Instagram Profile Scraper - Followers, Bio and Posts

Scrape any public Instagram profile for follower count, bio, category, verification and recent posts. No login, no cookies and no API key: the actor reads Instagram's public surface directly.

This is a single-purpose instagram profile scraper. It does one thing, takes a handful of inputs and returns one clean row per profile.

What you get

• followers, following and posts_count - the three headline counts, as numbers
• full_name, bio_snippet, category and pronouns - how the account presents itself
• is_verified and has_public_story - badge state and whether a story is live right now
• website and phone - link in bio and the public contact number when the account publishes one
• profile_pic_url and user_id - image URL and the stable numeric id for joins
• Recent posts per profile, controlled by a single input, or profile data only when set to zero

Why scrape this from Instagram

Follower counts are the most requested and least accessible number on Instagram. The Graph API returns them only for accounts you own or manage, which rules out every competitor, prospect and creator you might actually want to measure. The public profile page carries the figure, but it is rendered inside a page built to resist bulk reading.

This actor reads the logged-out public profile surface and returns it as a row. Accepts bare usernames, @handles or full profile URLs interchangeably, so a list assembled by hand from different sources works without normalising it first.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
search	array	yes	['natgeo']	Instagram usernames or profile URLs, one per line.
maxPostsPerProfile	integer	no	0	Recent posts to also return per profile. Left at 0 you get one row and one charge per profile. Each post returned is billed as its own, cheaper post event.

Output

One row per profile.

Field	Description
username	Instagram handle
full_name	Display name
followers	Follower count
following	Accounts this profile follows
posts_count	Total posts on the profile
bio_snippet	Profile biography text
category	Business or creator category
is_verified	Whether the account carries the verified badge
has_public_story	Whether a public story is live
profile_pic_url	Profile picture URL
website	Link in bio
phone	Public contact phone when published
pronouns	Pronouns set on the profile
user_id	Instagram numeric user id
url	Public Instagram URL for this record
record_type	Which kind of row this is

Use cases

Influencer vetting at list scale. Before outreach, pull the whole candidate list in one run and filter on follower count, verification and whether the bio and category match the brief. The website field surfaces who already runs a funnel, which usually separates creators who treat this as a business from ones who do not.

Competitive benchmarking on a schedule. Track a competitor set weekly and the follower deltas become a growth-rate table. Growth rate is far more informative than absolute size, and it is the number that reveals which competitor's content strategy is actually working.

Lead qualification for B2B outreach. Business profiles publish a category and often a public contact number and website. For agencies selling to local businesses, that is a qualification pass and a contact route in the same row, without touching a login-gated surface.

Building a creator database. user_id is stable even when a handle changes, so it is the right join key for a database that has to survive rebrands. Combined with follower count and category it supports a searchable creator index that stays correct over time.

How it compares

The closest competitor is apify/instagram-profile-scraper, the platform-official actor, at $0.0026 per profile. This actor is $0.0012, a 54% undercut. It is the platform owner, with the trust and default ranking that implies, so the honest comparison is price and simplicity: two inputs here against a broader configuration surface there. If you need Instagram's full profile graph, theirs is more complete. If you need follower counts and bios for a list of handles at half the rate, this is narrower on purpose.

Pricing

$0.0012 per profile returned, which is $1.20 per 1,000 rows. Recent posts are opt-in and bill separately at $0.0010 each, so leaving posts at 0 means exactly one charge per profile. All pricing is pay-per-event - you only pay for results you receive. No actor-start fee, no per-compute-unit charges.

Limits and gotchas

• Public accounts only. Private accounts return counts without content.
• Follower count, not the follower list. The list needs authentication and is out of scope.
• Email is not published on the logged-out profile surface. website and phone are returned when the account publishes them.
• Recent posts are the visible grid sample, not full post history.
• Free Apify plans are capped at 10 rows per run. Paid plans have no cap.
• Handles that have been renamed or deleted return an error row rather than a blank profile.

FAQ

Can I get Instagram follower counts without the API?

Yes. The Graph API only returns follower counts for accounts you own or manage. The public profile page publishes the figure for any public account, and this actor reads it there.

Does this work on private accounts?

No. Private accounts publish only their name, picture and counts. There is no logged-out route to their content, and this actor does not attempt one.

Can I get the list of followers?

No. This returns the follower count, not the follower list. Exporting a follower list requires an authenticated session, which this actor deliberately does not use.

Do I need cookies or a session?

No. Everything comes from the logged-out public profile surface, which is why there is no account to get rate limited or banned.

Can I pass profile URLs instead of usernames?

Yes, and you can mix them. Bare usernames, @handles and full profile URLs all work in the same run.

Related Actors

• Instagram Post Scraper
• Instagram Keyword Scraper
• Instagram Location Scraper