Instagram Reels Scraper by Profile: Plays, Likes, Captions

For creator research, competitor tracking and finding what content works: this Instagram reels scraper takes usernames or profile URLs and returns one row per reel (play count, likes, comments, posting date, caption, hashtags, mentions, video length, audio and thumbnail) as CSV, Excel or JSON. No login, no cookies, no start fee, and old reels keep their play counts, not only the latest ones. You pay $2.49 per 1,000 reels on the Free plan, down to $0.95 on Gold and above, and only for reels returned.

What can I do with this Instagram reels scraper?

• See which reels of an account got the most plays. Get the reels the profile's reels tab lists, with videoPlayCount, likesCount and commentsCount, and sort by plays in a spreadsheet.
• Track competitors and creators. Run a list of up to 1,000 profiles at once and compare their reels side by side.
• Study what makes a reel work. Each row has the caption, hashtags, mentions, video length in seconds and the audio used (song or original audio).
• Follow new reels only. Set onlyPostsNewerThan to 7 days and pay only for recent reels.
• Leave out pinned reels. Pinned reels sit at the top of a profile even when they are old. Turn on skipPinnedPosts to skip them.

What data do you get?

Group	Fields
Reel	url, shortCode, id, position, timestamp, timestampSource, caption, hashtags, mentions, videoDuration, displayUrl, isPinned, isCollab, coauthors
Counts	videoPlayCount, likesCount, commentsCount, likesHidden
Audio	musicInfo: audio_id, song_name, artist_name, uses_original_audio, should_mute_audio, should_mute_audio_reason, is_explicit, is_trending_in_clips
Profile	profileUsername, profileUrl, ownerUsername, inputUrl
Run	status, note, detailsRead, source, scrapedAt. The last row can also hold notCheckedProfiles (profiles to put in a new run)

position is the place of the reel in the profile's reels tab, starting at 1. timestampSource is post when the exact posting time was read, and id-estimate when the date is an estimate (see Limitations). isCollab is true for a collab reel: one the profile posted together with other accounts, or one another account posted with the profile as a collaborator. coauthors lists the collaborator usernames Instagram shows on the reel page. It is null when the reel page was not read (includeDetails off), and then isCollab is true only for reels another account posted.

How to scrape Instagram reels from a profile

1. Put usernames (natgeo) or profile URLs (https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/ or https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/reels/) into usernames, one per line. @natgeo works too.
2. Set maxReelsPerProfile to the most reels you want from each profile.
3. If you only want recent reels, set onlyPostsNewerThan 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
usernames	Instagram usernames or profile URLs, one per line. Up to 1,000 profiles per run.	Up to 10 free sample reels of one profile when no profile is given
maxReelsPerProfile	Reading a profile stops after this many reel rows (1 to 10,000).	100
onlyPostsNewerThan	Return only reels newer than a date (2026-10-01) or a span back from now (12 hours, 7 days, 2 weeks, 3 months). Older reels are skipped and not charged.	Empty (any date)
skipPinnedPosts	Leave out the reels pinned at the top of the profile. They are not charged.	Off
includeDetails	On: rows also get the caption, hashtags, mentions, exact posting time, video length, audio and owner. Off: faster rows with plays, likes, comments, thumbnail and an estimated date only. The price per reel is the same.	On

{
    "usernames": ["natgeo", "https://www.instagram.com/nasa/reels/"],
    "maxReelsPerProfile": 200,
    "onlyPostsNewerThan": "30 days",
    "skipPinnedPosts": true
}

Output example

{
    "status": "ok",
    "inputUrl": "natgeo",
    "profileUsername": "natgeo",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/",
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DekHVSNM5WN/",
    "shortCode": "DekHVSNM5WN",
    "id": "3712345678901234567",
    "position": 1,
    "isPinned": false,
    "isCollab": false,
    "coauthors": [],
    "ownerUsername": "natgeo",
    "videoPlayCount": 1250400,
    "likesCount": 41230,
    "likesHidden": false,
    "commentsCount": 512,
    "timestamp": "2026-10-28T16:02:11.000Z",
    "timestampSource": "post",
    "caption": "A night dive with the reef's smallest residents #ocean #wildlife with @reef.team",
    "hashtags": ["ocean", "wildlife"],
    "mentions": ["reef.team"],
    "videoDuration": 43.767,
    "musicInfo": {
        "audio_id": "1234567890123456",
        "song_name": "Original audio",
        "artist_name": "natgeo",
        "uses_original_audio": true,
        "should_mute_audio": false,
        "should_mute_audio_reason": null,
        "is_explicit": false,
        "is_trending_in_clips": false
    },
    "displayUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/...",
    "detailsRead": true,
    "source": "instagram-reel",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-11-01T09:12:44.000Z"
}

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

How much does it cost?

$2.49 per 1,000 reels on the Free plan, with lower prices on paid Apify plans:

Apify plan	Price per 1,000 reels
Free	$2.49
Bronze	$2.20
Silver	$1.34
Gold and above	$0.95

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

To keep a run inside a budget, set maxReelsPerProfile, 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 get the play counts of the reels on an Instagram account? Put the username into usernames and set maxReelsPerProfile high enough (up to 10,000). Each reel the profile's reels tab lists comes back as one row with videoPlayCount, old reels included. In our tests one account returned 1,871 reels going back to 2020.

How do I export Instagram reels to Excel or CSV? Run the Actor, then open the Output tab and download the dataset as CSV or Excel. Each reel is one row.

Can I scrape Instagram reels without logging in? Yes. You don't need an Instagram account, a cookie or an API key. About 8% of public profiles (19 of 232 in our test) show no reels to logged-out visitors; those return one free row.

Can I scrape reels from many accounts at once? Yes. Paste up to 1,000 usernames or profile URLs. Every profile the run reaches returns its reels, or one free row that says why there are none. If Instagram stops answering, the run ends early, and the profiles it did not reach are listed in notCheckedProfiles in the last row, ready for a new run a few hours later.

Are pinned reels and collab reels included? Yes. Pinned reels have isPinned: true (turn on skipPinnedPosts to leave them out). Collab reels have isCollab: true, and coauthors names the other accounts. When two profiles in the same run share one reel, it is returned once, under the first profile that reached it.

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 usernames. The rows come back as JSON.

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

Why are videoPlayCount and likesCount empty on some rows? The owner of the reel chose to hide the counts. likesHidden is true on those rows. commentsCount is still filled.

Rows you are not charged for

A profile that was read but did not return reels gets its own row, so you can see what happened to it. Profiles the run did not check (past the 1,000 profile limit, past the maximum total charge, stopped because Instagram stopped answering, or stopped before the run timeout) are counted in one last row, and notCheckedProfiles lists them for a new run.

status	What it means
sample	No profile was given, so up to 10 reels of one sample profile were read to show the output. Add your own profiles to usernames.
no-public-profile	Instagram shows no public profile under this name to visitors who are not logged in. The name may be wrong, the account removed or renamed, or Instagram may not show this account to logged-out visitors.
no-reels-listed	The reels tab shows no reels to visitors who are not logged in: the account is private, has posted no reels, or Instagram shows its reels to logged-in users only. Or none are newer than onlyPostsNewerThan.
max-reels-reached	maxReelsPerProfile reels were returned and the profile lists 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 reels before that point are in the dataset.
blocked	Instagram did not let this run open the profile. Run it again later.
invalid-input	The entry is not an Instagram profile, such as a post or reel URL, an /explore/ link or another site.
duplicate	The same profile was already in this run's list.
not-checked	One row at the end: how many profiles were not read and why. They are in notCheckedProfiles.
budget-reached	The run reached the maximum total charge you set. Reels that did not fit are not in the dataset and were not charged.

Limitations

• The Actor returns the reels a profile's reels tab lists to visitors who are not logged in. In our tests this went far back: 1,871 reels back to 2020 on one account, and over 3,000 on another before we stopped reading. Regular posts that are not reels are not in the output.
• Reels come mostly newest first, but not strictly: in one account of 1,871 reels, 33 were out of order. Pinned reels come first.
• Not every account shows its reels to logged-out visitors. In a test of 232 well-known accounts, 200 returned reels, 13 showed no profile to logged-out visitors (no-public-profile), and 19 public accounts showed an empty reels tab (no-reels-listed), among them large brands and artists, the same on a second run. Both rows are free.
• A private account usually returns a no-reels-listed row too. A private account, a public account with no reels and an account whose reels are shown to logged-in users only cannot be told apart. In one test a private account listed one reel it had made as a collaborator with a public account.
• When includeDetails is off, or a reel page cannot be opened, timestamp is an estimate (timestampSource: "id-estimate"). In our tests the estimate was from 25 seconds to about 10 hours earlier than the real posting time. A reel uploaded more than 2 days before it was posted can be skipped by onlyPostsNewerThan.
• When the owner hides the counts, videoPlayCount and likesCount are empty.
• Video file URLs, tagged accounts, location and share counts are not in the output.
• Thumbnail URLs expire after a while, so download the files soon after the run.
• On long lists Instagram may stop answering, so the run can end early. The rest are not charged and are listed in notCheckedProfiles.
• Use the data in line with the rules that apply to you, including privacy law for personal data in captions.

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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