Instagram Audience Scraper

What does Instagram Audience Scraper do?

Instagram Audience Scraper audits the audience of any public account on instagram.com without a login. It samples the accounts that actually engage with an account's posts — commenters and likers on its recent media — and returns one scored row per engager: bot score, risk level, engagement rate, follower ratio, avg likes and avg comments, plus the reason tags that produced the score. Every verdict ships with the evidence behind it, so a score can be checked rather than trusted. Follower lists are not readable without a session, so the sample is the public engagement audience, not the whole follower base.

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Key features

• 🔔 Notifications: Telegram, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp Cloud API, and generic webhook out of the box. Pair with incremental for daily new-listing alerts without pipeline glue.
• 🔗 Paste-mode: paste any instagram-audience URL straight from your browser — single-listing pages, search-results URLs, or category SEO URLs. Mix freely with keyword and IDs in the same run; results dedupe by ID.
• 📋 Detail enrichment: toggle two-stage scraping: first collect listings, then enrich each with full description + detail-page-only fields. Off by default to keep runs fast; flip on when you need the deep payload.
• 🎯 Batch searches: pass ["term1", "term2"] for query, location, or city to batch multiple searches in one run — shared dedup state, single dataset, one Actor-Start charge instead of N.
• 📧 Email + phone extraction: best-effort regex extraction of contact emails and phone numbers from descriptions — emitted as extractedEmails[] and extractedPhones[] on every record.
• 🔗 URL + social-profile extraction: every record carries extractedUrls[] plus a structured socialProfiles { linkedin, twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube, tiktok, github, xing } parsed from the description.
• 📦 Compact mode: AI-agent and MCP-friendly payloads with core fields only.
• ✂️ Description truncation: cap description length with descriptionMaxLength to control LLM prompt cost and dataset size — set 0 for full descriptions, or any char-limit to trim.
• 📌 Change classification: each record carries a changeType of NEW / UPDATED / UNCHANGED / REAPPEARED / EXPIRED. Default emits NEW + UPDATED + REAPPEARED; opt into the others with emitUnchanged / emitExpired.
• 🔌 MCP connectors: export your results into Notion via Apify's MCP connectors — a clean run-summary page, no glue code. Opt-in via the App connector field; deterministic field-mapping, no AI. Built on Apify's connector framework, so more destinations open up as their catalog grows.
• 📝 Description format selection: pick a single description representation — text, html, or markdown — and the unused variants are dropped from each record. Halves payload size when your pipeline only consumes one format.

What data can you extract from instagram.com?

Each result includes Core listing fields (listingId, username, profileUrl, portalUrl, status, displayName, bio, and followers, and more) and detail fields when enrichment is enabled (detailFetched). In standard mode, all fields are always present — unavailable data points are returned as null, never omitted. In compact mode, only core fields are returned.

Enable detail enrichment in the input to fetch each record's detail page — extra fields the search results omit.

Input

The main inputs are a search keyword and a result limit. Additional filters and options are available in the input schema.

Key parameters:

• query — Instagram account(s) to audit, without the @. Paste a JSON array to audit several in one run (e.g. ["natgeo","cristiano"]). Private accounts return a single row explaining why they cannot be sampled.
• startUrls — Instagram profile URLs to audit, one per line (https://www.instagram.com/nasa/). Post and reel URLs are not accepted — this audits accounts, not posts. When provided, these replace the username field; results are deduped by account across all inputs. (default: [])
• maxResults — How many accounts to score in total, split evenly across the accounts you audit — 200 with two handles samples 100 each. There is no unlimited setting: an audience is sampled from recent activity, so asking for more than that activity holds cannot produce more. (default: 200)
• includeDetails — Look up each sampled account's own profile — posts, follower/following ratio, bio and avatar. That is where the bot signal actually lives. Off returns only what the sample itself carries, which systematically under-reports. (default: true)
• descriptionMaxLength — Truncate each account's bio to N characters. 0 = keep the full bio. (default: 0)
• compact — Core fields only (for AI-agent/MCP workflows). (default: false)
• incrementalMode — Compare against the previous run and label each account NEW, UPDATED or UNCHANGED. stateKey is optional — runs with different inputs never share state. (default: false)
• stateKey — Optional. Stable identifier for the tracked search universe. Leave empty to auto-generate from search inputs.
• telegramToken — Telegram bot token (from @BotFather). Required for Telegram notifications.
• telegramChatId — Telegram chat or channel ID (e.g. "-100123456789"). Required when telegramToken is set.
• discordWebhookUrl — Discord incoming webhook URL. Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → New Webhook.
• slackWebhookUrl — Slack incoming webhook URL. api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks.
• ...and 12 more parameters

Input examples

Basic search — Keyword-driven search with a result cap.

→ Full payload per result — all standard fields populated where the source provides them.

{
  "query": "natgeo",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Incremental tracking — Only emit listings that changed since the previous run with this stateKey.

→ First run builds the baseline state. Subsequent runs emit only records that are new or whose tracked content changed. Set emitUnchanged: true to include unchanged records as well.

{
  "query": "natgeo",
  "maxResults": 200,
  "incrementalMode": true,
  "stateKey": "natgeo-tracker"
}

Compact output for AI agents — Return only core fields for AI-agent and MCP workflows.

→ Small payload with the most important fields — ideal for piping into LLMs without token overhead.

{
  "query": "natgeo",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "compact": true
}

Output

Each run produces a dataset of structured listing records. Results can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab in Apify Console.

Example listing record

{
  "listingId": "b18ac5c89291ca1a6928f38252d1e67eabe95d762b87c48e10e3c07ee298fdf8",
  "username": "zuck",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/zuck/",
  "portalUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/zuck/",
  "status": "ok",
  "displayName": "Mark Zuckerberg",
  "bio": "I build stuff",
  "followers": 17017285,
  "following": 622,
  "postsCount": 439,
  "isPrivate": false,
  "isVerified": true,
  "hasDefaultAvatar": false,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent-dfw6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-19/550234512_18532404670058217_8758519395071163708_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s150x150_tt6&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InByb2ZpbGVfcGljLmRqYW5nby4xMDgwLmMyIn0&_...",
  "recentPostsSampled": 12,
  "avgLikes": 370370,
  "avgComments": 11289,
  "engagementRate": 2.242772,
  "followerFollowingRatio": 27358.9791,
  "botScore": 0,
  "riskLevel": "low",
  "confidence": 1,
  "reasonTags": [
    "verified"
  ],
  "sampledAt": "2026-09-03T06:58:32.303Z",
  "searchQuery": "zuck",
  "contentQuality": "full",
  "detailFetched": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-03T06:58:32.303Z",
  "source": "instagram.com",
  "contentHash": "8a57fb0f3d8248c8722dd1e296d799d66079a8144201133144e4a5c158838f09"
}

Incremental fields

When incremental mode is on, each record also carries:

• changeType — one of NEW, UPDATED, UNCHANGED, REAPPEARED. Default output covers NEW / UPDATED / REAPPEARED; set emitUnchanged: true to opt into the others.

How to scrape instagram.com

1. Go to Instagram Audience Scraper in Apify Console.
2. Enter a search keyword.
3. Set maxResults to control how many results you need.
4. Enable includeDetails if you need the extra detail-page fields.
5. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
6. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Use cases

• Extract listing data from instagram.com for market research and competitive analysis.
• Monitor new and changed listings on scheduled runs without processing the full dataset every time.
• Feed structured data into AI agents, MCP tools, and automated pipelines using compact mode.
• Export clean, structured data to dashboards, spreadsheets, or data warehouses.

How much does it cost to scrape instagram.com?

Instagram Audience Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay a small fee when the run starts and then for each result that is actually produced.

• Run start: $0.00005 per run
• Per result: $0.002 per listing record

Example costs:

• 10 results: $0.02
• 25 results: $0.05
• 100 results: $0.2
• 200 results: $0.4
• 500 results: $1

Example: recurring monitoring savings

These examples compare full re-scrapes with incremental runs at different churn rates. Churn is the share of listings that are new or whose tracked content changed since the previous run. Actual churn depends on your query breadth, source activity, and polling frequency — the scenarios below are examples, not predictions.

Example setup: 250 listings per run, daily polling (30 runs/month). Costs scale linearly with the number of listings.

Churn rate	Full re-scrape run cost	Incremental run cost	Savings vs full re-scrape	Monthly cost after baseline
5% — stable niche query	$0.50	$0.03	$0.47 (95%)	$0.75
15% — moderate broad query	$0.50	$0.08	$0.42 (85%)	$2.25
30% — high-volume aggregator	$0.50	$0.15	$0.35 (70%)	$4.50

Full re-scrape monthly cost at the same cadence: $15.00. First month with incremental costs $1.23 / $2.68 / $4.85 for the 5% / 15% / 30% scenarios because the first run builds baseline state at full cost before incremental savings apply.

Platform usage is included in the per-result fee shown above.

FAQ

How many results can I get from instagram.com?

The number of results depends on the search query and available listings on instagram.com. Use the maxResults parameter to control how many results are returned per run.

Does Instagram Audience Scraper support recurring monitoring?

Yes. Enable incremental mode to only receive new or changed listings on subsequent runs. This is ideal for scheduled monitoring where you want to track changes over time without re-processing the full dataset.

Can I integrate Instagram Audience Scraper with other apps?

Yes. Instagram Audience Scraper works with Apify's integrations to connect with tools like Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Slack, and more. You can also use webhooks to trigger actions when a run completes.

Can I use Instagram Audience Scraper with the Apify API?

Yes. You can start runs, manage inputs, and retrieve results programmatically through the Apify API. Client libraries are available for JavaScript, Python, and other languages.

Can I use Instagram Audience Scraper through an MCP Server?

Yes. Apify provides an MCP Server that lets AI assistants and agents call this actor directly. Use compact mode, descriptionMaxLength, a single descriptionFormat, and excludeEmptyFields to keep payloads manageable for LLM context windows.

Is it legal to scrape instagram.com?

This actor extracts publicly available data from instagram.com. Web scraping of public information is generally considered legal, but you should always review the target site's terms of service and ensure your use case complies with applicable laws and regulations, including GDPR where relevant.

Your feedback

If you have questions, need a feature, or found a bug, please open an issue on the actor's page in Apify Console. Your feedback helps us improve.

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Getting started with Apify

New to Apify? Create a free account with $5 credit — no credit card required.

1. Sign up — $5 platform credit included
2. Open this actor and configure your input
3. Click Start — export results as JSON, CSV, or Excel

Need more later? See Apify pricing.

Disclaimer

This actor accesses only publicly available data on instagram.com. You are responsible for how you use the extracted data — in particular any personal information such as names, phone numbers, or email addresses — and for complying with Instagram Audience's terms of use, applicable data-protection law (including the GDPR where it applies), and the anti-spam rules of your jurisdiction.

This actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Instagram Audience.

Search keywords

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