Instagram Reel Script Scraper: Reels to Text

Paste Instagram reel links and get what is said in each reel as a script: the full text, timestamped segments, the language, and SRT or WebVTT subtitles if you want them, with the reel's details (account, date, likes, comments, caption, sound). No Instagram account, no API key. Export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.

• Scripts you can reuse: study the hooks and scripts of a niche, quote creators, turn your own reels into posts and captions, or feed hundreds of reels to an LLM.
• Music is not a script: a reel with only music or sounds comes back as a free no_speech record instead of invented words.
• A free record that says why for every reel that cannot be transcribed (deleted, private, age-restricted, photo post). You pay only for scripts delivered.

$0.0075 per reel plus $0.006 per started minute on the Free plan (a 40-second reel: $0.0135), less per reel on the higher Apify plans, plus a start fee of $0.004 per run at the default memory.

Quick start

1. Paste one reel link per line into Reels (instagram.com/reel/…, /p/…, share links). An account (@natgeo) works too: you get its latest videos.
2. Click Start.
3. Read the scripts in the run's Output tab, or export them as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Through the API:

{
  "urls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbIdlf0j6uA/"],
  "transcriptFormat": "text",
  "includeSrt": true
}

Like any Apify Actor, it can be scheduled, connected to webhooks, Make, Zapier, n8n, or called by AI agents through Apify's MCP server.

Output

One record per reel. A script (status: "ok"), shortened here:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "platform": "instagram",
  "videoId": "DbIdlf0j6uA",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbIdlf0j6uA/",
  "author": { "username": "natgeo", "fullName": "National Geographic", "isVerified": true },
  "caption": "Describe Pompeii: Out of Time in 3 words? It's Now Streaming. …",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-23T13:00:03Z",
  "likeCount": 28343,
  "commentCount": 320,
  "sound": { "title": "Original audio", "author": "natgeo", "isOriginal": true },
  "durationSeconds": 36.2,
  "language": "en",
  "hasSpeech": true,
  "transcript": "Three words to describe this series about Pompeii. History. There's something you're going to want to see. …",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 0, "end": 4, "duration": 4, "text": "Three words to describe this series about Pompeii." }
  ]
}

What we measured

On the Apify platform on 8 October 2026, on 43 reel links shared on Reddit plus two accounts: 25 scripts in 6 languages (English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi), 17 reels without clear speech returned as free records, 5 deleted or age-restricted reels returned as free errors, all in 2 minutes 30. One reel runs in about 6 seconds.

Instagram shows no captions to visitors, so every reel goes through speech-to-text: ElevenLabs Scribe v2, the most accurate model in our tests, for most reels, and OpenAI's Whisper run by Groq for the first reels of some runs and as a backup. The audio is sent to them only to be transcribed; we delete the transcript ElevenLabs keeps as soon as we have read it.

Pricing

Apify plan	Per reel	Per started minute
Free	$0.0075	$0.006
Bronze	$0.0066	$0.006
Silver	$0.00525	$0.006
Gold and above	$0.003	$0.006

Plus a start fee of $0.004 per GB of memory per run ($0.004 at the default 512 MB). Reels without speech, incomplete scripts, deleted or private posts, errors and duplicates are free; platform usage is included. Your maximum charge per run is never exceeded, and maxItems caps the scripts of a run.

Limits

• Speech or music. A reel is charged only when its speech is clear; short or distant speech over loud music may come back as a free no_speech record.
• Accounts: the 12 latest posts only (Instagram's limit without an account).
• Private accounts and age-restricted reels need a signed-in account; we do not use accounts.
• Longest video: 60 minutes (30 by default).

FAQ

Do I need an Instagram account? No account and no cookies. Leave the Connection setting on its default (automatic): it is included in the price.

Is it legal? It reads reels any visitor can watch without signing in. Scripts reproduce what people say, which may be protected by copyright and may contain personal data: your use must comply with the laws and terms that apply to you, including the GDPR in Europe.

Is anything different on Apify's free plan? Runs started from an Apify free-plan account are transcribed by our Whisper models only, never by the ElevenLabs model we pay for per use. Everything else is the same.

Does the Actor send anything to Quarra? Only when a run fails or runs out of time: the Actor, its build, the error type, the line of our code where it happened, and the memory and time the run was given, so we can fix it fast. Never your input, your results, your account or the run ID.

Related tools from Quarra

• Instagram Transcript Scraper: reels, video posts and accounts to text.
• TikTok Transcript Scraper and YouTube Video Transcript: the same for TikTok and YouTube.