# YouTube Channel Search

> YouTube Channel Search is a paid API for AI agents from api.shopsocial-api.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-29).

Returns up to ~20 YouTube channels matching a search query, including channel ID, name, handle, subscriber count text, description snippet, and channel link.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.shopsocial-api.workers.dev/api/social/youtube-channel-search?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/youtube-channel-search-499214e3
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_gaH9v6a46y9sBYXFz57Fb

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability youtube-channel-search-499214e3
```

Example prompt: Can you search YouTube channels for 'personal finance' and show me the top results — channel names, handles, subscriber counts, and a short description of each?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to discover YouTube channels by topic keyword — for influencer research, competitive landscape analysis, or obtaining channel IDs and handles for further processing. Prefer this over YouTube Data API v3 when you don't want to manage API keys or quota, and you only need first-page channel-search results with approximate subscriber counts rather than exact figures or video lists.

## Known failure modes

- Empty or short query (under 2 characters) returns a validation error
- YouTube search returning no results for very obscure or misspelled queries
- Rate limiting or blocking by YouTube's public page, returning an error or empty channel list
- Subscriber counts and descriptions are text-scraped approximations, not exact API data
- Results reflect YouTube's first page only; no pagination or deeper results available

## How this service works

Pay-per-call e-commerce, product, price and social media data tools for AI agents, from public sources. Payment: x402, USDC on Base, Solana, Arc, Polygon, Arbitrum, Monad, World Chain, Optimism, Avalanche, Celo or Stellar, or RLUSD/XRP on the XRP Ledger. No signup, no API key; a failed call is not charged.

## Output

A JSON object containing the original query, the source YouTube search URL, a checkedAt timestamp, a channelCount, and an array of up to ~20 channel objects each with: url, name, handle, channelId, description snippet, and subscribers (text, e.g. '2.77M subscribers').

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "query"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "query": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Search words (2-100 characters)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "query": "education",
  "source": "https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=education&sp=EgIQAg%3D%3D&hl=en&gl=US",
  "channels": [
   {
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@BranchEducation",
    "name": "Branch Education",
    "handle": "@BranchEducation",
    "channelId": "UCdp4_l1vPmpN-gDbUwhaRUQ",
    "description": "How do Microchips work? How does your smartphone camera work? How does Bluetooth work? At Branch Education, we dive ...",
    "subscribers": "2.77M subscribers"
   },
   {
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@Maaneducation",
    "name": "Maan Education",
    "handle": "@Maaneducation",
    "channelId": "UCNjLXBxN5nHriPDnRr7zp3A",
    "description": "चैनल का नाम: Maan Education राजस्थान में सरकारी नौकरी का सपना देखना शानदार ...",
    "subscribers": "651K subscribers"
   }
  ],
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-23T09:37:49.813Z",
  "channelCount": 20
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/youtube-channel-search-499214e3/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.shopsocial-api.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.shopsocial-api.workers.dev/llms.txt)