example

Artist (URL mode — full data)

{
    "type": "artist",
    "id": "06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02",
    "name": "Taylor Swift",
    "url": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02",
    "imageUrl": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000e5ebe2e8e7ff002a4afda1c7147e",
    "monthlyListeners": 54700000,
    "followers": 33600000,
    "worldRank": 3,
    "verified": true,
    "topCities": [
        { "city": "London", "country": "GB", "region": "ENG", "listeners": 1480452 }
    ],
    "biography": "Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter...",
    "topTracks": [
        {
            "trackId": "1BxfuPKGuaTgP7aM0Bbdwr",
            "title": "Cruel Summer",
            "artists": "Taylor Swift",
            "duration": 178427,
            "durationFormatted": "2:58",
            "playCount": 3600000000,
            "isExplicit": false
        }
    ],
    "relatedArtists": [
        { "name": "Ed Sheeran", "id": "6eUKZXaKkcviH0Ku9w2n3V", "url": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/6eUKZXaKkcviH0Ku9w2n3V" }
    ],
    "externalLinks": [
        { "name": "Wikipedia", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift" }
    ],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-10T17:00:00.000Z"
}

Podcast episode

{
    "type": "episode",
    "id": "45lhw2Adbrsw0xSCOgIeg3",
    "name": "Example podcast episode",
    "showName": "Example Podcast",
    "showId": "2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL",
    "showUrl": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL",
    "description": "An example public episode description.",
    "releaseDate": "2026-08-26T21:47:00Z",
    "duration": 3600000,
    "durationFormatted": "60:00",
    "isExplicit": false,
    "isPlayable": true,
    "hasVideo": false,
    "audioPreviewUrl": "https://p.scdn.co/mp3-preview/...",
    "url": "https://open.spotify.com/episode/45lhw2Adbrsw0xSCOgIeg3",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-08-31T18:00:00.000Z"
}

Track

{
    "type": "track",
    "id": "5XeFesFbtLpXzIVDNQP22n",
    "name": "I Wanna Be Yours",
    "artists": "Arctic Monkeys",
    "albumName": "AM",
    "albumArt": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2734ae1c4c5c45aabe565499163",
    "albumId": "78bpIziExqiI9qztvNFlQu",
    "albumUrl": "https://open.spotify.com/album/78bpIziExqiI9qztvNFlQu",
    "artistIds": ["7Ln80lUS6He07XvHI8qqHH"],
    "trackNumber": 12,
    "releaseDate": "2013-09-09T00:00:00Z",
    "duration": 183066,
    "durationFormatted": "3:03",
    "playCount": 3100000000,
    "isExplicit": false,
    "audioPreviewUrl": "https://p.scdn.co/mp3-preview/...",
    "url": "https://open.spotify.com/track/5XeFesFbtLpXzIVDNQP22n",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-10T17:00:00.000Z"
}

How much does it cost to scrape Spotify?

Spotify Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price
Run started	$0.005
Item scraped	$0.005 FREE / $0.00435 BRONZE per artist/album/track/playlist/show/episode

From November 20, 2026 the item price will be $0.00305 on FREE and BRONZE, $0.002745 on SILVER and $0.00244 on GOLD, PLATINUM and DIAMOND. The $0.005 run-start fee stays the same.

One item is one record at any size: a playlist with 5,000 tracks costs one item. The run-start fee is charged with the first result, so a run that returns nothing costs nothing.

For large inputs, set Maximum charge per run in Apify before starting. This actor now checks that PPE limit while running and stops cleanly when the cap is reached.

Cost examples

Scenario	Items	Cost
Search 10 artists	10	~$0.055
1 artist + 1 playlist by URL	2	~$0.015
5 albums by URL	5	~$0.030
Search 50 tracks	50	~$0.255

Examples use the FREE plan price.

Apify's free plan includes $5/month — enough for ~330 Spotify items.

API usage

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

// Search mode
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/spotify-scraper').call({
    mode: 'search',
    searchTerms: ['arctic monkeys'],
    searchType: 'artists',
    maxResults: 5,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(item => {
    console.log(`${item.name} — ${item.monthlyListeners?.toLocaleString() || '?'} monthly listeners`);
});

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_API_TOKEN')

# URL mode
run = client.actor('automation-lab/spotify-scraper').call(run_input={
    'mode': 'urls',
    'urls': [
        'https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02',
        'https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXcBWIGoYBM5M',
    ],
    'maxResults': 50,
})

dataset = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
for item in dataset:
    print(f"{item['type']}: {item['name']}")

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~spotify-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "search", "searchTerms": ["taylor swift"], "searchType": "tracks", "maxResults": 10}'

🤖 Agent and LLM workflow (Apify API / MCP-ready)

Use this actor as an agent-ready music intelligence source for artist monitoring, playlist research, and catalog enrichment. It does not expose a native Spotify MCP endpoint; AI assistants can run it through Apify's API, Apify Integrations, or the Apify MCP server and then analyze the dataset results.

Example agent task: "Find Arctic Monkeys' current monthly listeners, top tracks, and related artists, then summarize changes I should watch in a weekly music-market report."

Call from an agent via API

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~spotify-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"urls","urls":["https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Ln80lUS6He07XvHI8qqHH"],"maxResults":10}'

# After the run finishes, let the agent fetch and summarize the dataset
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/DATASET_ID/items?format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"

Use through Apify MCP server

If your AI client supports MCP, connect the Apify MCP server and allow only this actor:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/spotify-scraper"

Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code can use the same actor-scoped endpoint in their MCP configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "spotify-scraper": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/spotify-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts:

• "Scrape this Spotify show and episode URL, then summarize the episode and include its release date and duration."
• "Get the current monthly listeners and top tracks for these Spotify artist URLs."
• "Extract this playlist and compare its artists with the linked podcast episode."

Then ask your assistant to run automation-lab/spotify-scraper with artist, album, track, playlist, show, or episode URLs (or music search terms), wait for the Apify run to finish, and work with fields such as monthly listeners, play counts, podcast descriptions, release dates, and show linkage.

Integrations

• Scheduled runs — Monitor artist metrics or playlist changes daily
• Webhooks — Trigger actions when new data is available
• Google Sheets — Export track listings and play counts to spreadsheets
• Slack — Notify your team about artist ranking changes
• Zapier / Make — Automate music data workflows

Tips

• 🔍 Search with details — Turn on includeDetails to get full records straight from search, or search first and scrape only the URLs you need
• 🎤 Rich artist data — URL mode for artists returns monthly listeners, followers, world rank, biography, and related artists
• 💿 Album play counts — Album tracks include per-track play counts (billions of plays for top songs)
• 🔗 Copy URLs from Spotify — Use "Share > Copy link" in the Spotify app or web player
• 📋 Playlist monitoring — Schedule daily runs on editorial playlists to track additions/removals
• 🎵 Mix URL types — Scrape artists, albums, tracks, playlists, shows, and episodes in a single run
• 🎙️ Podcast enrichment — Scrape a show URL for publisher-level metadata and episode URLs for detailed release, duration, and playback fields

Limitations

• Search results have basic data by default — Turn on includeDetails for monthly listeners, play counts and other full fields
• Search depth — Spotify search stops at about 1,000 results per query, and often earlier (for example, about 500 artists)
• Artist top tracks — The artist record has Spotify's top 10 tracks. Use includeDiscography for every release
• Playlist size — 1,000 tracks per playlist by default. Set maxTracksPerPlaylist up to 5,000 for one playlist per run; later playlists in that run stop at 1,000. trackCount always shows the real total, and tracksComplete is false if the list stops before it
• Not available from Spotify's public pages — Artist genres, ISRC codes and audio features are not returned
• Public podcast metadata only — Show and episode fields come from Spotify's anonymous public pages and embeds. Descriptions, previews, publisher names, and playback flags may be unavailable for some catalog items or markets
• Podcast search is not included — Show and episode extraction currently requires direct Spotify URLs; keyword search remains available for tracks, artists, albums, and playlists

Diagnostic privacy

Failed operations send sanitized diagnostic input, exceptions, and Actor/build/run IDs to our private GlitchTip service for repair. Secret fields and URL queries are removed; reports are retained for 30 days. The Actor does not use AI or send data to model providers. Public Spotify pages and Apify proxies provide extraction; their operating costs are included in the listed Actor charges. Output remains in your Apify run storage under your account's retention settings until deleted; the Actor does not create a separate persistent customer database. Use only public URLs and non-sensitive search terms: these can appear in run logs. This independently developed tool is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify.

Legality

This scraper accesses Spotify's publicly available pages and internal APIs — the same data shown to any Spotify visitor. It does not bypass authentication, use private API keys, or download copyrighted audio content. Always review Spotify's Terms of Service before use.

FAQ

Do I need a Spotify account? No. The scraper uses Spotify's anonymous access tokens — no account required.

Can I get monthly listeners and play counts? Yes. Artist records include monthly listeners, followers, world rank, top cities, and top track play counts. Track, album, and playlist records include per-track play counts.

What's the difference between search and URL mode? Search mode finds content by keyword with basic metadata, or full records with includeDetails. URL mode extracts full details including monthly listeners, play counts, biography, and related artists.

What URL formats are supported? Standard Spotify URLs (open.spotify.com/...), locale URLs (open.spotify.com/intl-de/...), embed URLs, and Spotify URIs (spotify:track:...). spotify.link short links are not supported: open them and copy the full URL.

Can I scrape podcast shows and episodes? Yes. Use URL mode with open.spotify.com/show/... or open.spotify.com/episode/... URLs. Each URL emits one typed parent record and one item charge. Episode records include their parent show ID and URL when Spotify exposes them.

How often does the data update? Spotify updates metrics like monthly listeners and play counts in near-real-time. Each scrape returns the latest available data.

The scraper is failing with proxy errors or timeouts. The actor retries slow or failed requests automatically and switches proxy on the last attempt. The final status message says how many results were delivered and how many items failed. Re-run those URLs; if failures continue, open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

Why is playCount null for some tracks in search mode? Spotify's search returns limited metadata. Turn on includeDetails to fetch play counts for every result, or use URL mode.

How do I track Spotify artist growth over time?

To monitor an artist's monthly listeners, follower count, or world rank over time, use Apify's built-in scheduling to run the scraper automatically on a recurring basis:

1. Set up a run with the artist's Spotify URL in URL mode
2. Go to Schedules in Apify Console and create a daily or weekly trigger
3. Export each run's results to Google Sheets or a database to build a historical dataset

This is particularly useful for record labels, artist managers, and music journalists tracking emerging artists or charting campaigns.

What is the difference between the Spotify Web API and scraping?

The official Spotify Web API requires developer credentials, OAuth authentication, and has strict rate limits. It also does not expose all the same data — for example, monthly listeners, world rank, and play counts are not available through the official API, only on the public Spotify web pages.

This scraper accesses Spotify's internal GraphQL API and public embed pages — the same data any browser sees — without requiring a Spotify account or developer credentials. It's the only way to programmatically access monthly listener counts and global rank data.

How do I get monthly listener data for multiple artists at once?

Provide multiple artist URLs in the urls field in a single run:

{
    "mode": "urls",
    "urls": [
        "https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02",
        "https://open.spotify.com/artist/3TVXtAsR1Inumwj472S9r4",
        "https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Xyo4u8uXC1ZmMpatF05PJ"
    ],
    "maxResults": 50
}

Each artist result includes monthlyListeners, followers, worldRank, biography, topTracks, and relatedArtists. You can scrape dozens of artists in a single run.

Can I scrape Spotify playlist data for research?

Yes. Provide a playlist URL in URL mode to extract the track listing with titles, artists, durations, play counts, and the date each track was added, plus followers and the real track total. This is useful for:

• Analyzing what tracks appear on editorial playlists (e.g., "Today's Top Hits")
• Monitoring playlist additions and removals over time with scheduled runs
• Building datasets of genre-specific playlists for music recommendation research
• Tracking user-curated playlists for content strategy

Playlists return 1,000 tracks by default. Set maxTracksPerPlaylist up to 5,000 for one long playlist per run. One playlist is one item charge at any size.

Related scrapers

• YouTube Scraper — Scrape YouTube videos, channels, and playlists
• Podcast Scraper — Extract podcast episodes and metadata
• SoundCloud Scraper — Scrape SoundCloud tracks and artists

Use with AI agents via x402 (no Apify account)

Agent workflows can run this actor through Apify MCP without an Apify account when the MCP client uses a funded x402 wallet. Use the actor-specific MCP endpoint:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/spotify-scraper&payment=x402

This keeps existing Apify MCP/API usage unchanged; x402 only changes payment/authentication for clients that support it. Learn more in Apify's x402 integration docs.

Server API: get Spotify artists, tracks, playlists or search over HTTP

Spotify Scraper is also a Server Actor. Besides normal runs, it answers short HTTP requests directly, without starting a run for each lookup. Copy the server URL from the Actor's Server tab (do not build it from the Actor name) and authenticate with your Apify token. Use normal Actor runs for many URLs or search terms, more than 50 search results, search with full details, artist discographies, and playlists over 1,000 tracks.

curl -sS "$SERVER_URL/item?url=https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02" -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"
curl -sS "$SERVER_URL/item?url=spotify:playlist:37i9dQZF1DXcBWIGoYBM5M&maxTracksPerPlaylist=100" -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"
curl -sS "$SERVER_URL/search?term=taylor+swift&type=tracks&maxResults=10" -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

Method and path	Input	Output and charge
GET /	None	ready: true, the routes and limits; no scraping or charge
GET /item	Query url: an open.spotify.com artist, album, track, playlist, show or episode URL (locale paths like /intl-de/ and embed links work) or a spotify: URI; optional maxTracksPerPlaylist 1–1000 (default 1000, playlists only)	{ok,count,results} with one record, the same as a normal URL-mode dataset item; one Item scraped event; no start fee
GET /search	Query term: search text (1–200 characters); optional type (tracks, artists, albums or playlists; default tracks), maxResults 1–50 (default 10)	{ok,count,results} with the same records as a normal search-mode dataset item without includeDetails (with searchTerm); one Item scraped event per returned record; no start fee

An unknown or unavailable item, or a search with no results, returns an error and is free. Each request has a 60-second deadline and a 4 MiB response cap, and one server works on at most six requests at once. Nothing is cached. Errors use { "ok": false, "error": { "code": "...", "message": "...", "retryable": false } }: 400 INVALID_URL, INVALID_TERM, INVALID_TYPE, INVALID_LIMIT or INVALID_INPUT; 402 spending limit; 404 NOT_FOUND, NO_RESULTS or unknown route; 405 wrong method; 413 RESPONSE_TOO_LARGE; 502 BLOCKED, UPSTREAM_ERROR or charging failure; 503 server busy or stopping; 504 TIMEOUT. Failed requests are free. Retry only when retryable is true. The Server tab shows the full OpenAPI description.