Instagram Post Comments Scraper

Pull all public comments from any Instagram post, reel, or IGTV in bulk — comment text, author, like count, reply count, timestamp — with automatic pagination through hundreds of comments. No login or API key required.

Why use this actor

• No account / no login required — just give it a shortcode or post URL.
• Far beyond the 12-comment web preview — paginates through the full comments section via cursor, so you can pull hundreds or thousands of comments per post.
• Bulk input — pass a list of posts in one run; each comment streams in as its own dataset row, tagged with the post shortcode for easy joining.
• Stable JSON output — every row carries _input, _mediaId, _source, and _scrapedAt envelope fields so you can join results back to your input list.
• Rich author info — comment author username, full name, verified status, and profile picture URL included inline.
• Datacenter proxy friendly — works from cheap DC IPs, no residential proxy needed.
• Automatic retries — transient failures retry with exponential backoff; private posts or deleted posts return structured _error records.

How it works

1. You provide a list of Instagram posts (shortcode like DYSM8J5yzSj or full URL like https://www.instagram.com/p/DYSM8J5yzSj/).
2. The actor decodes each shortcode to its internal media ID, then walks the post's comments via cursor pagination, streaming each comment as its own dataset row.
3. Pagination stops when maxComments is reached or the post runs out of comments.

You do not need to manage scrapers, browsers, or rotating IPs — all handled internally.

Input

{
  "posts": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/p/DYSM8J5yzSj/",
    "DYP-BHSPCfn"
  ],
  "maxComments": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["DATACENTER"]
  }
}

Field	Type	Description
posts	array	List of Instagram posts. Each entry can be a shortcode (e.g. DYSM8J5yzSj) or a full URL on /p/, /reel/, or /tv/. Bulk input is supported.
maxComments	integer	Max top-level comments per post. Pagination is automatic. Default 50. Set to 0 for unlimited (walks the entire comments section).
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy settings. Datacenter proxy works fine.

Output

Input: DYSM8J5yzSj

One dataset row per comment:

{
  "_input": "DYSM8J5yzSj",
  "_mediaId": "3896233537988932771",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T18:27:08.557199+00:00",
  "id": "18125377714533878",
  "text": "Incredible!",
  "createdAt": 1779128299,
  "likeCount": 0,
  "replyCount": null,
  "hasMoreHeadChildren": null,
  "user": {
    "id": "80110440628",
    "username": "canadianstudentliving",
    "fullName": null,
    "isVerified": false,
    "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-19/..."
  }
}

Field	Type	Description
_input	string	The post shortcode or URL exactly as you supplied it.
_mediaId	string	Instagram's internal media ID (decoded from the shortcode). Stable; use it to join comments to a post detail record.
_source	string	Internal tag for the path used (S1-primary).
_scrapedAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp when this comment was scraped.
id	string	Comment's stable numeric ID.
text	string	The comment body. Plain text including emojis (no HTML).
createdAt	integer	Unix epoch seconds when the comment was posted.
likeCount	integer	Number of likes the comment has received.
replyCount	integer|null	Number of replies to this comment. null when not exposed by Instagram.
hasMoreHeadChildren	boolean|null	true if Instagram has trimmed nested replies (more available than shown).
user	object	Comment author profile: id, username, fullName, isVerified, profilePicUrl.

Error envelope

Posts that don't exist, are private, or fail to fetch return a structured error instead of crashing the run:

{
  "_input": "https://www.instagram.com/p/this-does-not-exist/",
  "_mediaId": "0",
  "_error": "fetch_failed",
  "_errorDetail": "NotFound graphql PolarisPostCommentsContainerQuery",
  "_source": "S1-primary",
  "_scrapedAt": "2026-05-18T18:30:00.000000+00:00"
}

_error value	When
invalid_input	The shortcode could not be parsed from the input string.
fetch_failed	The post does not exist, is private, or Instagram rate-limited the request. Retry with proxy rotation.

Pricing

This actor is billed per result: $6.00 per 1,000 comments (Tier 4 — Instagram requires warm-page token harvesting and the GraphQL query ID rotates every 2–4 weeks, so the actor needs active maintenance). Each comment returned = 1 result. Error envelope records are not billed.

Other Sosmed Actors

Platform	Actor	Best for
Instagram	Instagram Post Detail Scraper	The post itself — caption, media URLs, like count, owner
Instagram	Instagram Account Scraper	Profile metadata for an IG handle
Instagram	Instagram Account Posts Scraper	Paginated post timeline for a user
YouTube	YouTube Video Comments Scraper	Comments tree for any YouTube video
Reddit	Reddit Post Detail Scraper	Reddit post body + comment thread
Facebook	Facebook Post Detail Scraper	FB post text + reactions + share counts
Threads	Threads Account Replies Scraper	A user's reply chain on Threads

Browse the full catalog at apify.com/xtracto.

Notes

• Top-level comments only. Each row is a top-level comment. The replyCount field tells you how many replies a comment has, but the replies themselves are not flattened into the dataset.
• Pagination is automatic via Instagram's cursor. The actor stops when it hits maxComments or the post has no more comments.
• Rate limiting. Heavy concurrent runs against one IP can trigger Instagram's anti-abuse. Use Apify Proxy and keep concurrency modest (≤ 5 parallel posts) for best reliability.
• Private posts return _error: "fetch_failed". The actor cannot bypass account privacy settings.
• Deleted posts return the same error envelope. Filter on _error to triage failures.
• Comments disabled posts return zero rows (no error). If you got 0 comments on a known-popular post, the author likely disabled comments.
• Counters are eventually-consistent. Like counts on individual comments may lag the live UI by a few minutes.