Instagram Reels Transcript Generator

Instagram transcript generator: turn Instagram reels into text with timestamps, SRT and VTT subtitles, the opening hook, language, plays and likes. Paste reel links, name an account, or find reels by hashtag or search words. No login.

• Study what works: take an account's most played reels and read their scripts and hooks side by side.
• Repurpose your content: turn your reels into captions, blog posts and subtitles.
• Feed an AI agent: clean text and numbers for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor through the Apify MCP server.
• Watch competitors: a scheduled run delivers only the reels that are new since the last one.

What does Instagram Reels Transcript Generator do?

• Speech to text for every reel. Full transcript, lines with timestamps, word timestamps on request, and the language of the reel. Tested on English, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Kazakh, Arabic and more.
• Picks the reels before you pay. Sort an account by plays, likes or comments, and filter by plays, likes, date and length. Reels you skip cost nothing.
• Subtitles in the price. SRT and VTT come in every row.
• Reels without speech are free. A speech detector checks each reel first, so music is not turned into invented text and you do not pay for it.
• One row for every source. Reel links, accounts, hashtags, search words, media files and another Actor's dataset can be mixed in one run.
• Finds the outliers. Plays against the account's median, and a mark on reels far above it.
• Fast. One reel in about 7 seconds, 1,000 reels in about 28 minutes at the default memory, measured on Apify.
• No login, no cookies. Nothing is connected to your Instagram account.

How to transcribe Instagram reels to text

1. Add Reel links, Instagram accounts, Hashtags or Search words.
2. For an account, set Reels per account and an order, for example Most plays.
3. Click Start.
4. Download JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read the results through the API.

How much does it cost to transcribe Instagram reels?

You pay per delivered transcript. Platform usage is included. Paid Apify plans pay less.

What you get	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold and above
Reel transcript, first 3 minutes included	$10 per 1,000	$9	$8.10	$7.20
Each further started minute	$3 per 1,000	$3	$3	$3
On-screen text	$3.30 per 1,000	$3	$2.70	$2.40
Text of a photo post or carousel	$11 per 1,000	$10	$9	$8
Translation	$3.30 per 1,000	$3	$2.70	$2.40
AI summary, keywords, topics, sentiment	$5.50 per 1,000	$5	$4.50	$4
AI analysis: hook type, format, call to action, beats	$11 per 1,000	$10	$9	$8

Examples: 100 one-minute reels on the Free plan = $1.00. With on-screen text = $1.33. Apify's free $5 a month buys about 500 reels. A start costs $0.00005 per GB of memory.

Reels without speech, private and deleted reels, filtered reels and failures are free. A cost limit on the run is respected to the reel. A Free-plan run stops cleanly at 50 reels and keeps what it has.

Hashtags, search words and comment text are read by Apify's own Actors, which start as a separate run in your account and charge that account: $2.60 per 1,000 found reels or comments on the Free plan, $2.30 on Bronze.

Input

A simple run takes the 5 most played reels of an account:

{ "usernames": ["clevelandclinic"], "maxReelsPerProfile": 5, "reelOrder": "mostPlays" }

Field	What it does
reelUrls, usernames, hashtags, searchTerms, videoUrls, datasetId	Where the reels come from. Mix them freely.
maxReelsPerProfile, maxReelsPerSearch, maxItems	How many reels per account, per search and in the whole run.
reelOrder, minPlays, minLikes, postedAfter, postedBefore, minDurationSeconds, maxDurationSeconds	Which reels to take, decided before anything is transcribed.
language, speechModel, customVocabulary	Set the language, choose the model, spell names and terms correctly.
includeOnScreenText, includePhotoPosts, translateTo, aiSummary, aiAnalysis, includeComments	Paid extras.
watchlistId, newReelsOnly, useCache, resumeFromDatasetId	Repeat runs: only new reels, no second payment for a reel you already have, and continuing a stopped run.

The Actor also understands fields made for other Instagram transcript Actors, such as handles, bulkUrls, startUrls, maxReelsPerHandle and sortBy, so a saved input keeps working.

Output

One row per reel. Download it as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML. This sample is made up:

{
  "status": "transcribed",
  "reelUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/SAMPLE12345/",
  "ownerUsername": "sample_clinic",
  "postedAt": "2026-10-20T09:00:00.000Z",
  "durationSeconds": 42.4,
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": "This is our compounding robot. It helps us prepare medication for our patients.",
  "wordCount": 13,
  "hook": "This is our compounding robot.",
  "segments": [{ "start": 0.4, "end": 2.6, "text": "This is our compounding robot." }],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:02,600\nThis is our compounding robot.\n",
  "playCount": 136523,
  "viewCount": 67902,
  "likeCount": 3862,
  "commentCount": 72,
  "playsVsAccountMedian": 2.4,
  "isOutlier": false,
  "caption": "Meet the robot in our pharmacy.",
  "musicTitle": "Original audio",
  "charged": true
}

Rows also carry the VTT subtitles, author, followers, hashtags, video and audio links, and the fields of the extras you turn on. A row that was not charged says why in errorCode and statusReason.

Run it on a schedule

Save your input as a task, add an Apify schedule, and turn on Only new reels with a watchlist name. Each run then delivers only reels you have not seen. Connect Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier or n8n through Apify integrations to send them on.

Use it from Claude, ChatGPT and other AI agents

Connect the Apify MCP server with this Actor: https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=anuarbakty/instagram-reels-transcript-generator

Then ask, for example, "Get the transcripts of the 5 most played reels of clevelandclinic". One reel comes back in seconds, so an agent can wait for it. The input it needs:

{ "reelUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DezSwsfJFUZ/"] }

For one reel at a time in your own app, call the Standby address: GET https://anuarbakty--instagram-reels-transcript-generator.apify.actor/?url=<reel link>, with your Apify token in the Authorization header.

Other Actors by the same author

Actor	What it does
YouTube Transcript Scraper	Transcripts of videos, Shorts, channels and playlists.
Facebook Ads Library Scraper	Facebook and Instagram ads by keyword, brand or page.
Threads Scraper	Posts, all replies and profiles without login.
App Store & Google Play Scraper	Reviews, app details, charts and keyword positions.
2GIS Places Scraper	Businesses with phones, emails and websites.
2GIS Reviews Scraper	Reviews with star, topic and date filters.

FAQ

How do I get a transcript of an Instagram reel?

Paste the reel link into Reel links and click Start. The text, timestamps and subtitles come back in about 7 seconds.

Is there an Instagram transcript API?

Instagram offers no public API for reel transcripts. This Actor gives you one: start a run through the Apify API or use the Standby address for one reel at a time, and get JSON back.

Can I transcribe Instagram reels without logging in?

Yes. The Actor needs no Instagram account, password or cookies.

Can I transcribe only the reels above a certain number of plays?

Yes. Set Minimum plays, or sort by Most plays and set how many reels to take. The reels you skip are not transcribed and not charged.

Can I get the most liked or most commented reels?

Yes. Choose Most likes or Most comments in the order field.

Does it read Instagram captions or the audio?

The audio. The speech model writes down what is said, and the caption comes in its own field. Turn on Read text on screen to read the words shown in the video.

Can it convert an Instagram carousel to text?

Yes. Turn on Read text from photo posts and paste the post link. You get the text of the slides in reading order.

What languages does it support?

Whisper's languages, close to 100. It finds the language by itself, and you can set one if a reel is detected wrongly. Reels that mix languages are handled piece by piece.

Why did a second run appear in my account?

Hashtags, search words and comment text are read by Apify's own Instagram Actors. They start as their own run in your account and charge it. Turn those fields off and no second run starts.

Can I get reels by hashtag or keyword?

Yes. Add them to Hashtags or Search words, and set how many reels to find for each. Filters and order work on these reels too.

Is it legal to transcribe Instagram reels?

The Actor reads only public reels. Personal data in the results, such as a username, is covered by rules like GDPR, so check that your use is lawful. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer.

I need another scraper or a change to this one

Open an issue in the Issues tab, or write on Telegram: @anuar_bakty.