Instagram Reels Scraper - Plays, Views & Analytics

Scrape Instagram Reels analytics without a login: exact play count, view count, likes, comments, engagement rate, duration, direct video URL, audio/music attribution, collaborators, tagged users and full creator stats.

Point it at creator handles or specific Reel URLs and get an analytics-grade row per Reel. No cookies, no sessionid, no login - just usernames in, data out.

Why this one

Most Reels scrapers hand you a caption and a like count. The headline metrics on a Reels product are plays and views, and they are usually the fields missing. This actor returns both - and they are genuinely different numbers (one National Geographic Reel measured 1,820,041 plays but 423,569 views), so getting only one of them gives you a distorted picture of reach.

	This actor
Play count	✅ exact
View count	✅ exact
Likes / comments	✅ exact (verified to 17,998,088 likes on a single Reel)
Engagement rate	✅ computed against plays
Duration (seconds)	✅ to 3 decimals
Direct video URL	✅
Audio title / artist / original-audio flag	✅
Collaborators (co-authors)	✅
Tagged users, location, hashtags, mentions	✅
Creator followers, verified, full name, bio links	✅
Date + engagement filters	✅ applied before you are billed
Login required	❌ never

What you get per Reel

reelUrl · shortCode · mediaId · playCount · viewCount · likeCount · commentCount · engagementRate · countsHidden · duration · videoUrl · thumbnailUrl · width · height · qualityCount · hasAudio · caption · hashtags[] · mentions[] · audioTitle · audioArtist · isOriginalAudio · postedAt · takenAtTimestamp · productType · accessibilityCaption · locationName · locationId · coauthors[] · taggedUsers[] · ownerUsername · ownerFullName · ownerId · ownerIsVerified · ownerFollowersCount · ownerProfilePicUrl · ownerProfileUrl · scrapedAt

Input

{
  "usernames": ["natgeo", "nasa"],
  "includeReelDetails": true,
  "minPlays": 500000,
  "postedAfter": "2026-06-01",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Field	What it does
usernames	Creator handles or profile URLs whose Reels you want
reelUrls	Specific Reels (full URL or bare shortcode) - any number
includeReelDetails	Adds view count, duration, video URL, audio, collaborators, caption, exact date. On by default
postedAfter / postedBefore	Date window (YYYY-MM-DD)
minPlays / minLikes	Engagement floors, applied before any paid detail fetch
maxResults	Total cap. 0 = no limit (the run's time budget stops it safely)
onlyNewReels	Monitor mode - only Reels you have not seen before
detailConcurrency	Parallel detail fetches (default 4)

Filters run inside the crawl, not after it

minPlays and minLikes are evaluated on the cheap listing data before any per-Reel detail request, so Reels you filtered out never cost you a reelDetail event. Set a floor and you pay only for Reels that clear it.

Honest limits - read before you buy

• Instagram's logged-out feed exposes the 12 most recent Reels per profile. For more volume, pass more handles, or pass specific reelUrls (unlimited). This actor deliberately does not hardcode Instagram's internal pagination token, because that token rotates on every Instagram deploy and would silently break the actor.
• Audio has no ID without a login. Instagram's logged-out audio payload carries song_name, artist_name and an original-audio flag - but no audio ID and no "N Reels used this sound" count. Those two fields are always null and are documented as source-gated rather than quietly shipped as empty columns.
• location and coauthors are genuinely optional - present when the creator geotagged or co-posted the Reel, an honest empty otherwise.
• Public profiles only. Private accounts return nothing; this actor never attempts to access them.
• RESIDENTIAL proxy is the tested default. Instagram rate-limits datacenter ranges hard.

Pricing (pay per event, no start fee)

Event	Price	What it covers
reel	$0.003	One Reel with play count, likes, comments, engagement rate, thumbnail, creator
reelDetail	$0.01	Adds view count, duration, video URL, audio attribution, collaborators, tagged users, location, caption, exact post date

You are never charged a start fee, and a Reel is billed before it is written - so if a run hits its cost limit it stops rather than handing you unbilled rows.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

This actor works as a tool for LLM agents through the Apify MCP server - ask an assistant for "the play counts on @natgeo's latest Reels" and it can call this actor directly.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it, and pay for it autonomously, with no Apify account and no human in the loop. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic-payment standards:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay per run in USDC on the Base network directly through the Apify MCP server — no account, no API key.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments for fully autonomous AI-agent workflows.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool, or autonomous data pipeline? This scraper is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Integrations

Push Reel analytics anywhere: Make, Zapier, Slack, Google Drive, Airbyte, GitHub, the Apify API, Schedules and Webhooks.

Monitor mode

Set onlyNewReels: true and the actor remembers which Reels it has already returned for that input set, emitting only new ones. Pair it with Apify Schedules for a daily creator-tracking feed - the scheduler triggers the run, monitor mode keeps the output clean.

FAQ

Do I need an Instagram login or cookies? No. This actor only reads Instagram's public logged-out pages.

Why is viewCount null on some rows? You ran with includeReelDetails: false, which is the cheap play-count-only mode. Turn it on for view count, duration, video URL and audio.

Why did a run return 0 Reels? Instagram rate-limits by IP. The run ends successfully with a status message and bills you nothing - just re-run, and make sure the proxy is set to RESIDENTIAL.

Can it scrape private accounts? No, and it does not try.

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