Instagram Trends — Trending Keywords, Post Counts & Rising Profiles

Instagram publishes its own Trends board at instagram.com/popular. This Actor returns the whole board as data in a single run, with no login:

• Trending keywords, each with its rank, how many posts Instagram holds for it, a thumbnail and a featured reel.
• Rising profiles ("Profiles to look out for"), each with follower count and verified badge.
• Categories people browse, plus themed boards: pop culture, get inspired, learn something new, and shop the trends.

The full board is about 400 ranked entries across 8 sections. Optionally, the Actor also collects the top public posts for every trending keyword.

What you can use it for

• Content and social teams: catch a trend on day one, with the top reels already making it.
• Brands and agencies: a daily feed of what's rising for briefs, newsjacking and ad angles.
• Influencer scouts: Instagram's own list of rising profiles, with follower counts.
• Analysts: run it on a schedule and track each keyword's rank and post count over time.

Input

Field	What it does
sections	Which parts of the board to return (default: all 8).
postsPerKeyword	Also collect this many top posts for each trending keyword (0–60, default 0).
newerThan	With postsPerKeyword: only posts after a date or within a period (7 days).
maxItems	Hard cap on rows, counting trend entries and posts (default 1,000).

{ "sections": ["TRENDING_NOW"], "postsPerKeyword": 3 }

Output

There is one row per board entry. These examples come from a real run on 2026-09-26:

{
  "dataType": "trend",
  "section": "TRENDING_NOW",
  "sectionTitle": "Trending now",
  "rank": 1,
  "kind": "keyword",
  "keyword": "noreaster",
  "postCount": 1220294,
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/popular/noreaster/",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://scontent…",
  "featuredReel": { "code": "DVG4tppAeQ0", "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVG4tppAeQ0/", "videoUrl": "https://scontent…" },
  "profile": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-26T…"
}

{
  "dataType": "trend",
  "section": "CELEBRITIES",
  "sectionTitle": "Profiles to look out for",
  "rank": 1,
  "kind": "profile",
  "keyword": null,
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com/cindycrawford/",
  "profile": { "id": "177759908", "username": "cindycrawford", "fullName": "Cindy Crawford", "followerCount": 8266172, "isVerified": true, "profilePicUrl": "https://scontent…" }
}

The eight sections are Trending now, What's happening now, Pop culture moments, Profiles to look out for, Find what you're into (categories), Get inspired, Learn something new, and Shop the trends.

With postsPerKeyword, the trend rows come first. They're followed by post rows (likes, comments, plays, caption, media, creator) whose source is { "type": "trend", "keyword": …, "section": … }.

Pricing

$1.90 per 1,000 rows ($0.0019 each), with volume discounts by Apify plan. A row is one board entry or one post. These are the same prices as yugenox/instagram-scraper.

Your Apify plan (discount tier)	Per row	Per 1,000 rows
Free (FREE)	$0.0019	$1.90
Starter (BRONZE)	$0.0019	$1.90
Scale (SILVER)	$0.0015	$1.50
Business (GOLD)	$0.0011	$1.10
Enterprise (PLATINUM)	$0.0008	$0.80
Enterprise (DIAMOND)	$0.0006	$0.60

• Examples (Free and Starter prices): a full board snapshot of about 400 rows costs about $0.76. Adding 3 posts for each of the 50 "Trending now" keywords adds 150 rows, or $0.29.
• There is no start fee, and your spending limit is respected up front.
• Free Apify plans are limited to 100 rows per run, so a full board needs a paid plan. "Trending now" alone (50 rows) fits.
• The pricing tab also lists transcript-minute and creator-report. Those are optional add-ons of the shared engine, and trend runs never use them.

How it compares

	This Actor	s-r / Instagram Trending Scraper	agentx / Instagram Trending Scraper	khadinakbar / Trending Reels
Source	Instagram's own Trends board, all 8 sections	Instagram trending topics	Explore feed by country	Trending reels sample
Rising profiles with follower counts	Yes (Instagram's own list)	Creators behind topics	No	No
Keyword post counts	Yes	Reel counts	No	No
Top posts per trend in the same run	Yes (0–60)	No	Yes (posts)	Yes (reels)
Price	$0.0019 per row ($0.0006 on the top tier)	$0.002 per topic	$0.0039 per result + $0.01 start	$0.005 per reel

Prices are from the Apify Store listings on 2026-09-26, at Free-plan rates.

FAQ

Is the board different per country? No. Instagram's Trends board is global, and it was the same list from the US, India and the UK when we checked. The posts under each keyword come from all over the world.

How often does it change? "Trending now" moves within hours. "What's happening now" covers roughly the month. For a time series, schedule the Actor daily or hourly and compare rank and postCount.

Why do some keywords have no postCount? Instagram doesn't show a count for every entry, including category entries.

Do I need an Instagram account? No. The Trends board and keyword pages are public.

Is it legal to scrape Instagram? This Actor only collects publicly available data: posts, reels and profiles from public Instagram accounts, which anyone can see without logging in. Collecting publicly available data is generally legal, but you're responsible for how you use it. Results can include usernames, profile details, captions and comments from public accounts, and that counts as personal data. You must follow privacy laws such as GDPR, PIPEDA and CCPA, as well as Instagram's terms. If you're unsure, check with a lawyer. More on this: Is web scraping legal?

If you contact profiles you find here, anti-spam laws apply: CASL in Canada, CAN-SPAM in the US, and GDPR/ePrivacy in the EU.

Does it access any private data? No. Everything comes from pages Instagram shows to any visitor without logging in. It never uses a login, never touches private or restricted accounts, and never reaches password-protected areas. Private accounts are never accessed.

Use it from code, n8n, Make or an AI agent

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/yugenox~instagram-trends-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"sections":["TRENDING_NOW"]}'

• n8n / Make: use the Apify node, choose "Run Actor and get dataset items" and pick yugenox/instagram-trends-scraper. Schedule it daily to post trends to Slack or a Google Sheet.
• MCP (Claude, Cursor and others): add https://mcp.apify.com?actors=yugenox/instagram-trends-scraper as an MCP server, then ask "what's trending on Instagram today?"

More Instagram tools

• Instagram Scraper: posts, reels, profiles, hashtags, locations and audio.
• Instagram Comments Scraper: every public comment, top comments first.
• Instagram Reels Transcript: spoken words of reels as text, $0.004 per minute.
• Instagram Influencer Analytics: median reel plays, engagement and brand deals per creator.