TikTok Profile Scraper (Pay Per Result)

Scrape TikTok profiles by username and get the complete author block — followers, bio, bio link, verified badge, TikTok Shop seller flag and seller category, avatar, account region — plus the latest posts with full metadata (stats, music, hashtags, mentions, subtitles, CDN URLs). No proxy setup needed. You pay only per result.

~1,000 profiles in under 5 minutes, guaranteed row coverage — including restricted accounts other scrapers return nothing for.

Why this scraper

	This scraper	Typical pay-per-result profile scrapers
Price per 1,000 results	$0.75	$2.00+
Proxies needed	None — fully built in	Varies
Handles that don't resolve	Explicit error row per handle	Row silently missing
Restricted-account recovery	Yes — usually returned as a full profile row	No — nothing returned
Batch size	Up to 1,000 handles per run	Varies

• 🔁 Drop-in compatible input & output with the popular TikTok profile scrapers: profiles, resultsPerPage, download flags — and the same authorMeta item shape.
• 🛍️ Commerce fields included: authorMeta.ttSeller and authorMeta.commerceUserInfo.category distinguish an actual TikTok Shop store from a creator who merely sells something.
• 📇 One item per requested handle — guaranteed. Unresolvable handles produce an explicit {"input": "...", "error": "not_found"} item instead of a silently missing row.
• 🔓 Restricted-account recovery: handles that TikTok withholds profile data for are usually recovered automatically into a full profile row. In one real production batch, recovery resolved 10 of 79 otherwise-restricted handles.
• 🪶 Profile-only mode: set resultsPerPage: 0 to skip posts entirely and get one compact item per handle with just the author block — the cheapest and fastest way to bulk-resolve profile metadata.

Quickstart

1. Open the actor in Apify Console and paste your handles into TikTok profiles.
2. Set Posts per profile (resultsPerPage) — use 0 for the cheapest profile-only mode, or 1+ to include the latest posts.
3. Click Start and export the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, …) when the run finishes.

All three handle forms are accepted and mean the same profile:

{
    "profiles": [
        "apifyoffice",
        "@apifyoffice",
        "https://www.tiktok.com/@apifyoffice"
    ],
    "resultsPerPage": 1
}

Duplicates are deduplicated case-insensitively before scraping, so the input above scrapes apifyoffice exactly once — you are never billed twice for the same handle in one run.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
profiles	array	required	Up to 1,000 unique handles per run — exceeding 1,000 fails input validation. Bare handles, @handle, and full profile URLs all accepted; duplicates removed case-insensitively.
resultsPerPage	integer	1	Latest posts per profile. 0 = profile-only mode (cheapest) — one compact item per handle, no posts fetched. Maximum 3000; out-of-range values are clamped to 0–3000.
excludePinnedPosts	boolean	false	Filter pinned posts out of the results.
oldestPostDate	string	—	Only return posts created on/after this ISO date (e.g. 2024-01-01). Invalid values are silently ignored (no filter applied).
profileScrapeSections	array	["videos"]	Only ["videos"] is supported; other sections are ignored with a warning.
profileSorting	string	"latest"	Only "latest" (newest-first) is supported.
shouldDownloadVideos, shouldDownloadCovers, shouldDownloadSlideshowImages, shouldDownloadAvatars, shouldDownloadMusicCovers, downloadSubtitlesOptions	—	no-op	Compatibility no-ops. Media is never downloaded. Cover, slideshow image, music, subtitle and avatar CDN URLs are included; video files are reachable via webVideoUrl (the TikTok post page). mediaUrls is always []. This is what keeps the per-result price low.

Output

Post item

One dataset item per post, with the author block nested under authorMeta:

{
    "id": "7623273873403809054",
    "text": "Post caption ...",
    "createTimeISO": "2026-03-31T04:36:16.000Z",
    "authorMeta": {
        "id": "6809214858661659653",
        "name": "lilianalazarin",
        "profileUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/@lilianalazarin",
        "nickName": "Liliana Valeria",
        "verified": false,
        "signature": "dental • fitness • travel ...",
        "bioLink": "https://beacons.ai/lilianalazarin",
        "avatar": "https://p16-common-sign.tiktokcdn-us.com/...",
        "commerceUserInfo": { "commerceUser": false },
        "privateAccount": false,
        "region": null,
        "ttSeller": false,
        "following": 630,
        "friends": 48,
        "fans": 43700,
        "heart": 1600000,
        "video": 2558
    },
    "musicMeta": { "musicName": "original sound", "musicId": "..." },
    "webVideoUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/@lilianalazarin/video/7623273873403809054",
    "videoMeta": { "height": 1280, "width": 720, "duration": 117, "coverUrl": "..." },
    "diggCount": 3156,
    "playCount": 37600,
    "hashtags": [{ "name": "higienistadental" }],
    "isPinned": true,
    "mediaUrls": [],
    "input": "lilianalazarin",
    "fromProfileSection": "videos"
}

Profile-only item

In profile-only mode (resultsPerPage: 0) — and for resolved profiles whose posts are unavailable (private account, zero posts) — the item carries the full author block with id: null. A profileScrapeNote field is added when there is something worth knowing:

{
    "id": null,
    "text": null,
    "authorMeta": {
        "id": "6809214858661659653",
        "name": "lilianalazarin",
        "profileUrl": "https://www.tiktok.com/@lilianalazarin",
        "fans": 43700,
        "verified": false,
        "privateAccount": true
    },
    "input": "lilianalazarin",
    "fromProfileSection": null,
    "profileScrapeNote": "private account — posts are not accessible"
}

Error items

Handles that cannot be resolved still produce exactly one row:

{
    "input": "deleted_user_123",
    "error": "not_found",
    "errorDescription": "Profile @deleted_user_123 not found — deleted or never existed."
}

error	Meaning	Should you retry?
not_found	Profile deleted or never existed.	No — terminal.
suspended	Profile suspended or banned by TikTok.	No — terminal.
restricted	Profile exists but TikTok withholds its data.	Usually recovered automatically into a real profile row before you ever see this; a remaining restricted row may resolve on a later retry.
blocked	Temporary fetch block.	Yes — transient, retry the run.
error	Unexpected technical failure.	Yes — transient, retry the run.

Notes on media & fields

• Media is never downloaded. Cover, slideshow image, music, subtitle and avatar CDN URLs are included; video files are reachable via webVideoUrl (the TikTok post page). mediaUrls is always [].
• CDN links expire. Avatar and cover URLs are signed and short-lived — download them promptly if you need the files. webVideoUrl and profileUrl are permanent links.
• authorMeta.region is currently usually null — TikTok rarely exposes it. All other author fields are populated whenever the profile resolves.

Pricing: what counts as a result

$0.75 per 1,000 dataset items. Every item pushed to the dataset is one paid result.

• 1,000 handles in profile-only mode (resultsPerPage: 0) ≈ 1,000 items ≈ $0.75.
• 1,000 handles with resultsPerPage: 5 ≈ 5,000 items ≈ $3.75.

Honest disclosure: explicit error rows (not_found, suspended, …) are dataset items too and are billed like any other result — that is the price of guaranteed one-row-per- handle coverage, and it is factored into the low per-result rate.

Run status contract

• SUCCEEDED — the batch was processed. not_found, suspended, and restricted rows are a normal part of a successful run; they do not count as failures.
• FAILED — more than 20% of requested handles hit technical failures (blocked/error), or zero items were produced at all.

Automated callers should retry the whole batch on any non-SUCCEEDED status, and on SUCCEEDED can rely on exactly one row per unique requested handle.

Switching from another TikTok profile scraper

Keep your input JSON as-is — the keys are 1:1 (profiles, resultsPerPage, excludePinnedPosts, oldestPostDate, download flags), and the output item shape (authorMeta, videoMeta, musicMeta, stats fields) matches. The honest delta list:

• No media downloads — CDN URLs and webVideoUrl are returned instead (mediaUrls is always []).
• Only the videos profile section is scraped (profileScrapeSections other values are ignored).
• Only latest sorting is supported.
• authorMeta.region is currently usually null.

Integrations

Run via API with curl:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/xmolodtsov~tiktok-profile-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"profiles": ["apifyoffice"], "resultsPerPage": 1}'

Or with the Apify JavaScript client:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor('xmolodtsov/tiktok-profile-scraper').call({
    profiles: ['apifyoffice', '@nike', 'https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktok'],
    resultsPerPage: 0, // profile-only mode — cheapest
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Datasets export to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, JSONL, RSS and HTML from the Console or API. Use Apify Schedules to re-scrape the same handle list hourly/daily, and webhooks to push finished runs into your pipeline.

FAQ

Do I need proxies? No. Everything is built in — leave proxyConfiguration empty.

Where is the follower count? authorMeta.fans. Following is authorMeta.following, total likes authorMeta.heart, video count authorMeta.video.

What happens with restricted or banned accounts? Banned/suspended accounts return an explicit suspended row. Restricted accounts (profile exists but TikTok withholds the data) are usually recovered automatically into a full profile row — a tail other scrapers simply drop.

Do the CDN links expire? Yes — avatar and cover URLs are signed and short-lived, so download them promptly. webVideoUrl and profileUrl are permanent tiktok.com links.

How fast is it? Measured at ~264 profiles in 66 seconds — roughly 1,000 profiles in under 5 minutes.

Is this legal? The actor only collects publicly available data — no login, no private content. You are responsible for using the data in compliance with TikTok's terms and applicable law (e.g. GDPR when processing personal data).