Substack Trending API

The Substack Trending API on Trends MCP returns a live ranked board of newsletter titles from one get_top_trends call with type Substack. From the August 26, 2026 scan (as_of 2026-08-26T06:01:40 UTC), the feed returned 50 titles at offset 0 and 48 at offset 50, then count 0 at offset 98, for a closed board of 98. Rank 1 was Spencer Pratt. Rank 2 was Bernie Miklasz. Substack by Category Technology, same stamp, returned 25 titles that did not overlap the overall 98. Free tier access starts at 100 requests per month.

What Substack data shows right now

From the Trends MCP scan of August 26, 2026, the Substack overall board stamped 2026-08-26T06:01:40 UTC and closed at 98 rows after a 50-row first page plus a 48-row second page, so limit 25 sees only the first quarter of the board and still misses every Technology-category leader pulled on the same stamp.

Ranks 12 through 25 included Bottom Feeders Anonymous at 12, Georgia Drakaki at 13, Jenifer Marks Esq at 16, Document Zero at 20, Worship Design Studio at 22, and Bella Oldham | Avocado Bella at 25.

Same-stamp category splits (Substack overall 98 versus Substack by Category 25):

Growth follow-ups on the same pull day used source google search and youtube (weekly points, recent_date 2026-08-22, 261 points):

Zero Technology titles in overall 98. Sports names occupied overall ranks 2, 4, and 6. For a Substack versus podcast cut, see Spotify Top Podcasts vs Substack.

Exact API calls for the live Substack board

Two get_top_trends shapes cover most Substack work: type Substack for the overall board and type Substack by Category with an official category name, each counting as one request against the monthly quota on the August 26, 2026 pull, with the overall board needing a second page at offset 50 because the first page stopped at rank 50.

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack",
  "limit": 50,
  "offset": 0
}

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack",
  "limit": 50,
  "offset": 50
}

{
  "mode": "get_top_trends",
  "type": "Substack by Category",
  "category": "Technology",
  "limit": 25,
  "offset": 0
}

{
  "mode": "get_growth",
  "source": "google search",
  "keyword": "Spencer Pratt",
  "percent_growth": ["7D", "30D", "3M"]
}

Official category names include Technology, News, Sports, Business, Finance, Culture, and the rest listed on data-sources. Offset details for feeds that page past 25 live on get_top_trends offset and limit.

The overall Substack board closed at 98 rows

The overall Substack feed can stop before a round 100: on August 26, 2026, limit 50 at offset 0 returned count 50, limit 50 at offset 50 returned count 48 (ranks 51 through 98), and limit 50 at offset 98 returned count 0, so the live board that day held 98 newsletters rather than a full second page of 50.

Rank 51 was Baseball Program Blueprint. Rank 65 was Scott Ostler's Column. Rank 87 was Dave Hyde. Rank 98 was Clear Sight. Those later sports-adjacent titles did not appear in the Sports category top 25, which closed with A Quick Timeout at rank 25. Quote the as_of stamp plus the empty offset 98 page, not an assumed 100-row cap.

A default limit 25 call would have stopped at Callie Coles and skipped Document Zero at overall rank 20, Women + AI at rank 43, and every title after rank 25. Pagination is not optional if the research question is "who is on Substack today."

Technology category shares zero titles with overall 98

Substack by Category Technology can return a completely different list from the overall board: on the 2026-08-26T06:01:40 UTC stamp, Technology ranks 1 through 25 included Marcus on AI, SemiAnalysis, Pirate Wires, Latent.Space, and Chamath Palihapitiya, and none of those 25 strings appeared in overall ranks 1 through 98.

SemiAnalysis google search sat at 17.0 on 2026-08-22, down 37.04% over 7 days from 27.0, down 58.54% over 30 days from 41.0, and down 22.73% over 12 months from 22.0. Pirate Wires sat at 18.0, up 100.0% over 7 days from 9.0 and down 25.0% over 30 days from 24.0. Chamath Palihapitiya sat at 4.0, flat over 7 days and down 20.0% over 30 days from 5.0. Spotify Top Podcasts, same stamp, listed All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg at rank 44. The Technology board and the overall Substack board are not two views of one ranking.

News category rank 1 was The Wright Report, absent from overall 98. The Daily Beast sat at News rank 6, also absent from overall 98, with google search 48.0 on 2026-08-22, up 4.35% over 7 days from 46.0 and down 14.29% over 30 days from 56.0. Document Zero sat on both: overall rank 20 and News rank 14, with google search 19.0, down 40.62% over 7 days from 32.0. Join category rows to overall rows by exact title. For the podcast board alone, see the Spotify Top Podcasts API.

Sports writers occupy overall ranks 2, 4, and 6

Sports-category names can dominate the overall Substack top 6 while Technology names stay off the overall board: Bernie Miklasz sat at overall rank 2 and Sports rank 1, Matt Calkins sat at overall rank 4 and Sports rank 2, and The Blue Star Bulletin sat at overall rank 6 and Sports rank 6 on August 26, 2026.

Bernie Miklasz google search sat at 11.0 on 2026-08-22, up 83.33% over 7 days from 6.0. The 30D window used baseline_value 0.0, so the printed 999999.0 percent is a divide-by-zero artifact; quote 11.0 versus 0.0. Matt Calkins sat at 100.0 versus 1.0 over 7 days (+9900.0%) with a data_quality low warning that the series is over 90% zeros. Treat that spike as a thin series, not a stable audience measure. The Blue Star Bulletin had no growth call in this run; the live ranks still stand.

Sports category ranks 3 through 5 were Stealing Signals, Eddie Pepperell's Substack, and House of Strauss, none of which appeared in overall 98. The overall board's later sports names (Baseball Program Blueprint at 51, Scott Ostler's Column at 65, Dave Hyde at 87) missed the Sports top 25. Category top 25 and overall 98 overlap on a few sports writers and miss each other on the rest.

Spencer Pratt can lead Substack with flat search demand

A Substack rank 1 title can have almost no google search movement: Spencer Pratt led the overall board on August 26, 2026 while google search sat at 1.0 on 2026-08-22, flat over 7 days from 1.0, flat over 30 days from 1.0, and down 96.77% over 3 months from 31.0.

youtube for Spencer Pratt sat at 2.0, flat over 7 days and 30 days. The platform keyword Substack sat at 84.0, up 3.7% over 7 days from 81.0, down 8.7% over 30 days from 92.0, and up 3.7% over 12 months from 81.0. Quote Substack rank 1 plus 1.0, not a rising search story. The live board is a Substack ranking, not a Google ranking.

google search and youtube use weekly points through 2026-08-22. The live Substack boards stamp 2026-08-26T06:01:40 UTC. Mixing those dates into one "current audience" claim is wrong. Extra percent_growth windows inside one get_growth call still count as a single request. The free tier is 100 requests per month. News-category overlap with Google News is a separate join; start from the Google News Top News API if the question is headlines rather than newsletters.