Short version: both sell YouTube data by the credit. At every plan from $49 up, Tapline gives you 1.7 to 2 times more requests for your money, and it never charges for a call that fails. Supadata is cheaper below $49, covers TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook as well, and can build a transcript with AI when a video has no captions. Tapline does not do any of that. It only does YouTube, in more depth and for less.
What the data actually costs
You can't compare the credits one to one. Supadata charges 1 credit for most calls. Tapline charges 2. So the only number that matters is how many requests your money buys.
| Monthly spend | Tapline | Supadata |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 500 credits once · 250 requests · 60/min | 100 credits a month · 100 requests · 1 req/s |
| $5-17 | no paid plan under $49 | Basic $5: 300 requests · Pro $17: 3,000 |
| ~$48 | Starter $49: 50,000 requests · 5 req/s | Mega $47: 30,000 requests · 50 req/s |
| ~$200-300 | Growth $199: 500,000 requests · 25 req/s | Giga $297: 300,000 requests · 100 req/s |
| ~$500-900 | Pro $499: 2,000,000 requests · 50 req/s | Supa $897: 1,000,000 requests · 100 req/s |
Read the middle three rows. At about $48 you get 50,000 requests from Tapline against 30,000 from Supadata. At the $200 to $300 level you get 500,000 against 300,000, and you pay $98 less for them. At the top you get twice the data for $398 a month less.
Per 1,000 transcripts that is $0.98 on Starter against $1.57 on Mega, $0.40 on Growth against $0.99 on Giga, and $0.25 on Pro against $0.90 on Supa. Paying yearly drops Tapline to $0.78, $0.32, and $0.20. The same ordering holds for metadata, search, channel, and playlist calls, because both charge the same for those as for a transcript.
Below $49 the comparison flips, and it isn't close. Supadata sells a $5 plan and a $17 plan. Tapline's answer at that level is 500 free credits and then a jump to $49.
Where the cost model flips
Two Supadata calls are priced by the minute of video rather than by the call, and they add up fast. An AI transcript costs 2 credits a minute, so a 45-minute podcast with no captions costs 90 credits. That is most of a free month for one video. Ten thousand hour-long talks would run 1.2M credits, more than the whole $897 Supa plan. Translation costs 30 credits a minute, so one 20-minute video translated once costs 600 credits, or 2% of the Mega plan.
Longer video really does cost more to transcribe, so the pricing is fair. Just budget for it. And Tapline can't do either job at any price, so if most of your videos have no captions, pick Supadata and stop comparing rates.
Who pays for a failed call
Tapline only charges when a call returns data. A failed call costs nothing. Supadata charges in two cases where you get no transcript. Their docs say a 206 Transcript Unavailable response costs 1 credit. They also say a timeout on your side still counts.
That is a real bill when you run through a big list of video IDs. Check 100,000 videos with 15% captions-off and you have spent 15,000 Supadata credits on nothing, half a month of the Mega plan. On Tapline the same sweep costs zero.
What you can actually get
Both return transcripts from existing captions, video metadata, search, channel info, channel videos, and playlists. Tapline charges 2 credits for each of those, or 3 for channel info. Supadata charges 1.
Only Tapline returns comments, the engagement heatmap (YouTube's most-replayed curve), video formats, and the list of subtitle tracks on a video. All 2 credits. Supadata publishes no endpoint for any of them, and the heatmap isn't on YouTube's own API either.
Only Supadata builds a transcript with AI, translates one, and runs batch calls. It also pulls custom fields from a prompt or JSON schema, covers TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook, and scrapes web pages with scrape, map, and crawl. Coverage from docs.supadata.ai on 2026-07-27; "no endpoint" means it does not appear in their published reference on that date.
Speed is the one place Supadata beats Tapline on the same money: 50 req/s on Mega against 5 on Starter, and 100 req/s on Giga against 25 on Growth. But a speed limit only matters until your credits run out. Mega burns its whole month in ten minutes at full tilt. Tapline Starter takes about 2.8 hours to spend its 50,000 requests. Both finish overnight, and Tapline has 1.7 times more data at the end.
Which one to pick
Pick Supadata when
- You need more than YouTube. TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook from one key. Tapline has no answer to it.
- Your videos don't have captions. Supadata can build a transcript with AI. Tapline returns nothing. This is the strongest reason to pick them.
- You're spending under $49 a month. Supadata sells $5 and $17 plans. Tapline has nothing paid below $49.
- You need translation or web scraping. Supadata translates transcripts, and its scrape, map, and crawl calls run on the same key.
Pick Tapline when
- You want the most data per dollar. 1.7x more requests at $49 and $199, 2x at $499, and $398 a month cheaper at the top.
- You run through big ID lists. Videos with captions turned off cost you nothing, because Tapline only charges when a call works.
- You need comments or heatmaps. Neither is on Supadata's list, and the most-replayed curve isn't on YouTube's own API either.
- You also pull Airbnb data. One key and one credit pool covers both APIs.
Plenty of teams run both: Tapline for YouTube volume, Supadata for the other platforms and for videos that need an AI transcript. Nothing about the credit models stops you.
Moving from Supadata to Tapline
Both are plain REST APIs with a key in the header, so this is mostly find and replace. Start with 500 free credits and no card. That is 250 real requests, enough to compare the two on live videos.
Swap x-api-key for X-API-Key. Then remap the routes: /v1/transcript becomes /api/v1/youtube/videos/{video_id}/subtitles, /v1/metadata becomes /api/v1/youtube/videos/{video_id}/metadata, and /v1/youtube/channel becomes /api/v1/youtube/channels/{channel_id}. The rest are in the YouTube docs. Both return JSON but the field names differ, so budget an afternoon for the parser.
FAQ
Is Tapline cheaper than Supadata?
For YouTube calls, yes at every matching plan. Tapline Starter at $49 buys 50,000 requests. Supadata Mega at $47 buys 30,000. Growth at $199 buys 500,000 against Giga's 300,000 at $297. Pro at $499 buys 2,000,000 against Supa's 1,000,000 at $897. Below $49 a month Supadata is cheaper, because it sells $5 and $17 plans and Tapline does not. As of 2026-07-27.
Does Supadata have a YouTube comments endpoint?
Not one published in their API reference as of 2026-07-27. Their YouTube endpoints are transcript, translate, metadata, channel, channel videos, playlist, playlist videos, search, extract, and batch. Tapline has a comments endpoint. It returns top or newest comments with author, likes, timestamps, pinned status, and reply threads, at 2 credits per request.
Can Tapline transcribe a YouTube video that has no captions?
No. Tapline returns transcripts for public videos that already have captions. Supadata can build one with AI at 2 credits per minute of video. So if most of your videos have no captions, pick Supadata.
What is the best Supadata alternative for YouTube data?
It depends what you use it for. If you only use it for YouTube, a YouTube-only API like Tapline gives you more endpoints, including comments, engagement heatmaps, video formats, and subtitle-track listings, plus 1.7 to 2 times the requests per dollar. If you also use it for TikTok or Instagram, no single vendor replaces it. You would be adding a second provider, not switching.
Do Supadata credits roll over month to month?
No. Supadata's pricing page says credits do not roll over to the next month. As of 2026-07-27.
Does either one charge for failed requests?
Tapline only charges when a call returns data. Supadata's docs say a 206 Transcript Unavailable response costs 1 credit. They also say that if your app times out before the answer arrives, the call still counts.