# Instagram Profile Scraper: Posts and Reels (`accountable_eel/ig-profile-scraper`) Actor Instagram scraper for public profiles, no login. Give it usernames, get one row per post or reel: caption, hashtags, mentions, likes, comments, views, video length, video file, audio track, tagged accounts and location, plus an optional profile row. A profile that returns nothing is free. - **URL**: https://apify.com/accountable\_eel/ig-profile-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [Adrian Voss](https://apify.com/accountable_eel) (community) - **Categories:** Social media, Marketing - **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing from $10.64 / 1,000 post returneds This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events. Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes. In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store. In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server. Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md. ## How to integrate an Actor? If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects. You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready. Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run. For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below. Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`). # README ## Instagram Profile Scraper: Posts and Reels One row per Instagram post, without a login. Give this actor a list of public usernames and it returns a flat row per post or reel: caption, hashtags, mentions, likes, comments, views, video length, the video file, the audio track, tagged accounts and location, plus an optional profile row with followers, bio and bio link. Field names are frozen and designed to drop straight into a Sheet, a Clay table, an n8n workflow or an AI agent with no post-processing. ### Who it's for A social analyst benchmarking a brand against three competitors wants the same twenty columns for every account, every week, in one table - not four browser tabs and a screenshot. An influencer- marketing team vetting creators before a deal needs the last dozen posts with real engagement numbers attached, so they can see whether a 200k-follower account actually gets 200 likes. A content team auditing its own hashtag strategy wants every hashtag and @mention its account has used recently, counted. And an agent or workflow that already knows which accounts matter needs a single HTTP call that answers "what did they post, and how did it do" in a shape it can read. All four get the same thing here: usernames in, one flat row per post out, priced per post returned, with a profile row that costs nothing. ### Why this one - **The row shape is the product.** Every field name is frozen: `shortcode`, `posted_at`, `like_count`, `view_count`, `hashtags`, `audio`, `tagged_users`, `carousel_children`. They do not change between runs, which is what makes this safe to point a scheduled workflow or an AI agent at. The full untouched source objects come along in `raw` for anything this actor does not surface as its own column. - **Listing and downloading are separate jobs, and this one is listing.** You get `video_url`, `display_url` and `thumbnail_url` as direct links. Nothing is downloaded, nothing is re-hosted, and you are not billed for bytes you did not want. Fetch the media yourself, for the posts you actually chose. - **Two detail levels, priced apart.** "Basic" reads only each post's embed page; "Full" also reads the post's own page for the exact posting time, tagged accounts, location and collaborators, and moves about 1.7x the data. They are billed as two separate events rather than one blended price, so a "Basic" run is genuinely cheaper and not just faster. - **A cheap date filter that runs before you pay.** "Only posts since" is answered from the free listing data, so posts older than your cut-off are dropped before any per-post request is made. They cost you nothing. - **Honest about the logged-out ceiling.** Instagram shows a signed-out visitor 12 posts per tab and no more. This actor reads both the posts grid and the reels tab and merges them, which is the most anyone gets without an account, and it tells you in the run's summary when your limit could not be filled. See "What you can and cannot get without logging in" below. - **Never charged for a miss.** A username that does not exist, a private account, a profile whose posts were all filtered out - each returns a row explaining what happened, and costs nothing. ### What you get One row per post by default (turn off "Expand rows" in Advanced to get one row per username instead, with everything nested under `posts`). With "Include a profile row" on, each username also gets one `kind: "profile"` row, which is never billed. | Field | Type | Row | Description | |---|---|---|---| | `query` | text | both | The username you submitted, echoed back | | `found` | boolean | both | `true` if Instagram served a readable profile | | `status` | text | both | `OK` on a match; `NOT_FOUND`, `BLOCKED` or `BAD_FORMAT` on a miss | | `message` | text | both | Plain-English reason for a miss - only present when `found` is `false` | | `username` | text | both | The account, normalised to a bare lowercase name | | `postCount` | number | both | Post rows returned and billed for this username | | `truncated` | boolean | both | `true` if more posts matched than your limit allowed | | `detailCount` | number | both | Post rows that got the Full-detail second request, and were charged the surcharge | | `kind` | text | both | `profile` or `post` | | `ig_user_id` | text | both | Instagram's own numeric user ID | | `full_name` | text | profile | Display name | | `bio` | text | profile | Biography text | | `followers` | number | profile | Exact follower count | | `following` | number | profile | Exact following count | | `posts_count` | number | profile | Total posts on the account, as Instagram displays it. Instagram itself rounds this on large accounts ("30K"), so treat it as approximate above a few thousand | | `profile_pic_url` | text (link) | profile | Profile picture | | `is_verified` | boolean | profile | Verified badge | | `external_url` | text (link) | profile | The link in the bio | | `shortcode` | text | post | Instagram's own post code | | `url` | text (link) | post | Permanent post link (`/reel/` for reels, `/p/` otherwise) | | `type` | text | post | `reel`, `image` or `carousel` | | `posted_at` | date | post | Posting time, UTC. Exact in "Full" detail, day-precision in "Basic" | | `caption` | text | post | Full caption text | | `hashtags` | array | post | Every hashtag, lowercased, without the `#` | | `mentions` | array | post | Every @mention, lowercased, without the `@` | | `like_count` | number | post | Likes | | `comment_count` | number | post | Comments | | `view_count` | number | post | Views. Videos and reels only - an image has none, and the field is empty rather than zero | | `duration_s` | number | post | Video length in seconds | | `width` | number | post | Media width in pixels | | `height` | number | post | Media height in pixels | | `display_url` | text (link) | post | Full-size still | | `video_url` | text (link) | post | Direct `.mp4` link. Empty for images | | `thumbnail_url` | text (link) | post | Thumbnail still | | `carousel_children` | array | post | One `{type, display_url, video_url}` per slide, for carousels | | `audio` | object | post | `{title, artist, is_original}` for reels with an attributed track | | `tagged_users` | array | post | Usernames tagged in the media. **"Full" detail only** | | `location` | object | post | `{id, name}` when the post has one. **"Full" detail only** | | `is_paid_partnership` | boolean | post | Always `false` - see the caveat below | | `coauthors` | array | post | Collaborator usernames. **"Full" detail only** | | `detailFetched` | boolean | post | `true` if this post's own page was read and parsed. Only these rows are charged the Full-detail surcharge | | `raw` | object | post | The untouched source objects: `{stub, embed, post}` | | `scrapedAt` | date | both | When this row was fetched | Deselect any field in the Input tab's column picker to drop it from every row - `query`, `found`, `status`, `message` and `scrapedAt` always stay. ### What you can and cannot get without logging in This actor never logs in, never uses a cookie or a session token, and has no input field that could accept one. That is a deliberate design choice, and it has hard consequences worth knowing before you buy: - **About 12 posts per tab.** Instagram serves a signed-out visitor exactly 12 posts from the posts grid and 12 from the reels tab, and refuses every request for the next page. This actor reads both tabs and merges them, so a typical account yields somewhere between 12 and 24 unique posts. On one test account the two tabs shared 11 of 12 posts and produced 13 unique ones. No setting raises this. When your "Most posts to return" is larger than what the account exposes, the run's summary record says so explicitly rather than quietly handing you fewer rows. - **`is_paid_partnership` is always `false`.** The field does not exist anywhere in what Instagram serves a logged-out visitor - not merely absent on some posts, absent from the data entirely. It is kept as a column so the row shape stays stable for callers that expect it, but it carries no information. Do not filter on it. - **`view_count` is videos only.** Images and carousels of images have no view count at all, so the field is empty for them rather than `0`. - **No comment text.** Comment counts are available; the comments themselves are behind a login. - **`tagged_users`, `location` and `coauthors` need "Full" detail.** They live only on each post's own page, which is the more expensive of the two per-post requests. - **Private accounts return a miss, not an error.** A private profile comes back with `found: false`, `status: NOT_FOUND` and a message saying so. ### Pricing - **Post returned**: $14 per 1,000 posts - **Full detail added**: $12 per 1,000 posts Plus a $0.00005 start fee per run. Each event above is billed independently, only when it actually returns data — misses (`found:false`) are never charged. Billing is per post, in two parts: - **`post`** fires once for every post row delivered. Profile rows are never billed - only `kind: "post"` rows count toward `postCount`. - **`post-detail`** is a surcharge that fires only in "Full" detail, and only for posts whose second request actually came back with data. A "Basic" run never fires it at all. The surcharge exists because the two modes genuinely cost different amounts to run: "Full" reads a second page per post and moves about 1.7x the data. Charging one blended price would make every "Basic" run subsidise the "Full" ones, so the modes are priced apart instead. A username that returns no posts (private, nonexistent, or everything filtered out by your date or media-type settings) costs nothing beyond the flat run fee. A detail request that fails or comes back empty is not charged either - you still get the row, built from what the cheaper sources gave. ### How to use 1. **In the Apify Console.** Open the actor page and click **Start** — the `usernames` field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found. 2. **Via the API.** Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token: ```bash curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~ig-profile-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=" \ -X POST \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"usernames":["instagram","natgeo"]}' ``` 3. **On a schedule.** Save this actor as an Apify **Task** with the input you want, then add a **Schedule** (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required. 4) Set "How much detail per post" to **Basic** if you only need engagement, media links and the audio track - it skips a whole request per post and is not charged the detail surcharge. 5) Set "Only posts since" to a date when you are running the same accounts on a schedule: older posts are dropped before any per-post request, so a weekly run pays only for the week. ### Input ```json { "usernames": [ "instagram", "natgeo" ] } ``` One Instagram username per line. @name, a bare name, or a full profile link all work. No login and no cookies: this reads only what a signed-out visitor can see. Accepted formats: instagram, @natgeo, https://www.instagram.com/nasa/. | Setting | What it does | |---|---| | **Most posts to return per profile** | Your budget control, since you pay per post. The real ceiling is about 12 to 24 per profile whatever you set - see the logged-out section above | | **Only posts since** | A date like `2026-08-01`. Older posts are dropped for free, before any per-post request | | **Which media to collect** | `All` merges the posts grid and the reels tab. `Reels only` reads the reels tab, which is the only place some reels appear. `Posts only` skips the reels tab and is the cheapest | | **Include a profile row** | Adds one unbilled row per username with followers, bio, bio link and verified status | | **How much detail per post** | `Full` adds exact posting time, tagged accounts, location and collaborators, and is charged a per-post surcharge. `Basic` skips both | ### Sample output | query | found | status | username | postCount | truncated | detailCount | posts | kind | ig\_user\_id | full\_name | bio | followers | following | posts\_count | profile\_pic\_url | is\_verified | external\_url | shortcode | url | type | posted\_at | caption | hashtags | mentions | like\_count | comment\_count | view\_count | duration\_s | width | height | display\_url | video\_url | thumbnail\_url | carousel\_children | audio | tagged\_users | location | is\_paid\_partnership | coauthors | detailFetched | raw | scrapedAt | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | instagram | true | OK | | | | | \ | \ | | \ | \ | \ | \ | \ | \ | \ | \ | | | | | | | | | | \ |