What is Video Download API?
Video Download API is a REST API and MCP server that extracts video and audio from public URLs across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Twitch, X, and more than a dozen other platforms. Developers submit a link, receive an async job ID, and poll until the file is ready as an MP4, MP3, M4A, or WAV download URL. It is billed per started minute of media, with a free tier of 10 minutes every 30 days and no credit card required to start.
Why Video Download API works
Scraping video from multiple platforms requires maintaining separate, brittle integrations for each site, handling authentication changes, and managing storage for large files. Video Download API replaces that maintenance work with a single REST endpoint covering many platforms, charges only for what completes, and handles temporary file storage so developers do not need to provision their own.
Video Download API features
- Async download jobs. POST a video link to receive a job ID instantly at HTTP 202, then poll for status as it moves from processing to ready, so your application stays responsive during longer downloads.
- Free link-check endpoint. GET /api/v1/media returns the title, platform, and duration of any supported link at no cost, so you can confirm a video is downloadable before spending minutes.
- Multi-format output. Download video as MP4 at quality levels from 360p to best, or extract audio as MP3, M4A, or WAV at up to 320 kbps, with format and quality chosen per request on paid plans.
- MCP server for AI assistants. The same API key works through an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other AI coding tools can trigger downloads directly without a separate integration.
- Automatic refunds on failure. If a job fails because the video is private, deleted, or unreadable, the minutes are returned to your account automatically with no support ticket needed.
- Metadata on every response. Each job response includes video title, channel, duration, and thumbnail so downstream tools can label, sort, or preview content without a separate metadata call.
Who Video Download API is for
- Backend developers building content pipelines who need video from multiple social platforms without writing or maintaining platform-specific scrapers.
- AI and machine learning engineers who need video or audio files at scale for training datasets and want predictable per-minute pricing rather than bandwidth fees.
- Journalism and media teams who archive news clips from YouTube, CNN, BBC, and social platforms for verification or compliance records.
- Social media managers and marketing agencies who repurpose video content across platforms and need a programmatic way to retrieve source files.
- Developers building AI assistant tools or n8n and Make workflows who want to trigger video downloads from Claude, ChatGPT, or other agents via the MCP server.
Similar micro SaaS ideas you can build
- Social video archiver. Target: legal and compliance teams. Workflow: automatically capture and store public social media videos as evidence or for regulatory audits. They pay to avoid manual downloading and maintain a permanent, timestamped record.
- Podcast audio extractor. Target: podcast producers and content repurposers. Workflow: pull audio tracks from YouTube interviews or Twitch streams and deliver them as MP3 files ready for editing. They pay to skip manual screen recording and format conversion.
- Competitor content monitor. Target: marketing agencies. Workflow: download and index video ads or product announcements from competitor social accounts on a schedule, then surface them in a dashboard for analysis. They pay for automated retrieval and a searchable archive.
- E-learning video library builder. Target: online course creators and L and D teams. Workflow: ingest public tutorial or lecture videos from YouTube and Vimeo into a private library, tagged by topic and duration. They pay to automate curation and avoid manual downloads.
