Instagram Following Scraper

Instagram Following Scraper exports the complete following and followers list of any Instagram profile as clean, structured JSON. Give it one or more usernames and get back every account they follow (or that follows them) — username, full name, verified badge, private flag, user ID, and profile URL — ready for audience analysis, influencer discovery, and lead research. MCP-ready for AI agents.

⚙️ One-time setup required. Instagram only serves following/followers lists to logged-in sessions. This Actor uses a managed pool of Instagram sessions that the account owner seeds once via the IG_SESSIONS environment variable. See How to use before your first run.

What is Instagram Following Scraper?

Instagram does not expose follower or following lists to logged-out visitors, and the official Graph API only returns them for accounts you own. This Actor fills that gap: it walks Instagram's private list endpoints with a rotating pool of authenticated sessions and a residential proxy, paginating until it reaches your result cap. It returns a flat record per connection so the data drops straight into a spreadsheet, CRM, or vector store.

Built for reliability: per-session error scoring and retirement, polite request pacing, an explicit per-run cost cap, and honest-fail — if every session is blocked, the run fails loudly instead of silently returning an empty dataset.

Use cases for Instagram following/followers data

• Influencer audience audits — see who a creator follows to map their niche and collaborators.
• Competitor analysis — export a competitor's followers to understand their audience.
• Lead generation — turn a following list into a prospecting list of handles and names.
• Community mapping — build the social graph around a brand, event, or topic.
• Bot / quality screening — flag private vs. verified accounts in a follower base.

What data can I extract with Instagram Following Scraper?

Field	Type	Description
sourceUsername	string	The profile whose list this record came from
listType	string	following or followers
username	string	Handle of the connected account
fullName	string	Display name, if set
userId	string	Instagram numeric user id
isPrivate	boolean	Whether the account is private
isVerified	boolean	Whether the account is verified
profilePicUrl	string	Profile picture URL (time-limited CDN link)
profileUrl	string	Canonical profile URL
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 scrape timestamp

With enrichProfiles enabled, each record also includes:

Field	Type	Description
biography	string	Profile bio
email	string	Business email, or an email parsed from the bio
phone	string	Public business phone
externalUrl	string	Linked website
followerCount / followingCount / mediaCount	integer	Profile counts
category	string	Account category (e.g. "Photographer")
isBusiness	boolean	Business/professional account flag

How much will scraping Instagram cost you?

Pay-per-event pricing: $0.0015 per profile returned, plus a tiny $0.00005 actor-start fee.

• 1,000 following profiles ≈ $1.50
• 5,000 followers ≈ $7.50

Optional enrichment adds $0.0015 per profile (bio, email, website, counts), so an enriched run is $0.003 per profile — 1,000 enriched ≈ $3.00.

The run logs the maximum possible cost before charging anything, and maxResults is a hard cap per profile per list — you are never billed beyond it.

How to use

1. Seed the session pool (one time)

Instagram list data requires a logged-in session. As the Actor owner you supply one or more Instagram web sessions via a secret environment variable:

1. In a browser, log in to each Instagram account you want in the pool.
2. Open DevTools → Application → Cookies → instagram.com and copy sessionid, ds_user_id, and csrftoken.
3. In Apify Console → your Actor → Settings → Environment variables, add a variable named IG_SESSIONS, mark it Secret, and set the value to a JSON array:

[
  { "sessionid": "PASTE_1", "ds_user_id": "PASTE_1", "csrftoken": "PASTE_1" },
  { "sessionid": "PASTE_2", "ds_user_id": "PASTE_2", "csrftoken": "PASTE_2" }
]

More accounts = higher throughput and resilience. Sessions are never read from Actor input (which is visible in run logs) — only from this environment variable. Refresh them when they expire (the run will tell you).

2. Run

Set usernames, pick listType, set maxResults, and run. Residential proxy is on by default and strongly recommended.

⬇️ Input

{
  "usernames": ["nasa", "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/"],
  "listType": "following",
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "enrichProfiles": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

⬆️ Output

{
  "sourceUsername": "nasa",
  "listType": "following",
  "username": "spacex",
  "fullName": "SpaceX",
  "userId": "12345678",
  "isPrivate": false,
  "isVerified": true,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://instagram.fxxx.cdn.com/v/pic.jpg",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/spacex/",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-02T07:24:00.000Z"
}

With enrichProfiles: true, each record additionally carries email, biography, phone, externalUrl, followerCount, followingCount, mediaCount, category, and isBusiness.

Scrape any Instagram & social data with dedicated scrapers

• Instagram Hashtag Scraper
• Instagram Reels Scraper
• Instagram Posts Scraper
• TikTok Profile Scraper
• TikTok Video Comments Scraper
• X / Twitter Profile & Followers Scraper
• X Tweet Scraper
• YouTube Channel Email Extractor
• Reddit Posts & Comments Scraper
• Pinterest Scraper
• Telegram Channel Scraper
• B2B Lead Finder & Enrichment
• Contact Details Scraper

❓ FAQ

How many results can I scrape with Instagram Following Scraper? As many as you set in maxResults per profile per list. Note Instagram caps any account's following list at ~7,500; followers lists can be much larger.

Can I integrate Instagram Following Scraper with other apps? Yes — export to JSON, CSV, or Excel, or push to Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, and other tools via the Apify integrations.

Can I use Instagram Following Scraper with the Apify API? Yes. Start runs and fetch the dataset through the Apify API and official clients.

Can I use Instagram Following Scraper through an MCP Server? Yes. It is exposed via Apify's MCP integration so AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT) can call it with a username and receive structured JSON.

Do I need proxies to scrape Instagram? Yes. Residential proxy is enabled by default and strongly required — Instagram blocks datacenter IPs and the bare Actor IP almost immediately.

Can I get followers' emails and contact details? Yes — enable Enrich each profile. It visits each account and adds bio, public/business email (or an email found in the bio), phone, website, follower/following/post counts, category, and business flag for $0.0015 extra per profile — turning a following/followers list into leads.

Why did my run return 0 results or fail? Most often the IG_SESSIONS cookies expired or an account hit a checkpoint. Refresh the cookies and retry. Private targets only return data if a pooled account follows them.

Is it legal to scrape Instagram data? This Actor accesses Instagram with authenticated sessions, which is contrary to Instagram's Terms of Service; the accounts used may be rate-limited or banned, and that risk sits with the session owner. Scrape only publicly available data, respect personal data laws (GDPR, CCPA), and use the output lawfully. You are responsible for how you use this Actor and the data it returns. This tool is provided for legitimate research and analytics; it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instagram or Meta.

Your feedback Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab — feedback is welcome and acted on.