Instagram Followers Scraper

Export the followers or following list from any public Instagram profile. Each run fetches one page of results and outputs a cursor so you can fetch the next page on your next run - giving you full control over how many API calls you make.

What it does

Provide an Instagram username and choose whether you want followers, following, or both. The actor fetches up to 500 users per run and returns a cursor_next in the output. Pass that cursor back as pageId input to continue where you left off.

Verified accounts: followers are limited to the ~50 most recent. Instagram only makes the most recent ~50 followers of verified (blue badge) accounts available, no matter how many followers the account has. This is an Instagram restriction and applies to every scraper and API. The run log tells you when it happens, cursor_next comes back null, and you are only billed for the users actually delivered. Following lists and unverified accounts of any size are not affected. See Notes for details.

Use cases

• Influencer analysis - audit who follows a creator and what their audience looks like
• Competitor research - see who follows competing brands
• Lead generation - find and export accounts following a target profile
• Audience research - analyze follower demographics and engagement signals
• Following audits - see who an account is following for partnership or outreach research

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
username	string	✅	Instagram username (with or without @)
mode	"followers" | "following" | "both"		Which list to fetch (default: "followers")
pageId	string		Pagination cursor - pass cursor_next from a previous run's output to fetch the next page
maxItems	integer		Max users to collect this run (default: 500, set 0 for unlimited)

Billing: one "batch of 50" event per 50 users actually delivered, rounded up once per list at the end of the run — never per page. Instagram currently serves ~25 users per page; page size does not affect what you pay.

Example input

{
  "username": "natgeo",
  "mode": "followers"
}

Output

One dataset record per run (per mode), shaped as:

{
  "cursor_next": "QVF...",
  "results": [
    {
      "relation": "follower",
      "userId": "987654321",
      "username": "some_follower",
      "displayName": "Some Follower",
      "isPrivate": false,
      "isVerified": false,
      "profilePicUrl": "https://cdninstagram.com/..."
    }
  ]
}

Pass cursor_next back as pageId on your next run to fetch the following page. A null value means the list is fully exhausted.

Each run de-duplicates users by ID, so you are never billed for the same account twice within a run. Cursors are only valid for the build that produced them: if you saved a cursor_next before 12 September 2026, start again from the beginning rather than resuming, because the list source changed.

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
cursor_next	string | null	Cursor for the next page, or null if exhausted
results	array	Array of user records
results[].relation	"follower" | "following"	Whether this user follows or is followed by the target
results[].userId	string	Instagram user ID
results[].username	string	Instagram username
results[].displayName	string	Full display name
results[].isPrivate	boolean	Whether the account is private
results[].isVerified	boolean	Whether the account has a verified badge
results[].profilePicUrl	string	Profile picture URL (when available)

Free tier limits

Free Apify accounts can try the actor with these limits:

Limit	Free plan	Paid plan
Results per run	25 per list	Unlimited (your maxItems)
Runs per day	3 (resets at midnight UTC)	Unlimited
Cooldown between runs	30 minutes	None

On a free plan the maxItems input is ignored and each run returns at most 25 users per list. If you hit the daily or cooldown limit, the run stops before fetching anything and the status message tells you when you can try again. Upgrade to any paid Apify plan to remove all three limits.

Notes

• Only public profiles are supported - private profiles cannot be scraped
• Verified accounts return only their ~50 most recent followers. Instagram serves at most around 50 followers (sometimes fewer) for any account with a verified badge, regardless of its size - a verified account with 100k followers and one with 100M both stop at ~50. The list ends with cursor_next: null and the run log records that the cap was hit. This is enforced by Instagram, so no scraper or API can retrieve the full list. Following lists are unaffected, and unverified accounts paginate fully whatever their size.

Related Instagram actors

Part of a complete Instagram scraping toolkit - explore the rest of the suite:

• Instagram Profile Scraper - Profile metadata for any public account
• Instagram Posts & Reels Scraper - All posts and Reels from a profile
• Instagram Post Details Scraper - Full details for any post or Reel by URL
• Instagram Comments Scraper - All comments on a post or Reel
• Instagram Post Likers Scraper - Users who liked a post or Reel
• Instagram Hashtag Scraper - Top posts and Reels for any hashtag
• Instagram Location Posts Scraper - Posts tagged at any location
• Instagram Tagged Posts Scraper - Posts a profile is tagged in
• Instagram Reels Search Scraper - Find Reels by keyword
• Instagram User Search Scraper - Discover accounts by keyword
• Instagram Related Profiles Scraper - Find similar/suggested profiles
• Instagram Story Scraper - Active stories for any profile
• Instagram Highlights Scraper - Highlights and their stories
• Instagram Email & Phone Scraper - Emails and phone numbers from profiles
• Instagram Influencer Analytics Scraper - Engagement rate and creator analytics
• Instagram MCP Server - All Instagram tools for AI agents via MCP