Instagram Similar Profiles & Lookalike Finder

Find the accounts most like any public Instagram profile. Paste a handle and get Instagram's own "Suggested for you" graph — optionally enriched with follower counts, biography, category, and public business contact details.

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Why Use This Scraper?

• Instagram's own suggestion graph — up to roughly 78 lookalikes per account
• Optional same-category business and creator recommendations, about 21 more per account
• Optional enrichment adding follower counts, bio, external link, category, and public email or phone
• Filter by verified status or a minimum follower threshold before you pay for rows
• Many source accounts per run, processed in parallel
• Flattened rows that drop straight into CSV, Excel, or a CRM import
• No login, no cookies, no session tokens — nothing to get your account flagged

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Overview

The Instagram Similar Profiles & Lookalike Finder is built for lead generation teams, influencer marketers, competitive analysts, and agencies who need to expand from one known account to a list of comparable ones.

The output is profile-shaped rows. Each row is one lookalike account, tagged with the source account it was found from. Scrape three source accounts and you get one flat dataset of all their lookalikes, each row carrying sourceUsername so you can group or filter by origin.

Two independent graphs feed the results, and each row records which one it came from in its source field:

• suggested — Instagram's "Suggested for you" chaining graph, the larger and more directly similar set
• business-category — recommended business and creator accounts in the same category, enabled with a toggle. This is the only source that carries each account's Instagram category without enrichment.

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Supported Inputs

Input types

Input type	Pattern	Example
Bare handle	username	natgeo
@-prefixed handle	@username	@nasa
Profile URL	instagram.com/<username>	https://www.instagram.com/nike

All three forms can be mixed in the same run.

Copy-pasteable input

{
  "usernames": ["natgeo", "@nasa", "https://www.instagram.com/nike"],
  "maxSimilarPerAccount": 50,
  "includeBusinessSuggestions": true
}

Unsupported inputs

• Private accounts — Instagram exposes no suggestion graph for them
• Post, reel, or hashtag URLs — this actor takes account handles only
• Accounts Instagram considers ineligible — some very large brand accounts have no suggestion graph at all. You get an explanatory error row rather than silence. See the FAQ.

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Use Cases

Audience	What they use it for
Lead generation teams	Expand one ideal customer into a list of comparable accounts, with public contact details
Influencer marketers	Find creators similar to one who already performed well
Competitive analysts	Map the account neighbourhood a competitor sits in
Agencies	Build prospect lists in a client's exact niche
Brand teams	Discover adjacent accounts and partnership candidates
Market researchers	Study category clustering and account adjacency on Instagram

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How It Works

1. Normalise the input — bare handles, @handles, and profile URLs all resolve to a clean username. Invalid input becomes an error row instead of a wasted request.
2. Resolve the account — the handle is looked up to get its numeric ID. A missing account returns a clear error row.
3. Pull the suggestion graph — Instagram's "Suggested for you" accounts for that profile.
4. Optionally add category recommendations — same-category business and creator accounts, deduplicated against the suggestions.
5. Optionally enrich — each lookalike is looked up individually to add follower counts, biography, external link, category, and public contact fields. Enrichment happens before any follower-threshold filter, so rows you filter out are never billed.

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Input Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
usernames	array	Yes	—	Source accounts. Handles, @handles, or profile URLs.
maxSimilarPerAccount	integer	No	unlimited	Cap on lookalikes returned per source account.
includeBusinessSuggestions	boolean	No	false	Also include same-category business and creator recommendations.
enrichProfiles	boolean	No	false	Add follower counts, bio, category, and public contact fields. Paid Apify plans only.
onlyVerified	boolean	No	false	Return only accounts with a verification badge.
minFollowers	integer	No	none	Drop lookalikes below this follower count. Automatically enables enrichProfiles.

Example — quick lookalike list, no enrichment

{
  "usernames": ["natgeo"],
  "maxSimilarPerAccount": 50
}

Example — lead generation with contact details

{
  "usernames": ["nasa", "natgeo"],
  "maxSimilarPerAccount": 100,
  "includeBusinessSuggestions": true,
  "enrichProfiles": true,
  "minFollowers": 10000
}

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Output Overview

One dataset row per lookalike account. Every row identifies the source account it was found from and which graph produced it, then carries the account's public identity fields.

Enrichment fields (followerCount, followingCount, postCount, biography, externalUrl, publicEmail, publicPhone, isBusiness) are null unless enrichProfiles is on. category is populated for business-category rows even without enrichment.

Accounts that could not be processed are returned as error rows carrying sourceUsername, error, and message — these are never charged.

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Output Samples

Real row, produced from usernames: ["natgeo"] with enrichProfiles: true (CDN URL shortened):

{
  "sourceUsername": "natgeo",
  "sourceUserId": "787132",
  "source": "suggested",
  "username": "instagram",
  "userId": "25025320",
  "fullName": "Instagram",
  "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/instagram/",
  "isVerified": true,
  "isPrivate": false,
  "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent-ord5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-19/...",
  "socialContext": "Instagram",
  "category": null,
  "followerCount": 685857490,
  "followingCount": 264,
  "postCount": 8535,
  "biography": "Discover what's new on Instagram 🔎✨",
  "externalUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6G9PcvHjj4",
  "publicEmail": null,
  "publicPhone": null,
  "isBusiness": false
}

Error row for an account with no suggestion graph:

{
  "sourceUsername": "someverylargebrand",
  "error": "no_suggestions_available",
  "message": "Instagram returns no \"suggested for you\" accounts for @someverylargebrand. This happens on some very large or restricted accounts — try a smaller or more niche account."
}

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Key Output Fields

Source sourceUsername, sourceUserId, source

Account identity username, userId, fullName, profileUrl, profilePicUrl

Status isVerified, isPrivate, isBusiness, category, socialContext

Audience (enrichment only) followerCount, followingCount, postCount

Profile detail (enrichment only) biography, externalUrl

Public contact (enrichment only) publicEmail, publicPhone

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FAQ

How many lookalikes do I get per account? Instagram serves up to roughly 78 suggestions per account, plus about 21 more if includeBusinessSuggestions is on. The exact number varies by account.

Why did one of my accounts return no results? Instagram does not expose a suggestion graph for every profile. Very large brand accounts in particular often return nothing — Instagram considers them ineligible for chaining. You get an explanatory error row and are not charged. Smaller, more niche accounts almost always work. Turning on includeBusinessSuggestions frequently produces results even when the suggestion graph is empty.

Do I need enrichment to get follower counts? Yes. The suggestion graph returns identity fields only. Follower counts, biography, external link, and contact details each require an additional lookup per profile, which is what enrichProfiles does and why it is billed separately.

Does minFollowers work without enrichment? It cannot filter on data that was never fetched, so switching it on automatically enables enrichProfiles. Filtering happens after enrichment and before billing, so rows dropped by the threshold are not charged.

How many accounts publish a public email? Only a minority — roughly one in five in testing, and only for business or creator accounts that chose to display contact details. publicEmail is null for the rest. This is an Instagram limitation, not a scraping gap.

Is this the same as scraping followers? No. Followers are people who follow an account. Lookalikes are accounts similar to it, per Instagram's own recommendation graph. For follower lists see the Instagram Followers & Following Scraper.

Do I need an Instagram account, login, or cookies? No. Nothing is authenticated and no session is used, so there is no account to get flagged.

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Support

Found a bug or need a field that is not there? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab and it will be looked at.

Email: muhamed.didovic@gmail.com

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Additional Services

Need a custom scraper, a tailored export format, or an integration into your own pipeline? Custom builds are available — get in touch at muhamed.didovic@gmail.com.

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Explore More Scrapers

• Instagram Profile Scraper — profiles, posts and comments from any public account
• Instagram Followers & Following Scraper — full follower and following lists
• Instagram Hashtag Scraper — top posts and reels from any hashtag
• Instagram Stories & Highlights Scraper — active stories and permanent highlights
• Instagram Post Likers Scraper — who liked any public post or reel
• Instagram Comments Scraper — full comment threads with replies
• Instagram Reels Search & Viral Finder — find trending reels by keyword

Browse the full collection at apify.com/memo23.

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🤖 For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Compact reference for AI agents calling this actor via the Apify MCP server or the Apify API (actor: memo23/instagram-similar-profiles-scraper).

Purpose: Expands a public Instagram handle into similar accounts using Instagram's own suggestion graph, with optional per-profile enrichment.

Minimal input:

{ "usernames": ["natgeo"], "maxSimilarPerAccount": 20 }

Output: one dataset row per lookalike — sourceUsername, sourceUserId, source, username, userId, fullName, profileUrl, isVerified, isPrivate, profilePicUrl, socialContext, category, and (enrichment only) followerCount, followingCount, postCount, biography, externalUrl, publicEmail, publicPhone, isBusiness. Failed accounts return {sourceUsername, error, message} instead.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• Yield is capped by Instagram at roughly 78 suggestions per account, plus about 21 with includeBusinessSuggestions. Asking for more will not produce more.
• Some accounts — especially very large brands — have no suggestion graph and return no_suggestions_available. Retrying will not help; use a smaller account or enable includeBusinessSuggestions.
• Enrichment fields are null unless enrichProfiles: true, which costs one extra request per profile.
• minFollowers implicitly enables enrichProfiles, because it filters on enriched data.
• Billing: one similar-profile event per row delivered, plus one enriched-profile event per successfully enriched profile. Error rows and rows removed by filters are never charged.
• No login is used, so private accounts and authenticated-only fields are unavailable.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta Platforms, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

The scraper accesses only publicly available Instagram profile data — no authenticated endpoints, paid features, or content behind the instagram.com login wall. Users are responsible for ensuring their use complies with instagram.com's Terms of Service, applicable data-protection law (GDPR, CCPA, etc.), and any contractual obligations of their own organization.

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SEO Keywords

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