Instagram Profile Scraper (Grabd)

Get public Instagram profile data and each profile's 12 latest posts from a list of usernames or profile URLs. The output has the same shape as the official Instagram Profile Scraper, so it works as a drop-in replacement in existing pipelines.

$1.00 per 1,000 profiles. You pay only for public profiles that came back complete. Profiles that do not exist, private profiles, incomplete answers and anything not scraped are returned free, with the reason in the item.

On the free Apify plan each run scrapes the first 10 profiles, so you can try it. Any paid Apify plan removes the limit.

What you get

One item per profile:

• Profile: username, fullName, biography, followersCount, followsCount, postsCount, verified, private, isBusinessAccount, isProfessionalAccount, businessCategoryName, externalUrl, externalUrls, profilePicUrl, profilePicUrlHD, highlightReelCount, id, url, inputUrl.
• latestPosts: the 12 most recent posts and reels, each with shortCode, url, type, caption, hashtags, mentions, likesCount, commentsCount, videoPlayCount, timestamp, displayUrl, images, childPosts, ownerUsername.

Example input:

{ "usernames": ["natgeo", "@nasa", "https://www.instagram.com/nike/"] }

Use it as an Instagram profile API

One synchronous call to the Apify API runs the Actor and returns the profiles in the response body, with no run to poll and no dataset to fetch afterwards:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/grabd~instagram-profile-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "usernames": ["natgeo", "nasa"] }'

A synchronous call waits at most 5 minutes, so keep it to short lists. For long lists, start a normal run and read its dataset when it finishes. The Apify clients for JavaScript and Python work the same way.

Switching from the official Instagram Profile Scraper

The input field is the same (usernames) and so are the output fields, including latestPosts. Change the Actor ID from apify/instagram-profile-scraper to grabd/instagram-profile-scraper and keep your parsing code.

How much does it cost to scrape Instagram profiles?

$1.00 per 1,000 complete public profiles, each with its 12 latest posts, plus $0.00005 per run. There is no platform usage on top, and the free items listed below cost nothing. 100 profiles cost about $0.10.

Items that are not charged

Field in the item	What happened
error: "not_found"	The profile does not exist, was renamed, or is unavailable
note (with private: true)	Private account: only the header Instagram shows publicly, no posts
warning mentioning "Not charged"	Instagram returned an incomplete answer; retry later
error: "temporarily_unavailable"	Instagram did not answer after three attempts
error: "invalid_username"	The input is not a username or a profile URL (post URLs are not accepted)
error: "daily_capacity_reached"	See "Volume" below
error: "free_plan_limit"	Beyond the first 10 profiles of a run on the free Apify plan

On very large accounts Instagram often does not return play counts in time: those profiles come back complete, with videoPlayCount: null on video posts and a warning saying so. They are charged as normal profiles.

Volume

This Actor runs on capacity we reserve for it every day, shared by all its users. When the day's capacity is used up, the run stops, nothing more is charged, the remaining usernames come back as daily_capacity_reached items, and the status message says when capacity resets (midnight UTC).

Need more than the shared daily capacity, or a guaranteed daily volume? Open an issue in the Issues tab with your expected daily volume, and we will tell you what we can raise.

Limits

• Public data only, read without logging in. No stories, no followers lists, no private content.
• No discovery: the Actor reads the profiles you list, it does not search for or suggest accounts.
• 12 latest posts per profile, no older posts.
• Speed: about 2 to 8 seconds per profile, a few profiles in parallel.