Instagram Hashtag Posts Scraper

Scrape public Instagram posts and Reels for one or more hashtags. The actor returns clean JSON with captions, public engagement counts, author metadata, media URLs, comments when available, engagement rates, pagination cursors, and a machine-readable run summary.

No Instagram username, password, session cookies, or browser login is required. The actor uses a provider-backed public-data route, so results are best-effort and depend on Google-indexed public Instagram posts.

What You Get

Field	Example
hashtag	"fitness"
post_url	"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOOJ_zSjcnx/"
caption	"Morning grind #fitness #gym"
caption_hashtags	["fitness", "gym"]
like_count	35854
comment_count	1263
play_count	593055
is_reel	true
media_type	"VIDEO"
posted_at	"2025-09-05T12:51:42.000Z"
author_username	"creator"
author_follower_count	1369176
engagement_rate	2.71
source_cursor	"2"

The actor also writes OUTPUT and RUN_SUMMARY key-value records with savedCount, stopReason, hashtagSummaries, nextCursorsByHashtag, provider retry/status diagnostics, and estimated PPE cost.

Input

{
  "hashtags": ["fitness", "streetphotography"],
  "datePosted": "last-week",
  "mediaType": "all",
  "maxPostsPerHashtag": 50,
  "minimumLikes": 0,
  "includeComments": false,
  "outputMode": "full"
}

You can also pass Instagram hashtag URLs:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/fitness/" }
  ],
  "maxPostsPerHashtag": 25
}

Date And Media Filters

datePosted supports any, last-hour, last-day, last-week, last-month, and last-year.

mediaType supports all and reels. Use reels for short-form video research.

Recent windows can return fewer results because the upstream route is based on public posts indexed by Google, not a complete Instagram-native hashtag feed. If a run returns too few records, use a broader hashtag or widen datePosted.

Pagination

Each run summary includes nextCursorsByHashtag.

To continue from a later provider page, copy a cursor into startCursor and run the same hashtag again:

{
  "hashtags": ["fitness"],
  "startCursor": "2",
  "maxPostsPerHashtag": 50
}

API Example

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/khadinakbar~instagram-hashtag-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "hashtags": ["fitness", "gym"],
    "datePosted": "last-week",
    "maxPostsPerHashtag": 100,
    "mediaType": "reels"
  }'

Common Use Cases

Influencer discovery: find creators posting under niche hashtags and rank by engagement rate.

Brand monitoring: track public posts and Reels using campaign or branded hashtags.

Content research: discover captions, co-hashtags, Reels, audio usage, and post formats in a niche.

Lead generation: identify public creators and businesses active around a topic.

AI pipelines: call the actor through Apify MCP Server and feed structured post data to Claude, ChatGPT, LangChain, Make, Zapier, n8n, or a warehouse.

Pricing

The actor charges $0.003 per saved post or Reel. It also uses Apify's small actor-start event. The run log prints the maximum possible cost before saving records, and the OUTPUT summary reports chargedThisRun and estimatedPpeCostUsd.

Notes

This actor returns public data only. It does not unlock private posts, private accounts, follower lists, or login-only Instagram surfaces.

Instagram CDN media URLs can expire. Download images or videos promptly if you need long-term storage.