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Map a YouTube niche: channels by keyword or similar to a seed, with the figures that matter

Subscriber counts do not tell you who is worth working with. The YouTube Channel Finder takes a keyword — and returns the channels YouTube ranks for it and the creators behind the videos that rank — or a seed channel, and returns the channels closest to it, scored and ranked with the shared topics in the row. Every channel comes with the figures you sort by: subscribers, median views of recent uploads, uploads per month, days since the last upload, country and the topics its own titles keep returning to. One keyword brought 602 to 815 different channels in five runs. No YouTube API key, no login, no cookies.

Who it's for

• Influencer marketers who want a wide, sized list of a niche — shortlisted by median recent views, not raw subscriber counts.
• Agencies doing lookalike prospecting — more creators like the ones who already perform, each with a match score and the reason.
• Market researchers mapping who covers a topic: how big they are, how often they publish, where they are based.
• Creator CRMs and lead pipelines that keep a niche list current and pass on-topic channel IDs to an email scraper.

What you get

A real keyword row from a run on 2026-10-07 for "budget mechanical keyboards" (trimmed):

{
  "type": "channel",
  "handle": "@TaeKeyboards",
  "title": "TaeKeyboards",
  "country": "Australia",
  "subscribers": 233000,
  "sizeTier": "100K-1M",
  "recentVideosSource": "feed",
  "medianViewsRecent": 59903,
  "avgLikesRecent": 2362,
  "likeRate": 0.0248,
  "viewsPerSubscriber": 0.257,
  "uploadsPerMonth": 0.9,
  "daysSinceLastUpload": 1495,
  "topKeywords": ["mechanical", "mechanical keyboard", "keyboard", "custom", "keyboard build"],
  "keywordMatch": 0.93,
  "discoveredBy": "video-search",
  "searchKeyword": "budget mechanical keyboards",
  "searchRank": 273
}

Two ways in: keyword, or seed channel

By keyword. The Actor asks YouTube's channel search (channels ranked for the keyword) and its video search (the creators behind the ranking videos), page by page, following each search to its end and again while a pass still adds enough — five passes at most. keywordMatch says how much of a channel's recent titles are about the keyword's topic, so a creator who made one ranking video but does not cover the niche scores low; minKeywordMatchPercent drops them before they are charged. expandKeywords also searches YouTube's own search-box suggestions for a wider sweep.

By seed. Name a channel and the Actor reads what it is about (the recurring terms in its latest titles), gathers candidates — the channels YouTube shows next to the seed's latest videos, plus channels found by searches for the seed's topics — scores each with a cosine similarityScore (0 = no shared term, 1 = identical), and delivers the closest with sharedKeywords and a matchScore. Candidates are read to rank them but only delivered rows are charged.

Input

A niche, sized and on topic — active channels with an audience:

{ "searchKeywords": ["budget mechanical keyboards"], "maxChannels": 300, "minSubscribers": 1000, "uploadedWithinDays": 90, "minKeywordMatchPercent": 20 }

Channels similar to the creators you already work with:

{ "similarTo": ["@51Drones", "https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann"], "similarPerSeed": 20, "minSubscribers": 1000 }

Measured data quality

Share of channel rows with a value, measured on the Apify platform on 2026-10-07:

Judged by hand, all 60 similar channels across three seeds were in the seed's niche or right next to it; every row had a similarity of 0.17 or more and at least one shared topic. Of the 300 channels for "budget mechanical keyboards", 38% had no recent title mentioning "mechanical" or "keyboard" — almost all from video search — which is exactly what minKeywordMatchPercent removes before you pay.

Honest limits

• YouTube's answer changes every request. Two runs of the same input do not return identical lists; the Actor follows each search up to five times to get a wide set, not an exhaustive one.
• Similarity is measured on words. It compares recent title terms and the description, so a "coffee shop jazz" music channel can share "coffee" with a coffee channel — topKeywords shows what a channel's titles really say. Measured on English seeds; languages written without spaces score near 0.
• YouTube's feed service can be down for hours (observed 2026-10-08; reported recurring since December 2025). When a channel's feed fails the Actor reads its uploads list instead — rounded views, estimated activity, no likes, flagged by recentVideosSource; a channel neither source covers is left for a later run, not charged.
• No contact columns, demographics, earnings, transcripts or comments. Subscriber counts are YouTube's rounded figures.
• YouTube can change its pages at any time; a value that cannot be read is null, and the one estimate (uploads-list activity) is marked.

Speed

A channel costs two small requests (its About panel and its feed); a search page is one request. On the platform with the default 1 GB (2026-10-07): the prefilled 50-channel keyword input took 4 to 7 seconds across nine runs; 300 channels with a subscriber filter 43 seconds; one keyword followed to the end (776 seen, 372 read, 50 delivered) 78 seconds; 1,000 channels across 11 searches 66 seconds (2,624 requests, none refused); similar channels for three seeds 50 seconds. Run times move with YouTube's own response time. A run the platform restarts continues from the rows it already delivered.

Pricing

Pay per result: a channel event for a keyword row and a similar-channel event for a "similar to" row (which carries a seed and a match score). Status rows, channels that did not pass your filters or the similarity threshold, candidates read only to rank a seed's list, channels left for a later run and channels that could not be read are all free. Each run also has Apify's run-start event. Current prices are on the actor's Pricing tab on Apify.

Related

This Actor finds the channels; to pull one channel's whole catalogue with exact stats use the YouTube Channel Videos Scraper, to turn on-topic channel IDs into checked public business emails use the YouTube Channel Email Scraper, and to find videos by keyword use the YouTube Search Scraper.

Frequently asked questions

How many channels does one keyword bring?

It depends on the keyword and on YouTube, which returns a different part of its results each time. "budget mechanical keyboards", followed to the end, brought 602 to 815 different channels across five runs. Use several keywords, or expandKeywords, for a larger list — "skincare" widened to 11 searches delivered 1,000 channels with 10,000+ subscribers, and two more runs delivered another 1,000 and 438 with none repeated.

Why is a channel in the list that has little to do with my keyword?

Channel search brings channels YouTube ranks for the keyword; video search brings every creator with one ranking video. keywordMatch and topKeywords tell them apart — set minKeywordMatchPercent (20 is a good start) and off-topic channels are neither delivered nor charged.

How far can I trust a similarityScore?

We judged 258 scored channels by hand for three seeds. At 0.20 and above, 127 of 132 were in the seed's niche or next to it; between 0.10 and 0.20, 49 of 62; between 0.05 and 0.10, 23 of 64. That is why 0.10 is the default threshold. The score compares words, so topKeywords shows what a channel is really about.

Can I run it on a schedule without getting the same channels again?

Yes. onlyNewChannels is on by default and remembers delivered channels under a listName, so re-running the same keywords brings only new channels. A killed run is made up for by the list's next run.

Does it give creators' email addresses?

No contact columns are extracted here, though the description column is the creator's own text and often holds them. For checked public business emails and links, pass this Actor's channelIds to the YouTube Channel Email Scraper.