Instagram Comments Scraper by Post URL: Text, Likes, Authors

For sentiment analysis, giveaway picking and competitor research: this Instagram comments scraper takes post and reel URLs and returns one row per comment (text, likes, date, mentions, GIF link, and the commenter's username, profile link and verified badge) as CSV, Excel or JSON. No login, no cookies, no start fee. Free plan runs read as deep as paid plans, up to your maxCommentsPerPost (500 by default), not just the first 15. You pay $2.50 per 1,000 comments on the Free plan, down to $1.65 on Gold and above, and only for comments returned.

What can I do with this Instagram comments scraper?

• Read what people say about a post. Collect the comments on your own posts, a campaign or a competitor's launch, and sort them by likes to see what stands out.
• Run sentiment analysis and topic research. Get clean comment text with dates and likes, ready for a spreadsheet, an AI model or a dashboard.
• Pick giveaway entrants. Get the usernames and profile links of people who commented, and the accounts they tagged in mentions.
• Check reels and carousels too. Reels, video posts, image posts and carousels all work with the same input.
• Follow up on new comments only. Set onlyNewerThan to 7 days and pay only for recent comments.

What data do you get?

Group	Fields
Comment	commentId, position, text, commentType (text, gif, no-text), gifUrl, likesCount, createdAt, createTime, mentions, isCovered
Commenter	authorUsername, authorProfileUrl, authorIsVerified, authorProfilePicUrl
Post	postUrl, postShortCode, postId, postOwnerUsername, postCommentCount, inputUrl
Run	status, note, source, scrapedAt. The last row can also hold notCheckedUrls (URLs to put in a new run)

position is the place of the comment in the list Instagram showed for that post, starting at 1. postCommentCount is the comment count Instagram shows on the post.

How to scrape Instagram comments from a post URL

1. Paste your post and reel URLs into urls. Links with tracking parameters, /reels/ links, links with the username in the path and bare shortcodes all work. directUrls and postUrls are accepted as other names for urls.
2. Set maxCommentsPerPost to the most comments you want from each post.
3. If you only want recent comments, set onlyNewerThan to a date such as 2026-10-01 or a span such as 7 days.
4. Press Start, then download the rows as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.

Input

Field	What it does	Default
urls	Instagram post and reel URLs, one per line. Up to 1,000 are read per run.	One free sample post when no URLs are given
maxCommentsPerPost	Reading a post stops after this many comment rows (1 to 100,000).	500
onlyNewerThan	Return only comments newer than a date (2026-10-01) or a span back from now (12 hours, 7 days, 2 weeks, 3 months). Older comments are skipped and not charged.	Empty (any date)

{
    "urls": [
        "https://www.instagram.com/p/DeuOR-CjKE9/",
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeTUk4sDSp-/"
    ],
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 500,
    "onlyNewerThan": "30 days"
}

Output example

{
    "status": "ok",
    "inputUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeTUk4sDSp-/",
    "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeTUk4sDSp-/",
    "postShortCode": "DeTUk4sDSp-",
    "postId": "4004634989362489982",
    "postOwnerUsername": "nasa",
    "postCommentCount": 7655,
    "commentId": "18085123456789012",
    "position": 1,
    "text": "This view never gets old @space_fan",
    "commentType": "text",
    "gifUrl": null,
    "likesCount": 412,
    "createdAt": "2026-10-12T15:04:31.000Z",
    "createTime": 1791817471,
    "mentions": ["space_fan"],
    "authorUsername": "orbit.watcher",
    "authorProfileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/orbit.watcher/",
    "authorIsVerified": false,
    "authorProfilePicUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/...",
    "isCovered": false,
    "source": "instagram-comment",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-31T09:12:44.000Z"
}

The comment, IDs and counts in this example are made up to show the shape of a row.

How much does it cost?

$2.50 per 1,000 comments on the Free plan, with lower prices on paid Apify plans:

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 comments
Free	$2.50
Bronze	$2.20
Silver	$1.95
Gold and above	$1.65

There is no start fee and no charge per post. You are charged only for rows with status: "ok", and each comment is returned once per run. Every other row is free, and the list is below.

To keep a run inside a budget, set maxCommentsPerPost, or set a maximum total charge when you start the run. The run stops at that amount and says so in a budget-reached row.

FAQ

How do I export Instagram comments to Excel or CSV? Paste the post URL into urls and run the Actor. When the run ends, open the Output tab and download the dataset as CSV or Excel. Each comment is one row.

Can I scrape Instagram comments without logging in? Yes. You don't need an Instagram account, a cookie or an API key.

How many comments can I get from one post? As many as Instagram lists for that post to visitors who are not logged in, up to your maxCommentsPerPost. This is usually fewer than the count shown on the post, on small posts too; see Limitations.

Do I get the same depth on the Free plan? Yes. Free and paid plans read to the same depth, up to your maxCommentsPerPost. Only the price per 1,000 comments changes.

Can I scrape comments from Instagram reels? Yes. Use the reel URL, such as https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeTUk4sDSp-/. Reels and posts return the same fields.

Can I run this from an API or an AI agent? Yes. Call the Actor through the Apify API, or from an AI agent through the Apify MCP server, with a list of URLs. The rows come back as JSON.

How do I scrape comments from many posts at once? Paste a list of URLs (the limit is 1,000 per run). Every post the run reaches returns the comments Instagram lists for it, or one free row that says why there are none. If Instagram stops answering, the run ends early, and the posts it did not reach are listed in notCheckedUrls in the last row, ready for a new run a few hours later.

What happens if a run reaches its timeout? The run stops about 90 seconds before its timeout. Comments already returned stay in the dataset. A post that was cut short gets a stopped-reading row, and posts it did not start are listed in notCheckedUrls in the last row. To read them, start a new run with those URLs, or set a longer timeout.

Why is text empty on some rows? commentType tells you why. gif means the comment is a GIF, and gifUrl links to it. no-text means Instagram gave the comment without text or a GIF. These rows are still real comments and are charged like any other.

Rows you are not charged for

A post that was read but did not return comments gets its own row, so you can see what happened to it. Posts the run did not check (past the 1,000 URL limit, past the maximum total charge, stopped because Instagram refused most requests, or stopped before the run timeout) are counted in one last row, and notCheckedUrls lists them for a new run.

status	What it means
sample	No URLs were given, so up to 20 comments of one sample post were read to show the output. Add your own URLs to urls.
no-public-post	Instagram shows no public post at this address. It may be deleted, private, not shown in the country the run connects from, or mistyped.
comments-not-shown	Instagram shows the post but lists no comments to visitors who are not logged in, for example because comments are turned off. The row still has the post's details.
no-comments-listed	The post has no comments listed, or none newer than onlyNewerThan.
max-comments-reached	maxCommentsPerPost comments were returned and Instagram showed that the post may list more. Raise the limit to read further.
stopped-reading	Reading stopped part way, because Instagram did not answer the next page or the run was about to reach its timeout. The comments before that point are in the dataset.
blocked	Instagram did not let this run open the post. Run the URL again later.
unreadable	The page loaded, but the comment data was not in the expected form. Nothing is guessed.
invalid-input	The entry is not an Instagram post or reel URL, such as a profile link. For a /share/ link, open the link and paste the URL of the post.
duplicate	The same post was already in this run's list.
not-checked	One row at the end: how many posts were not read and why. The URLs are in notCheckedUrls.
budget-reached	The run reached the maximum total charge you set. Comments that did not fit are not in the dataset and were not charged.

Limitations

• The Actor returns the comments Instagram lists to visitors who are not logged in. This is usually fewer than the count shown on the post (postCommentCount). In our tests, posts with about 1,200 to 10,000 comments returned 38% to 80% of that count, and posts with 15 or fewer comments returned 75% of it in total. The list can also change between runs: one post with a count of 240 listed 30 comments in one run and 145 in a run a day later.
• Only comments directly under the post are returned. Answers posted under another comment are not in the output.
• Comments come in the order Instagram lists them, which was newest first in every post we checked. No other sort order can be chosen.
• The commenter's full name and whether their account is private are not shown without a login, so they are not in the output. Numeric account IDs are not collected.
• Only public posts can be read. Private accounts and deleted posts return a free no-public-post row.
• On long lists Instagram may stop answering, so the run can end early. The rest are not charged and are listed in notCheckedUrls.
• Picture and GIF URLs come from Instagram's CDN and expire after a while, so download the files soon after the run.
• Email addresses and phone numbers in comment text are masked on a best-effort basis. Not every way of writing them can be caught, so some may remain. Masking can also go too far: a long number such as a reference code may be masked as well.
• Use the data in line with the rules that apply to you, including privacy law for the personal data in comments.

Need help or a missing field?

Open the Issues tab and tell us what you need. If a row looks wrong, include the run ID.

Thanks for using this Actor

We build these tools for people who run them every day, and we improve them from what users tell us.

• Missing a field, or need another filter? Tell us in the Issues tab. If the data is there, we add it.
• Found a bug or a wrong value? Post the run ID in the Issues tab. Wrong data is the thing we fix first.

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