YouTube API quota calculator
Price a day of YouTube Data API calls in units, from single requests to full channel scans, against the free 10,000-unit allowance. Arithmetic only, no key needed and none of your quota spent.
Channel scans
A scan reads one channel and its recent uploads, one channels.list call plus one playlistItems.list page and one videos.list batch per 50 uploads.
9 units per scan · 25 scans = 225 units · a full day covers 1,111 scans at this depth
Call by call
| Method | Units | Calls per day | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| search.list | 100 | 0 | |
| videos.list | 1 | 0 | |
| channels.list | 1 | 0 | |
| playlistItems.list | 1 | 0 | |
| commentThreads.list | 1 | 0 | |
| videos.insert | 1,600 | 0 | |
| thumbnails.set | 50 | 0 | |
| insert / update / delete | 50 | 0 |
Unit costs as published in Google's quota table. List calls are priced per request, so 50 results cost the same unit as one.
225 of 10,000 units · 2% of the day
Fits in the free daily allowance, which resets at midnight Pacific time.
How the quota works
Every YouTube Data API request costs a fixed number of units, charged when the call is made. A project gets 10,000 units a day and the counter resets at midnight Pacific time. Reads are cheap. videos.list, channels.list and playlistItems.list cost 1 unit per call and return up to 50 items each. The expensive calls are search.list at 100 units and videos.insert at 1,600.
Reading a whole channel costs almost nothing
A channel scan is one channels.list call to get the uploads playlist, then one playlistItems.list page and one videos.list batch per 50 uploads. The last 100 uploads cost 5 units, the last 200 cost 9, and a deep 1,000-upload read costs 41. At 9 units a scan the free allowance covers roughly 1,100 channels a day, which is why quota is rarely the constraint in channel research. That is the same budget an assistant spends through the MCP server, since it scans on your key with the same calls.
The habit that burns quota is search. One keyword search costs as much as twenty 100-upload scans, and most of the time it is avoidable. When you already know the channel, channels.list resolves an @handle for 1 unit, and the uploads playlist lists its videos for 1 unit per page of 50.
Questions
How much quota does a project get?
10,000 units a day per Google Cloud project by default, resetting at midnight Pacific time. The allowance is free and needs no billing account.
What does a channel scan cost?
One unit for the channel lookup plus one playlistItems.list page and one videos.list batch per 50 uploads. That makes 3 units for 50 uploads, 5 for 100, 9 for 200, and 41 for 1,000.
What burns quota fastest?
search.list at 100 units a call, so 100 searches exhaust a day, and videos.insert at 1,600 units per upload. Most search calls in channel research can be replaced, an @handle resolves through channels.list for 1 unit and a channel's videos come from its uploads playlist at 1 unit per 50.
Can I get more than 10,000 units?
Yes, through Google's quota extension request, which involves an API audit. Before filing one it is worth pricing the workload, most research loads fit the free tier once search calls are swapped for playlist reads.
Does this calculator spend any quota?
No. It is arithmetic on Google's published unit costs and never calls the API, which is also why it needs no key.
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