YouTube Video Sponsors API

What is the YouTube Video Sponsors API?

Paste a YouTube video URL. Returns community-sourced skip segments from SponsorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app/) — not YouTube official data and not Captapi detection. Envelope always includes source:"sponsorblock", sourceUrl, license:"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0" (attribution required; commercial use needs SponsorBlock's explicit permission), and videoDurationSeconds even when segments is empty. Segments sorted by startSeconds with overlapsWith and coverageSeconds. Default minVotes=0 drops rejected segments (votes < 0). 0 credits on every call since 2026-08-09: the SponsorBlock database/API licence is non-commercial, so this endpoint stays free unless SponsorBlock grants a written commercial-use exception.

What you get

• source / sourceUrl / license on every response
• videoDurationSeconds always present (empty or not)
• Sorted segments + overlapsWith + coverageSeconds
• 0 credits on every call (NC-licensed data — free by policy)

Platform limits

Honest ceilings from the upstream platform surface — not Captapi bugs. Unexpected truncation here is usually the platform, not us.

• Data is the SponsorBlock community database (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) — non-commercial licence; Captapi bills 0 credits here unless SponsorBlock grants a written exception, and downstream commercial use still needs SponsorBlock's permission.
• votes reflects anonymous community agreement, not Captapi detection confidence.

Fill in the parameters below and copy a ready-to-run request, or open the live Playground to run it against your account (no API key paste).

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/youtube/video-sponsors?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdQw4w9WgXcQ" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."
# or: -H "x-api-key: capt_live_..."

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "videoId": "Wdjh81uH6FU",
    "videoDurationSeconds": 938.852,
    "totalReturned": 5,
    "segments": [
      {
        "category": "selfpromo",
        "actionType": "skip",
        "startSeconds": 554.515,
        "endSeconds": 638.201,
        "startFormatted": "9:15",
        "endFormatted": "10:38",
        "durationSeconds": 83.686,
        "votes": 1,
        "uuid": "52f9974390e30c4941d529cb028dfa56886a6e738fd1c5f1603a37f9bd9c21217"
      },
      {
        "category": "sponsor",
        "actionType": "skip",
        "startSeconds": 600.675,
        "endSeconds": 617.15,
        "startFormatted": "10:01",
        "endFormatted": "10:17",
        "durationSeconds": 16.475,
        "votes": 0,
        "uuid": "6377104df535c8eb2c2d7d6437320e71660b93a02517da2ba668c3813d7de6ff7"
      },
      {
        "category": "sponsor",
        "actionType": "skip",
        "startSeconds": 555.65,
        "endSeconds": 560.175,
        "startFormatted": "9:16",
        "endFormatted": "9:20",
        "durationSeconds": 4.525,
        "votes": 0,
        "uuid": "f75d77a0658f668c014ffa63f26f2ecc439a6d6b18b868d93c0875f55a47ba017"
      },
      {
        "category": "selfpromo",
        "actionType": "skip",
        "startSeconds": 567.302,
        "endSeconds": 573,
        "startFormatted": "9:27",
        "endFormatted": "9:33",
        "durationSeconds": 5.698,
        "votes": 0,
        "uuid": "328569d7ae428c1243bc54f010800a5cf6b5449e47abd3ee0f8093531ebeb8137"
      },
      {
        "category": "sponsor",
        "actionType": "skip",
        "startSeconds": 621.375,
        "endSeconds": 627.7,
        "startFormatted": "10:21",
        "endFormatted": "10:28",
        "durationSeconds": 6.325,
        "votes": -1,
        "uuid": "ee142c1cb73f13b3eceef18ffdd1eafd763c1adaef8df88f2c2b20f768e40ad27"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Billing metadata is returned in response headers: X-Captapi-Credits (credits charged), X-Captapi-Cache (hit or miss), and X-Captapi-Source. Failed requests (4xx/5xx) are never charged. See the full list of error codes in the error reference.

Response structure

A successful call returns success, cached, creditsUsed, and a data object with the following fields:

Parameters

Authentication: send your key as Authorization: Bearer capt_live_.... A typical call costs 0 credits. Pass cache=true for a free 24h cache hit; default is always fresh.

How it works

1. 1. Sign up — get 100 free credits, no card required.
2. 2. Create a key from your dashboard.
3. 3. Send one request to /v1/youtube/video-sponsors and parse the JSON response.

Use cases

Frequently asked questions

More YouTube APIs