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Get Apple Podcasts top charts for any country and genre as JSON, with RSS feed URLs

The Apple Podcasts charts scraper is an Apify Actor that returns the Apple Podcasts top charts for any storefront and genre as JSON (up to 200 shows per chart), with each show's rank, publisher, RSS feed URL, episode count and latest episode date. It also searches shows by keyword and looks up known podcast IDs.

By Echo Lab · Last updated 2026-11-06 · Apify Actor echolab/apple-podcasts-charts

How it works

The Actor has three modes. Charts reads Apple's public top-podcasts RSS feed for each country and genre you list (genre all means the overall chart) and returns up to 200 shows per chart. Search runs the iTunes Search API for podcast keywords. Lookup takes podcast IDs or podcasts.apple.com URLs. In every mode, results are enriched with a batched iTunes Lookup call (up to 100 IDs per request), which adds the publisher, the RSS feed URL, genres, episode count and the latest release date.

Set includeLatestEpisodes (0–20) to attach recent episodes to each show. Episodes come from Apple's lookup endpoint; the Actor never downloads or parses the podcast's own RSS feed. It uses no login, cookies or browser, and it spaces requests at least 2.5 seconds apart to stay inside Apple's limits.

Charts are snapshots. To see movement, schedule a daily run and compare chartRank by podcastId, chartCountry, chartGenreId and scrapedAt.

Sample output

The first row of a real run on the Apify platform (run Ko5Rh4SaCfTrVrcoK, build 0.1.3, 2026-11-04): the US overall chart, top 100.

{
  "mode": "charts",
  "chartCountry": "us",
  "chartGenreId": "26",
  "chartGenreName": "Podcasts",
  "chartRank": 1,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-04T08:07:29.231870Z",
  "podcastId": "1200361736",
  "name": "The Daily",
  "publisher": "The New York Times",
  "appleUrl": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?uo=4",
  "feedUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/Sl5CSM3S",
  "primaryGenre": "Daily News",
  "genres": [
    "Daily News",
    "Podcasts",
    "News"
  ],
  "episodeCount": 2769,
  "latestEpisodeDate": "2026-11-03T10:45:00Z",
  "contentAdvisoryRating": "Clean",
  "artworkUrl": "https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts221/v4/ab/64/66/ab6466a9-9a7d-e20e-7a3d-bc5be37d29ce/mza_15084852813176276273.jpg/600x600bb.jpg"
}

The top 10 of that run:

Across the 100 shows, Apple reported 31 different primary genres, and 99 of 100 rows had an RSS feed URL. The run took 10 seconds at 256 MB.

Output fields

Main genre IDs (verified against Apple's genre service): 26 overall, 1301 Arts, 1321 Business, 1303 Comedy, 1304 Education, 1483 Fiction, 1511 Government, 1512 Health & Fitness, 1487 History, 1305 Kids & Family, 1502 Leisure, 1310 Music, 1489 News, 1314 Religion & Spirituality, 1533 Science, 1324 Society & Culture, 1545 Sports, 1309 TV & Film, 1318 Technology, 1488 True Crime. Subgenre IDs and names also work.

How much does Apple Podcasts chart data cost?

Pricing is per result: $1.50 per 1,000 podcasts ($0.0015 per show) plus $0.00005 per run, platform usage included. Attached episodes are free; they do not create extra rows.

Worked examples: the run above (US overall, top 100) is 100 rows, $0.15. Running it daily is about $4.50 per month. One snapshot of the top 100 in 10 countries is 1,000 rows, $1.50. All 19 main genres plus the overall chart in one country at 200 each is 4,000 rows, $6.00. Apify's free plan includes $5 a month for Store tools (apify.com/pricing, checked 2026-11-06).

Limits you should know about

1. Snapshots, not history. Each run returns the chart as it is now. Rank changes over time come from scheduling runs and comparing them yourself.
2. Apple limits its iTunes API to roughly 20 requests per minute per IP. Requests are spaced 2.5 seconds apart by default with up to three retries; many countries × genres, or attached episodes, take minutes.
3. Not every country has charts. Country codes are validated as ISO-2, but an unsupported storefront or genre can return nothing; empty charts produce no rows (and cost nothing); check the run log.
4. Apple's metadata is not real time. episodeCount and latestEpisodeDate come from Apple's lookup and can lag, or run ahead: in the sample run, SmartLess showed a latest episode date of 2026-11-09 on a run made 2026-11-04.
5. No audience numbers or contacts. Apple does not publish listener counts or downloads, so neither does this tool. It does not parse feeds and never outputs owner emails or phone numbers.

API: call it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/echolab~apple-podcasts-charts/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "charts", "countries": ["us", "gb"], "genres": ["all", "Technology"], "limit": 50}'

Python, printing a chart with feed URLs:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("echolab/apple-podcasts-charts").call(run_input={
    "mode": "charts",
    "countries": ["us"],
    "genres": ["1318"],          # Technology
    "limit": 100,
    "includeLatestEpisodes": 1,
})
for show in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(show["chartRank"], show["name"], show["publisher"], show["feedUrl"])

Apple Podcasts charts scraper vs. alternatives

When not to use it: if you need months of chart history right now, audience estimates or Spotify data, use a podcast intelligence platform. If you need one chart once, open Apple's feed in a browser. This tool is for repeatable chart snapshots across many markets that land in your own spreadsheet or database.

FAQ

Is this an official Apple Podcasts API? It reads Apple's official public RSS, Search and Lookup endpoints and gives you one consistent JSON shape. No Apple account or key is needed.

How many shows per chart? Up to 200 from the genre-specific feed; Apple sometimes returns fewer.

Open the Apple Podcasts charts scraper on Apify for the full input schema.

Run the Apple Podcasts charts scraper on Apify →