Live follower count badge for GitHub READMEs — any platform, one URL

How-to

Add a live follower count badge to your GitHub README

GitHub READMEs support SVG images — which means you can embed a live follower count badge that updates automatically. No badge-hosting service, no token management. One URL, any platform: X, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn.

The URL format

https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=<profile-url>

Returns a flat SVG badge showing "platform followers: count" that GitHub renders inline. Cache is set to 1 hour so GitHub's image CDN refreshes daily without hammering Pulse.

Markdown embed

![X Followers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://twitter.com/yourhandle)

![Bluesky Followers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://bsky.app/profile/yourhandle.bsky.social)

![YouTube Subscribers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://www.youtube.com/@YourChannel)

Custom label and color

# Custom label
![Followers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://twitter.com/yourhandle&label=Twitter+fans)

# Custom color (blue, green, gray, red, purple, or hex)
![Followers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://twitter.com/yourhandle&color=green)

Example output

For @Gargron on Mastodon (Eugen Rochko, Mastodon's creator):

![Mastodon](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://mastodon.social/@Gargron)
→ [ mastodon followers | 380.8K ]

For @MrBeast on YouTube (499M subscribers):

![YouTube Subscribers](https://pulse.walls.sh/badge?url=https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast&label=YouTube+subscribers&color=red)
→ [ YouTube subscribers | 499M ]

Rate limits and pricing

Free: 120 badge requests/minute per IP. Pro plan ($19/mo) raises the limit to 1,200/minute for repos with very high traffic. At one request per cache refresh (every hour per unique viewer IP), most repos are well within the free tier. Sign up at /account if you need a higher limit.

More: full API docs · X/Twitter follower count · Bluesky follower count · YouTube subscriber count · all supported platforms.