Instagram Comments Scraper — Scrape Instagram Comments, Replies

Paste the Instagram post, reel or IGTV links you want and get the comments underneath them: text, author, likes, timestamp, and the replies in each thread. No login, no cookies, no proxy to configure. Your limit is exact and it is per post — set 200 and you get 200 from each link, and a comment we could not deliver is never charged. Replies cost the same as a top-level comment, on the same single event. Nothing is charged for starting a run.

Using an AI agent? Pin this actor in Apify's MCP server with one link: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=steadyfetch/instagram-comments-scraper

• Actor id: steadyfetch/instagram-comments-scraper
• Input: { "postUrls": ["CA2aJYrg6cZ"] } — the one field you have to set. A bare post code as shown, or the whole post, reel or IGTV link you copied. Add "resultsLimit": 200 and "includeReplies": true to set the per-post limit and pull the threads.
• Cap the bill: set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run (a run option, not Actor input), e.g. 0.50 — the run stops when it reaches it.
• Price: from $0.60 per 1,000 comments on Gold and above, $2.40 per 1,000 on the Apify free plan — a reply is charged on that same event, at that same price. No start fee, and a comment we could not deliver is never charged. Full table below.
• How often it changes: comments keep arriving for days after a post goes up and the busiest hours are the first few, so the useful pattern is the same links again tomorrow — the ones you already have are skipped rather than charged again, so a daily watch pays only for what is new.

Unofficial. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Instagram or Meta Platforms, Inc.

What you get

One row per comment, at one price — a reply is a row like any other, and there is no second charge for "threads":

Column	What it holds
commentId	the comment's own Instagram id
text	what they wrote (empty when the comment is a GIF — isGif says so)
username · userFullName · userId · userIsVerified	who wrote it
likeCount	likes on the comment
isReply · parentCommentId · repliedToCommentId	whether it is a reply, to which comment, and to which reply inside the thread
replyCount · repliesCollected	how many replies the comment has, and whether this run opened the thread
createdAt	when it was posted, ISO-8601 UTC
isPinned · isEdited · isByPostAuthor	pinned by the author, edited, or left by the account that posted
postShortcode · postUrl · source	which post it belongs to (source is always instagram)
charged · status · statusReason	whether this row was billed, and why, so your invoice reconciles from the dataset itself

Replies land directly under the comment they answer, so the thread reads in order. The requesting network address is stripped out of every link before it reaches your dataset.

What a row looks like

One delivered row from a real run — the post DcOX3hWFiey, 2026-09-11. Every comment is one comment charge, and a reply costs the same as a top-level comment: isReply and parentCommentId tell them apart. Profile pictures are signed and time-limited by Instagram, so they are shown here as placeholders.

{
  "commentId": "17979728991110710",
  "postShortcode": "DcOX3hWFiey",
  "postUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DcOX3hWFiey/",
  "text": "Image description: The Tarantula Nebula—vibrant and colorful. Clouds of red, yellow, orange, and green crest over a background of deep blue haze, black space, and red stars. Bright spots of light line the center, causing parts of the clouds to glow luminous gold.",
  "username": "nasa",
  "userId": "528817151",
  "userFullName": "NASA",
  "userIsVerified": true,
  "userProfilePicUrl": "https://…",
  "isReply": false,
  "parentCommentId": null,
  "repliedToCommentId": null,
  "likeCount": 2213,
  "replyCount": 0,
  "createdAt": "2026-08-19T14:11:50.000Z",
  "isPinned": true,
  "isEdited": false,
  "isByPostAuthor": true,
  "isGif": false,
  "repliesCollected": true,
  "source": "instagram",
  "input": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DcOX3hWFiey/",
  "sourceIndex": 0,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-11T10:25:40.411Z",
  "repeat": false,
  "charged": true,
  "status": "delivered",
  "retryable": false,
  "statusReason": null,
  "#k": "17979728991110710",
  "#ce": {"comment":1},
  "#ask": {"delivered":1}
}

Price

One charged event, comment, and it lands only on a comment that was actually delivered. A reply is charged on that same event, at that same price.

Apify plan	Per comment	Per 1,000 comments
Free plan	$0.0024	$2.40
Bronze	$0.0014	$1.40
Silver	$0.0009	$0.90
Gold and above	$0.0006	$0.60 per 1,000

Platform usage is included in that price — there is no separate compute bill on top, and no start fee. Set maxTotalChargeUsd on the run and it is a hard ceiling: the run stops cleanly under it and the last row says what is left.

Honest rows: what "not charged" actually means

Every run closes its own books. A post that returned less than it was asked for leaves an uncharged row saying which of nine things happened, and none of them is billed:

• post_not_found — Instagram has nothing at that link: wrong code, private account, or the post was deleted. A definitive answer about your link.
• no_comments — Instagram's own answer about the post, and the row says which half it is. The post is real and has none, because comments are turned off for it or nobody has commented yet; or it served no further page after the comments you were given. A definitive answer, not a failure.
• skipped.page_cap — one of this actor's own bounds stopped the walk: it reads at most 400 comment pages for a single post, so one post cannot spend a whole run. Instagram had more to give — that bound is ours, the row says so, and it tells you how to carry on from where the run stopped.
• skipped.all_repeat — this actor's other bound: three pages in a row held only comments you already have, so the walk stopped rather than keep buying pages that add nothing. That bound is ours too, and the row names the setting that collects them again.
• stopped_at_limit — one of your own limits, or the run clock, stopped it first. The row names which.
• vendor_unavailable — the read did not go through. Temporary, says nothing about your post, and a re-run is the fix. If comments for that post had already been delivered before it went dark, the row opens with how many: those were charged, as each of their rows says, and the re-run is for the rest.
• source_refused — Instagram refused to answer for that link at all, and it refuses it the same way every time, so a re-run cannot change it. Open the link in a browser; if the post is there, say so on the Issues tab.
• unsupported_shape — Instagram answered in a shape this actor does not read yet. That is on us, not on your post, and a re-run gets the same answer — tell us on the Issues tab which post it was and support for it will be added.
• vendor_budget — this actor reached its own monthly collection allowance and stopped rather than collecting more.

The last row of every run is a receipt: delivered, how many were replies, asked for, what was skipped, what stopped it, and the charged-event totals. A time limit ends the collecting, never the delivering — comments already in hand are always written out.

How often this data changes

Comments keep arriving on a post for days after it goes up, and the busiest hours are the first few. So the useful pattern here is not one run — it is the same links again tomorrow. Re-running would otherwise re-buy the comments you already have, so it does not: every run remembers what it delivered to your account, in the key-value store ig-comments-account in your own Apify account, and a later run skips those. Not delivered again, not charged, and the slot goes to the next new comment instead, so you still get the number you asked for. The memory is a key-value store in your own Apify account, so a run started with a scoped API token in restricted-access mode needs key-value store Read, Write and Create permission (Write is what lets the run remember what it delivered; without it every run pays again) or Actor runs set to Full access; without it the run says so on its status line and on an uncharged row, and cannot skip the comments you already have. That makes a daily watch on the same posts cost only what is new, as long as the token the watch runs on can open that store. Switch Include comments you already have on to get them back anyway, marked repeat: true and still uncharged, and use Skip comments in this dataset to carry the same memory across accounts.

Replies, and when a thread is not opened

With Include replies on (the default), a comment that has a thread gets that thread collected and delivered right under it, at the same price. A very long run of one-reply threads costs more to collect than the comments are priced at, so the run bounds that: when it happens, the remaining threads are left unopened, those comments carry repliesCollected: false, and the run line and the receipt both say so rather than leaving you to notice. Top-level comments are never affected.

Reliability

The comments come from a licensed data feed rather than from scraping Instagram's own web pages, which is why there is nothing to log into and nothing to configure. When that feed cannot answer, the run says so on an uncharged row and finishes successfully — a failed read is never billed and never dressed up as a post with no comments.

Related actors

• One account's own posts, to feed this one links: Instagram Profile Posts Scraper — https://apify.com/steadyfetch/instagram-profile-posts
• The spoken words inside a reel: Instagram Reel Transcript Scraper — https://apify.com/steadyfetch/instagram-reel-transcript-scraper

Limits and good manners

Your settings are never refused for being too big. This actor delivers up to 5,000 comments per post (resultsLimit) and runs for up to 1 hour (maxRunSeconds, minimum 30 seconds). Ask for more than that — or for a shorter clock — and the run still starts: it continues at the nearest limit and leaves one uncharged row saying what you asked for and what bound it. Nothing is refused before it starts.

Only public posts are returned. Instagram serves comments in its own ranked order rather than strictly newest-first, and a very deep ask on a post will eventually run out — the run says so instead of padding. This actor may stop working if Instagram changes how the data is served; if it does, failed items are never charged.

Support

Something off, or a column you need that is not here? Open an issue on the Issues tab — we usually reply within a couple of hours.

If it earned its keep, a rating helps other buyers find it, and saving the actor keeps it one click away.