YouTube Brain

Subscriptions and Members API

3 min read

Subscriptions and Members API

Two Data API surfaces let a tool read the audience relationships behind Subscriptions and Subscribers and Channel Memberships: the subscriptions resource, available to any authorized user, and the members surface, restricted to creators. They behave very differently on access and privacy, and confusing them is a common integration mistake. This note extends the resource map in API Resources and Methods and assumes the auth model in API Overview and Auth.

The subscriptions resource

A subscription represents a user following a channel. subscriptions.list costs 1 unit and requires exactly one filter:

  • mine=true: the authorized user’s own subscriptions. Note there is no mySubscriptions parameter; mine is the correct flag.
  • channelId: subscriptions made by a specific channel.
  • mySubscribers=true or myRecentSubscribers=true: people who subscribe to the authorized channel, newest first for the latter.
  • id: specific subscription IDs.

Optional parameters include forChannelId to filter the result to given channels, maxResults (0 to 50, default 5), and order (alphabetical, relevance, or unread). A common pattern is mine plus forChannelId to check whether the authorized viewer subscribes to a particular channel.

subscriptions.insert and subscriptions.delete each cost 50 units and require OAuth with one of the youtube, youtube.force-ssl, or youtubepartner scopes. Insert subscribes the authorized account to the channel named in snippet.resourceId; delete removes a subscription by id.

Members and membership levels

The members surface is creator-only and allowlisted: it can only be used by an individual creator for their own memberships-enabled channel, and access is granted by a Google or YouTube representative. Calls return channelMembershipsNotEnabled if memberships are off. Both methods require the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.channel-memberships.creator scope.

  • members.list costs 2 units and returns the channel’s members. Use mode (all_current or updates), hasAccessToLevel to filter by minimum level, and filterByMemberChannelId (up to 100 IDs) to check specific members. maxResults ranges 0 to 1000.
  • membershipsLevels.list costs 1 unit and returns the membership levels the authorized creator owns.

These power membership integrations and perk automation, but the access restriction means most third-party tools cannot use them.

Privacy and limitations

Subscriber lists are deliberately incomplete: only subscribers who made their subscriptions public are returned, mirroring the privacy behavior described in Subscriptions and Subscribers. Member identities are sensitive personal data and must be handled under the API Services Terms and the storage rules in API Policies and Limits. Neither surface exposes payment details.

How to apply

  • To verify a subscription relationship cheaply, use subscriptions.list with mine and forChannelId rather than paging an entire subscriber list.
  • Budget writes carefully: subscribe and unsubscribe cost 50 units each against the shared pool in API Quota System.
  • Do not build a product around members.list unless you have been allowlisted; design for the case where access is denied.
  • Treat returned member and subscriber data as personal data with retention and deletion obligations.

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks