Instagram Reels Transcript - Speech to Text for Public Reels

What does Instagram Reels Transcript do?

Instagram Reels Transcript turns the speech in public Instagram reels into text. Paste reel links or shortcodes, or just a username, and you get the full transcript, timestamped segments, the detected language and the reel's caption, views, likes, comments, duration and post date in one clean row per reel.

It is an Instagram transcript API that needs no login, no cookies and no Instagram account: it reads only what Instagram shows any logged-out visitor, extracts the audio and runs AI speech recognition (Whisper) on it. Reels without spoken words are detected and not charged.

Not affiliated with Instagram or Meta. Instagram is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc.

Why use an Instagram reel transcript tool?

• ✍️ Content repurposing: turn reels into blog posts, threads, newsletters and captions.
• 🔎 Creator and competitor research: see what a creator or brand actually says across their latest reels, and search it like text.
• 🤖 AI pipelines: feed transcripts into an LLM for summaries, hooks, topic tagging or a RAG knowledge base.
• 📈 Marketing analysis: compare the scripts of reels with high and low views.
• ♿ Accessibility and subtitles: get timestamped text you can turn into captions.

It runs on the Apify platform, so you also get an API, scheduling, webhooks and integrations with Make, Zapier, n8n, LangChain and LlamaIndex.

What data can it extract?

Field	Example
url, shortcode	https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfY6jCIgH-P/, CfY6jCIgH-P
ownerUsername, ownerFullName	garyvee, Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk
caption	the reel's caption text
postedAt	2022-06-29T12:32:37.000Z
durationSec	67.29
viewCount, playCount	views shown on the reel; plays (filled for reels found through a username)
likeCount, commentCount	768690, 11713
language	en (ISO 639-1, detected from the speech)
transcript	the full spoken text
segments	[{ "start": 0, "end": 4.2, "text": "..." }], one sentence each, times in seconds
wordCount	number of words in the transcript
noSpeech	true when the reel has no spoken words (music only, silence); free
chargedReels	how many reel charges this row used (1 for reels up to 3 minutes)
thumbnailUrl	cover image URL
error	why a reel was skipped (private, removed, too long, ...), otherwise null

How to get the transcript of an Instagram reel

1. Click Try for free.
2. Paste reel links (/reel/, /p/ and /tv/ links all work) or shortcodes into Reel URLs or shortcodes, one per line.
3. Optional: add Usernames to transcribe each account's newest reels, and set Reels per profile (up to 12).
4. Leave Spoken language on auto, or give a code such as es as a hint.
5. Click Start, then download the results as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them through the API.

How much does it cost?

$30 per 1,000 transcribed reels ($0.03 per reel), pay per event. You only pay for reels where speech was found and transcribed. These are free: reels with no speech, private, removed or age-restricted reels, photos and carousels, videos over 10 minutes, and any failure.

Videos longer than 3 minutes count as one reel for every started 3 minutes (a 7-minute video counts as 3 reels), because transcription cost grows with length. The chargedReels field shows this on every row.

Free Apify plan: each run transcribes up to 3 reels of up to 3 minutes, because every transcription costs the developer a speech-to-text fee. Other reels in the run come back as free rows with a note. Any paid Apify plan removes the limit.

Input

{
    "reels": [
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfY6jCIgH-P/",
        "DZn_a_tsZDj"
    ],
    "usernames": ["bbcnews"],
    "maxReelsPerProfile": 5,
    "language": "auto",
    "includeSegments": true
}

Output

{
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZn_a_tsZDj/",
    "shortcode": "DZn_a_tsZDj",
    "ownerUsername": "hubermanlab",
    "ownerFullName": "Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.",
    "caption": "PROTOCOLS: An Operating Manual for the Human Body ...",
    "postedAt": "2026-06-15T23:35:22.000Z",
    "durationSec": 55.12,
    "viewCount": 965222,
    "playCount": null,
    "likeCount": 133940,
    "commentCount": 2661,
    "language": "en",
    "transcript": "...",
    "wordCount": 148,
    "segments": [{ "start": 0, "end": 4.6, "text": "..." }],
    "noSpeech": false,
    "chargedReels": 1,
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://...",
    "input": "DZn_a_tsZDj",
    "error": null,
    "transcribedAt": "2026-10-23T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML from the run page, or fetch it with the Apify API.

Tips

• Turn off Timestamped segments if you only need the text; the full transcript is still returned.
• A language hint helps with short reels and with mixed-language speech. Transcripts stay in the spoken language; nothing is translated.
• For a whole account, use Usernames: Instagram shows logged-out visitors an account's 12 newest reels, so up to 12 per profile.
• Set a maximum cost per run in the run options; the Actor stops cleanly when it is reached.

Use it with AI agents (MCP)

Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client this Actor as a tool through Apify's MCP server: add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=tenfoldfleet/instagram-reels-transcript as a remote MCP server and sign in with your Apify account. The agent fills in the input, runs the Actor and reads the transcripts itself; you pay the same per-event price as a normal run.

FAQ

Do I need an Instagram account, cookies or a login?

No. The Actor only reads public reels the way a logged-out visitor sees them. It never logs in.

Which languages are supported?

The Whisper speech model knows about 100 languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Indonesian, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The language field tells you what was detected.

What happens with reels that only have music?

A reel with only instrumental music, sound effects or silence normally returns noSpeech: true and is free. The Actor also removes the filler phrases speech models tend to invent on silent or musical stretches, such as a lone "Thank you." Sung lyrics are words to a speech model, so a reel whose audio is a song with vocals can come back with the lyrics as its transcript.

How accurate are the transcripts?

They are made by AI speech recognition (Whisper) and are usually close to word for word on clear speech, with punctuation. Heavy music, crosstalk, strong accents or very noisy audio can cause mistakes, and timestamps are approximate (within about a second).

Can it transcribe private or age-restricted reels?

No. Those need a logged-in account, so they come back as free rows with an error.

Is it legal to transcribe Instagram reels?

The Actor only processes publicly available content. You are responsible for how you use the transcripts: respect copyright, Instagram's terms and privacy laws such as the GDPR, and don't use personal data without a legitimate reason. If unsure, ask a lawyer.

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