07.11.2026

YouTube subtitles in Ukrainian - transcript and translated SRT by API

Get a YouTube video's transcript and Ukrainian subtitles (SRT/VTT) with one API call - a real run with its output, how it works with and without captions, the price and the limits.

Plenty of tools fetch a YouTube transcript. Fewer give you subtitles in Ukrainian, timed to the video, ready to load into a player or an editor. This guide shows one call that returns the original transcript, its Ukrainian translation and both as SRT/VTT files. The output below is from a real run on 7 November 2026.

Disclosure: I built the tool used here, Video Transcript & Translation on Apify. The source code is open: AndriyVK/-apify-document-tools.

The call

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("ai_admin/social-video-transcript").call(run_input={
    "videoUrls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw"],
    "translateTo": "uk",      # Ukrainian; 20 more languages are available
    "subtitles": True,        # SRT and VTT, original and translation (free)
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["title"], item["transcriptSource"])
    print(item["translation"]["text"])
    print(item["translation"]["srtUrl"])

The same list takes TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook, X and Vimeo links.

The real output

The video is the first one ever uploaded to YouTube, «Me at the zoo» (19 seconds).

title: Me at the zoo   language: en   transcriptSource: uploaded-captions   seconds: 18.2

The Ukrainian SRT file (first three cues):

1
00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:03,360
Гаразд, тож ми тут, перед слонами

2
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:07,970
круте в цих тварин те, що у них справді...

3
00:00:07,970 --> 00:00:12,620
справді дуже довгі хоботи

Each translated cue keeps the timing of the original one, so the file lines up with the video without any editing. The translation is natural Ukrainian («довгі хоботи», not a word-for-word copy), and even the elephant sound (baaaaaaaaaaahhh!!) became (бааааааааа!!).

Captions or speech recognition

• The video has captions (uploaded or YouTube's automatic ones): they are used. Fast, any length, one flat price. That was the case above: uploaded-captions.
• No captions: the audio is recognised with Whisper large-v3, which handles Ukrainian well. Then you pay per minute, and maxDurationMinutes (60 by default) keeps you from transcribing a four-hour stream by accident.

Price

On a paid Apify plan: $10 per 1,000 videos with captions, plus $7 per 1,000 minutes translated. The video above: one video plus one started minute of translation, $0.017. On the free plan: $0.025. A YouTube video without captions is $10 per 1,000 minutes instead. Failed videos are free.

Limits

• Private videos, videos that need a login and live streams are not supported.
• YouTube sometimes refuses downloads from servers; such a video gets an error field and is not charged.
• Speakers are not labelled.
• The translation is done by a language model: good for watching and searching, but read it before you publish it as official subtitles.
• Transcribe and translate only videos you are allowed to use.

From an AI agent

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=ai_admin/social-video-transcript gives Claude, Cursor or any MCP client one tool that reads a video link and answers in text.