How to Fetch YouTube Transcripts for AI Summarization and RAG

Short summary

REST API guide for extracting YouTube transcripts in JSON, plain text, or raw formats. Supports LLM summarization, RAG vector indexing, caption generation, and semantic search workflows. Free tier (100 requests/month) available; production tier $9/month for 100k requests.

• •YouTube Transcript API provides REST endpoints returning timestamped transcripts in multiple formats (JSON, text, SRT)
• •Enables four core use cases: feeding transcripts to Claude/GPT for summarization, chunking into vector databases for RAG, building accessibility tools, and indexing spoken content
• •Transparent pricing: free tier (100 req/month via RapidAPI), production tier ($9/month for 100k requests with batch support)

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.