YouTube API · Videos · YouTube Shorts

The YouTube publishing API for developers

Upload videos and Shorts to YouTube automatically via REST API. PostPulse owns the platform access, so you ship on day one — no audit, no token plumbing.

Get started free →Read the API docs

No platform audit on your side No tokens to babysit No credit card to test

Numbers from the last 12 months · see live stats →

YouTube posts shipped

Total posts published

across all 9 platforms

Platforms — one API

Native YouTube API · the actual cost

What you'd build and maintain yourself

Every item below is real friction the native YouTube API hands you. PostPulse handles all of them.

Strict OAuth + quotas

YouTube Data API v3 has strict OAuth 2.0 requirements and quota limits

PostPulse handles OAuth and token lifecycle for you.

~6 uploads/day quota

Default quota is only 10,000 units/day — each video upload costs 1,600 units

Publish at scale on PostPulse's managed quota — no unit math.

GCP project + consent screen

Requires Google Cloud project setup, consent screen configuration, and App Verification

Skip the Cloud project and consent screen — just connect and post.

Months-long App Verification

App Verification for YouTube access requires a security assessment and can take months

PostPulse is already verified — you ship on day one.

Videos vs Shorts handling

Separate handling required for regular videos vs. Shorts (no flag — detected by aspect ratio and length)

Upload either format; PostPulse sorts out the rest.

Minutes to your first post

Schedule a YouTube post in two API calls

Import your media, then schedule the post with your YouTube settings. PostPulse does the rest.

# Step 1: Import media from a public URL
curl -X POST https://api.post-pulse.com/v1/media/upload/import \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "url": "https://your-cdn.com/media/video.mp4" }'

# Response: { "path": "uuid/video.mp4" }

# Step 2: Schedule a post using the publications array
curl -X POST https://api.post-pulse.com/v1/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "scheduledTime": "2026-06-01T10:00:00Z",
    "isDraft": false,
    "publications": [
      {
        "socialMediaAccountId": 123,
        "platformSettings": { "type": "YOUTUBE", "title": "Your video title", "privacyStatus": "PUBLIC", "category": "SCIENCE_TECHNOLOGY" },
        "posts": [
          {
            "content": "Check out our latest content! #developer #api",
            "attachmentPaths": ["uuid/video.mp4"]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }'

What you ship on day one

What you can build with the YouTube API

Every capability maps to a real field in the API. Click through for the exact request shape.

YouTube Video Scheduling

Schedule video posts to publish at a specific future date and time across multiple platforms.

YouTube Scheduling

Schedule any post type — text, image, video, or carousel — to publish at a precise future timestamp.

YouTube Auto-Publish

Trigger immediate publication to social media platforms from your backend or automation workflow.

YouTube Media Upload

Upload images and videos via direct binary upload, presigned URL, or remote URL import — then reference the media path in attachmentPaths.

YouTube Shorts

Upload vertical short-form videos to YouTube Shorts automatically via the PostPulse API.

YouTube Privacy Controls

Set per-post privacy levels, audience visibility, and content controls programmatically.

YouTube Webhooks

Receive real-time webhook events for post completion, failure, and media import status across all platforms.

YouTube White-Label

Let your users connect their own social accounts via a seamless OAuth flow that never exposes PostPulse branding.

DIY vs PostPulse

The same YouTube integration, two timelines

Both columns assume you know your stack. Only one has you doing undifferentiated platform plumbing.

DIY · native YouTube API

Register a developer app and configure OAuth redirect URLs
Implement the OAuth flow plus token refresh and rotation
Build the media-upload and publish flow around YouTube's quirks
Clear access requirements — review, quota, or partner approval where required
Build scheduling, retries, and failure alerting yourself
Keep up with API version changes — forever

PostPulse

Minute 0 · Sign up free
Minute 3 · Connect a YouTube account via OAuth
Minute 6 · POST /v1/posts — first post live
Minute 7 · A webhook calls your URL the second it lands
Day 2+ · Build your product, not platform plumbing

YouTube-specific API settings

Control YouTube publishing options via the platformSettings object in your publication entry.

Field	Description	Accepted Values
`title`	Video title (up to 100 characters)	string
`privacyStatus`	Visibility setting	`PUBLICUNLISTEDPRIVATE`
`category`	YouTube category	`FILM_ANIMATIONAUTOS_VEHICLESMUSICPETS_ANIMALSSPORTSTRAVEL_EVENTSGAMINGPEOPLE_BLOGSCOMEDYENTERTAINMENTNEWS_POLITICSHOWTO_STYLEEDUCATIONSCIENCE_TECHNOLOGY`

YouTube media requirements

PostPulse validates your media before publishing to YouTube to prevent platform rejections.

Video Formats

Max size: 256 GB

Video Duration

Up to 12 hours (verified account)

Aspect Ratio

16:9 recommended; 9:16 for Shorts

Pricing

Start free. Scale when it makes sense.

The same simple pricing across every platform — no per-network surcharge.

Free

$0on signup

10 publications, free
No credit card required
Every feature unlocked
Connect unlimited accounts

most picked by devs

Pay-as-you-go

$0.20/ publication

One credit = one published post
No subscription, no expiry
All features included
Top up anytime

Top up credits

Subscription

$5/ account / mo

Unlimited publishing per account
Or $48 / year per account
Add or remove accounts anytime
REST API · n8n · Make · MCP

Start subscription

Building YouTube into a product your users connect their own accounts to? See the white-label / Connect tier →

PostPulse vs. the native YouTube API

What PostPulse handles vs. what you'd build yourself.

Capability	PostPulse	Native YouTube API
Platform audit / App Review	✓ Not required	✗ Required (weeks to months)
Auth token management	✓ Handled by PostPulse	Implement OAuth + token refresh
Media upload workflow	✓ Single endpoint	Multi-step async upload
Post scheduling	✓ Built-in scheduledTime	Build your own cron queue
Failure notifications	✓ 14 webhook events	Poll for status manually
Multi-platform publishing	✓ 9 platforms, same request	Separate API per platform
White-label OAuth for your users	✓ Included	Build your own OAuth bridge
AI agent integration (MCP)	✓ Claude, Cursor	✗ Not available

James Mccarthy

I use PostPulse with an AI agent via their MCP server. My agent literally posts to social media on its own now. Didn’t expect that to work as smoothly as it did.

Antonio Widera

$5/month for what would otherwise require a full backend engineer to maintain? Easy yes. The REST API is clean and well-documented too, which is rare.

Shawn Padilla

Tried to get TikTok API access myself. Three weeks, two rejections. Switched to PostPulse and was posting to TikTok the same day. Wish I hadn’t wasted that time.

Karen Rivers

I’m a Make.com power user and needed to post to 5 platforms from one scenario. The native PostPulse app for Make connected everything in one afternoon. Would’ve taken me weeks to do manually.

Douglas Finch

I built an n8n automation for a client and needed to add social publishing. The official PostPulse n8n node was literally drag and drop. No headache.

Andrea Scott

Saved me months of dev work. I was about to start integrating Instagram and TikTok APIs separately — then I found out Meta’s app review alone can take months. PostPulse just handled all of that. Shipped social posting in under a week.

William Dirks

The most flexible pricing model on the market!

I'm building an AI content factory as a side hustle. I'm still in the experimentation phase, so I don't have the budget for expensive tools — but I also needed to get everything up and running quickly, so I integrated with a ready-to-go API instead. PostPulse offers a flexible pay-as-you-go model that let me experiment first without commitment — and now that we have stable traffic, I’ve switched to their $5/month subscription.

Best support on the market — the founder personally emailed me when I hit a client error and walked me through the fix.

solo serg

We optimized the posting to 20 twitter accounts. It was a problem to manage such a number, but through the platform everything works out perfectly. Very convenient dashboard for tracking errors. Great product.