Instagram Viral Radar — Posts & Reels

Find Instagram posts and Reels with strong engagement relative to their authors' audience size. Explore niche hashtags, compare likes, available comments and views, and export a ranked shortlist with direct post and profile links.

Useful for creative research, campaign inspiration and discovering content worth reviewing in beauty, fitness, food, travel and outdoor niches.

Pricing

This Actor charges for the work performed as well as saved results:

Event	Price
Run start	$0.05 per started GB of memory; default 2 GB = $0.10
Instagram page request	$0.10 per attempted hashtag, post or author-profile page
Post saved	$0.02 per unique post saved in the run

Blocked requests, retry attempts and pages for posts excluded by filters are billable page requests. Browser resource files are not separate page events. The same post saved in another run is charged again. A profile read can support several posts by the same author.

For example, a default-memory run with 21 attempted pages and 10 saved posts costs $2.40: $0.10 + $2.10 + $0.20. This illustrates the calculation, not a guaranteed request count. A run returning no matching posts still incurs start and page-request charges.

Set Maximum cost per run in Apify before starting. The minimum accepted budget is $0.45; use a larger budget for useful multi-topic research. The Actor stops new page collection at its funded request allowance and reserves capacity to save results. If a budget or time limit stops collection, the run summary reports PARTIAL and a stoppedReason; the Apify run can finish successfully with the results already collected.

Quick start

1. Enter one or more topics in keywords.
2. Optionally set follower and minimum engagement filters.
3. Choose an output limit and page limits, set your run budget, and start.
4. Review Viral post shortlist, Engagement metrics or Discovery evidence, then export JSON, CSV or Excel.

Example input:

{
  "keywords": ["hiking"],
  "minFollowers": 1000,
  "maxFollowers": 1000000,
  "minEngagementRate": 0.02,
  "maxPosts": 25,
  "maxPostsPerKeyword": 12,
  "maxPostPages": 12,
  "maxProfilePages": 12,
  "maxHashtagRetries": 1,
  "maxRunSeconds": 200,
  "region": "US"
}

maxPosts is an upper bound on saved results, not a promise of that many matches or a limit on billed page requests. Higher candidate/page limits examine more material and may cost more.

What the ranking means

• Engagement: likes plus available comments.
• Engagement rate: engagement divided by current author followers. 0.05 means 5%; 1 means 100%.
• View ratio: available views or plays divided by author followers.
• Ranking: engagement rate is the primary signal; view ratio is a fallback when an engagement rate cannot be calculated.

An engagement rate can exceed 100% because posts can reach people who do not follow the author. If Instagram does not expose comments, commentCount is null, virality.commentCountKnown is false, and engagement is a lower bound based on available likes. An unavailable view count also remains null.

This is a snapshot of performance relative to current audience size. It does not measure growth over time or compare a post against that author's historical performance. It does not predict future virality.

Discovery and coverage

Topics are explored as hashtags. If the requested hashtag is unavailable, the Actor can retry it and try related hashtags. Each row contains discoveredIn for requested topics and sourceTags for the actual discovery hashtags. For example, a request for skincare can produce posts discovered through skincaretips.

Hashtag results are selective and may include older, promotional or loosely related posts. Hashtag presence does not confirm topic relevance; review the linked posts before using a shortlist. This is not a complete Instagram feed or historical search. Regular posts and Reels can both appear; mediaType and productType describe the available content type. A dedicated Reels-only input filter is not provided.

region selects the proxy connection country. It does not filter author location or audience geography. No Instagram login or customer-supplied cookies are required. Access restrictions can reduce results or prevent collection.

Main inputs

Input	Purpose
keywords	Up to 10 niche topics / hashtags
minFollowers, maxFollowers	Author audience range; maximum 0 disables the upper limit
minEngagementRate	Minimum engagement/followers ratio
maxPosts	Maximum saved posts after ranking
maxPostsPerKeyword	Discovered candidates examined per topic
maxPostPages, maxProfilePages	Distinct post/profile page limits; retries are additional attempts
maxHashtagRetries	Extra attempts per unavailable hashtag before related hashtags
maxRunSeconds	Collection time allowance; in-flight requests and shutdown can take longer
region, proxyConfiguration	Connection country and proxy configuration

Results and run summary

Each row includes code, url, username, profileUrl, author followers/name/verification when available, likes, nullable comments and views, publication time when available, ranking metrics, requested topics, actual source hashtags and observedAt.

The run's OUTPUT record includes collected/scored/emitted counts, filter exclusions, source attempts and billing counters. Complete inability to discover or score content is reported as a failure. A genuine empty result after applying filters is successful. Partial access failures can leave fewer usable results; inspect the counters and errors in the summary.

API and integrations

Use the stable Actor ID HXjMCNwyb3HZJ1dLy to run through the Apify API:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/HXjMCNwyb3HZJ1dLy/runs?maxTotalChargeUsd=6
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json
{"keywords":["hiking"],"maxPosts":25}

The response returns a run ID. Poll GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/RUN_ID; once finished, read GET https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/DATASET_ID/items, using the run's defaultDatasetId. Retrieve the summary from its defaultKeyValueStoreId, record OUTPUT.

Saved Tasks provide reusable themed inputs. Use Apify schedules for repeated snapshots and webhooks or integrations to send completed datasets to your research workflow. Repeated runs are billed separately and are not a built-in historical comparison.

Only available public information is collected. Use the data responsibly and in accordance with applicable terms and requirements.