Instagram Post Scraper Pro

Instagram post intelligence: captions, hashtags, engagement, media URLs, hashtag categorization, and MCP-ready providerHealth metadata. Desktop+embed fallback chain. No login cookies required.

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Why This Actor Is Better

Competitor comparison

Feature	This Actor	Apify IG Post Scraper	Free scrapers	Social analytics SaaS
No login cookies required	✅	❌	❌	n/a
Desktop+embed fallback	✅	❌	❌	n/a
Hashtag categorization	✅ 7 categories	❌	❌	✅ paid
Engagement-rate-per-post	✅	❌	❌	✅ paid
Caption sentiment	✅	❌	❌	✅ paid
Optional Google Vision tags	✅ user key	❌	❌	✅ paid
Confidence score (0-1)	✅	❌	❌	❌
MCP-ready metadata	✅ providerHealth	❌	❌	❌
Price / 1K posts	$1.77	~$2.50	free (rate-limited)	~$5-20

Key Features

• 🛡️ Multi-API fallback chain — Instagram desktop (Playwright) primary with automatic embed HTML fallback.
• 🏷️ Hashtag categorization — auto-maps hashtags to 7 categories (fitness, food, travel, fashion, beauty, business, tech).
• 📊 Engagement scoring — engagement-rate-per-post + caption sentiment on every result.
• 🎬 Media detection — image/video/carousel classification + media URL extraction.
• 🎯 Confidence scoring — 0.0–1.0 reliability score.
• 🔗 Source attribution — know which providers contributed each field.
• ⚡ Cache-first mode — fast_lookup hits KVS cache (1h TTL).
• 🤖 MCP-ready — providerHealth{} on every result.
• 🔌 Optional Google Vision — drop in GOOGLE_VISION_API_KEY for image labeling.
• 💰 Transparent PPE pricing — pay only for successful posts.

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Architecture

flowchart TD
    A[Input: usernames + mode] --> B{Cache hit?}
    B -- yes --> C[Return cached base posts]
    B -- no --> D[Primary: Instagram desktop Playwright]
    D -- fails --> E[Fallback: Instagram embed HTML httpx]
    D --> F[Normalize: caption/media/likes/comments]
    E --> F
    F --> G[Enrichment layer]
    G --> G1[Hashtag extraction + categorization]
    G --> G2[Engagement-rate scoring]
    G --> G3[Caption sentiment]
    G --> G4[Email/URL extraction]
    G --> G5[Optional: Google Vision image tags]
    G1 --> H[Confidence scoring + source attribution]
    G2 --> H
    G3 --> H
    G4 --> H
    G5 --> H
    H --> I[Progressive dataset push]
    I --> J[Webhook + MCP-ready metadata]
    C --> J

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Modes

Mode	Description	Target latency	Use case
fast_lookup	Cache-first, base posts only	<800ms cached	Quick counts, dedup
enrich	Hashtags + engagement + sentiment + optional Vision	~2-4s/post	Content analysis, trend research
batch	Queue-based, full enrichment, per-item isolation	varies	Large username lists (100+)

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Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
mode	string	—	enrich	fast_lookup | enrich | batch
queries	array	✅	["cristiano"]	Usernames or profile URLs
maxResults	integer	—	25	Max posts per user (1–1000)
webhookUrl	string	—	—	Webhook for completion notification

Example input

{
  "mode": "enrich",
  "queries": ["cristiano", "leomessi"],
  "maxResults": 50,
  "webhookUrl": "https://your-app.com/webhook"
}

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Output

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Input query
username	string	Profile handle
postUrl	string	Post URL
author	string	Author handle
caption	string	Caption text (truncated to 1000 chars)
imageUrl	string	Media thumbnail URL
mediaType	string	image | video
timestamp	string	Post timestamp
likes	integer	Like count
comments	integer	Comment count
hashtags	array	Hashtags in caption
hashtagCategories	array	Mapped categories (fitness/food/travel/fashion/beauty/business/tech)
captionSentiment	string	positive | negative | neutral
engagementRate	number	Likes-to-comments ratio
imageLabels	array | null	Google Vision labels (if key provided)
emails	array	Emails in caption
urls	array	URLs in caption
confidenceScore	number	0.0–1.0 reliability
sources	array	Provider attribution
providerHealth	object	Per-provider status/latency
cacheStatus	string	hit | miss | degraded
mode	string	Execution mode
extractedAt	string	ISO timestamp

Example output

{
  "query": "cristiano",
  "username": "cristiano",
  "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxxx/",
  "author": "cristiano",
  "caption": "Great game today! ⚽ #football #fitness",
  "imageUrl": "https://...",
  "mediaType": "image",
  "timestamp": "2026-06-28T10:00:00Z",
  "likes": 1200000,
  "comments": 8500,
  "hashtags": ["football", "fitness"],
  "hashtagCategories": ["fitness"],
  "captionSentiment": "positive",
  "engagementRate": 141.18,
  "emails": [],
  "urls": [],
  "confidenceScore": 0.85,
  "sources": ["instagram", "hashtag_analyzer", "engagement_scorer"],
  "providerHealth": {
    "instagram_desktop": {"status": "ok", "latency_ms": 4500, "error": null},
    "hashtag_analyzer": {"status": "ok", "latency_ms": 0, "error": null},
    "engagement_scorer": {"status": "ok", "latency_ms": 0, "error": null}
  },
  "cacheStatus": "miss",
  "mode": "enrich",
  "extractedAt": "2026-06-28T23:55:00.000Z"
}

---

Pricing

Plan	Price per 1K posts	Savings vs. top competitor
Leading competitors	~$2.50/1K	—
This actor (≤10K/mo)	$1.77/1K	29% cheaper
This actor (10K–100K/mo)	$1.50/1K	40% cheaper
This actor (100K+/mo)	$1.25/1K	50% cheaper

Optional event: media_url at $0.20/1K posts with extracted media URL.

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Use Cases

• Content trend research — track hashtag categories and engagement across creators
• Competitor analysis — benchmark post engagement and caption sentiment
• Influencer vetting — measure post-level engagement rates before partnerships
• Hashtag strategy — find which categories drive engagement in your niche
• Media monitoring — extract image/video URLs for asset libraries
• MCP agent workflows — providerHealth lets agents route around failures
• Market research — map content categories by creator audience
• Image AI pipelines — optional Google Vision tagging for visual classification

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Integration Examples

Python (Apify SDK)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("ayeeyee/instagram-post-scraper-pro").call(run_input={
    "mode": "enrich",
    "queries": ["cristiano", "leomessi"],
    "maxResults": 50,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"@{item['username']}: {item['likes']} likes, {item['hashtagCategories']}, {item['captionSentiment']}")

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/ayeeyee~instagram-post-scraper-pro/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"enrich","queries":["cristiano"],"maxResults":25}'

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

$npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools actors,ayeeyee/instagram-post-scraper-pro

Agents can call call-actor and use providerHealth + hashtagCategories + engagementRate to filter and route.

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FAQ

Q: Do I need Instagram login cookies? No. Public posts are scraped via DOM and meta tags — no login required. Private accounts return no posts.

Q: How does the desktop+embed fallback work? If Playwright fails (blocked, timeout, login wall), the actor falls back to fetching profile HTML for post URLs and thumbnails (degraded — no per-post captions). providerHealth shows which provider succeeded.

Q: How are hashtag categories assigned? Open-source keyword mapping to 7 categories: fitness, food, travel, fashion, beauty, business, tech. A post with #fitness and #gym gets categorized as fitness.

Q: What is engagementRate? Likes-to-comments ratio. Higher = more passive engagement (likes without discussion). Useful for content-type benchmarking.

Q: Can I call this from an LLM agent? Yes. MCP-ready with providerHealth{}, hashtagCategories, engagementRate, and confidenceScore.

Q: What is the cache TTL? 1 hour for fast_lookup. Enrichment results are not cached (always fresh).

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Legal & Compliance

Scrapes publicly available Instagram post data. Does not access private data, bypass authentication, or store credentials. Users are responsible for complying with GDPR/CCPA and Instagram's ToS.

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AI-DLC / Data Lifecycle

• Collection — Public data only; respects robots.txt and rate limits.
• Processing — In-memory normalization; no PII logging.
• Storage — Results in user's Apify dataset, not retained by actor.
• Usage — Content analysis, trend research, legitimate marketing.
• Disposal — No long-term caching (1h TTL for base results only).

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Enhancement Roadmap (API / MCP Integrations)

• Google Vision image tagging MCP — auto-label post images (optional, user key)
• OpenAI caption summarization MCP — 1-line summaries for feed aggregation
• Chartmetric sound trends MCP — for Reels/audio trend correlation
• LangGraph workflow — IG posts → hashtag clustering → trend alerts
• Vector store — semantic post deduplication across creators

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Changelog

• v3.0 — Multi-API orchestration edition: desktop+embed fallback, hashtag categorization, engagement scoring, MCP-ready providerHealth, optional Google Vision, expanded FAQ, integration examples, volume pricing.
• v2.0 — Premium README, AI-DLC docs, confidence scoring, source attribution.
• v1.0 — Initial release with Playwright scraping and hashtag extraction.

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Links

• Apify Store: https://apify.com/ayeeyee/instagram-post-scraper-pro
• Actor ID: CgkI4B4lKRsabJPyW