Instagram Scraper API

Extract Instagram profiles, posts, reels, comments, and search results with one API

Send a username, user ID, keyword, or Instagram URL. Get structured JSON back without managing Instagram sessions, cookies, or app review.

What this actually means

You sign up for ScrapingBot, get an API key, call our Instagram endpoint, and receive public Instagram data in JSON. No Instagram login required.

No Instagram login
Usage-based pricing
Structured JSON responses
Docs and playground included

100 free credits to test the full flow. No credit card required.

first-request.sh
Exact request shape
# Look up a public Instagram profile
curl -X POST "https://scrapingbot.io/api/v1/instagram" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "endpoint": "/user/by_username",
    "params": {
      "username": "nike"
    }
  }'
Typical fields returned
{
  "id": "1506607755",
  "username": "nike",
  "followers": 306000000,
  "is_verified": true,
  "biography": "Just Do It"
}
@

Username

Profile lookups

URL

Post link

Media details

ID

User / media ID

Deeper queries

Q

Keyword

Search users, hashtags, places

Returns structured JSON with
Profiles & followers Posts, reels & tagged media Comments Pagination built in

How It Works

From signup to first Instagram response in a few minutes

The flow is simple: create your account, copy your API key, choose an endpoint, and send a username or Instagram URL.

1

Create your free account

Sign up once and get 100 free credits immediately. No credit card required just to test the API.

2

Choose the input you already have

Use a username, user ID, keyword, post URL, or media shortcode depending on what you want to fetch.

3

Receive JSON and build on top

Plug the response into dashboards, automations, CRMs, analytics pipelines, or research workflows.

Free trial: Start with 100 free credits so you can validate the integration end-to-end before upgrading.

Endpoints

What you can extract from Instagram

Use the same request pattern across profile lookups, media details, reels, comments, and search.

Profile lookups

Resolve a public account by username or ID and get biography, profile image, verification, follower counts, and business metadata.

/user/by_username

User posts

Pull a user's recent feed posts with captions, timestamps, engagement metrics, and pagination cursors for the next page.

/medias/by_user_id

Reels

Fetch a creator's reels with video metadata, engagement information, and the pagination values you need for larger pulls.

/reels/by_user_id

Post or reel by URL

Send a public Instagram post or reel URL to retrieve media details without first converting the URL yourself.

/media/by_url

Comments

Extract comment text, author details, timestamps, and engagement signals for moderation, analysis, or monitoring workflows.

/comments/media_comments_by_id

Search and discovery

Search users, hashtags, and places by keyword to power discovery tools, prospecting workflows, and trend monitoring.

/search/users_by_keyword

Need endpoint-by-endpoint details? Read the documentation or the full Instagram scraping guide.

Typical Workflow

The common Instagram integration pattern

Most customers start with a profile lookup, reuse the returned user ID, then paginate through posts, reels, or tagged media.

Step 1

Resolve the account

Call /user/by_username with a public username like nike.

The response gives you the profile details and the user ID you will reuse for post and reel queries.

Step 2

Pull the content you need

Use the returned user ID with /medias/by_user_id or /reels/by_user_id.

If you only have a post or reel link, send it directly to /media/by_url.

Step 3

Paginate and store

Use page_info.end_cursor or paging_info.max_id to fetch additional pages.

This is the step where teams push the JSON into databases, dashboards, enrichment jobs, or alerting systems.

Good for monitoring

Track creators, brands, hashtags, or media URLs on a schedule.

Good for analytics

Store engagement metrics and content metadata over time.

Good for MVPs

Validate your product with the free credits before you scale usage.

Why ScrapingBot

Skip the hardest part of Instagram scraping

The painful part is rarely calling an endpoint. It is the ongoing maintenance: authentication walls, changing internal requests, brittle parsing, and blocked scraping setups. ScrapingBot lets you focus on the product you are building instead.

Build and maintain it yourself

  • Handle Instagram sessions, cookies, and fragile login flows on your own.
  • Maintain parsers when internal requests or response shapes change.
  • Spend engineering time on scraping infrastructure instead of your actual product.
  • Debug blocked requests and inconsistent output before you can ship value.

Use ScrapingBot instead

  • Use one consistent request pattern across profile, media, comments, reels, and search.
  • Work with structured JSON rather than reverse engineering Instagram responses yourself.
  • Test with free credits, docs, and the dashboard playground before committing engineering time.
  • Move from evaluation to production faster because the API is already packaged for developers.

Use Cases

What people build with this

The API is flexible enough for internal tools, client work, and productized SaaS workflows.

Influencer discovery

Pull creator profiles, compare engagement, and shortlist accounts that fit specific categories or audience sizes.

Brand and UGC monitoring

Watch tagged media, hashtags, or comments to surface brand mentions and user-generated content faster.

Competitor tracking

Monitor how often competitors post, what formats they use, and which content patterns are getting traction.

Dashboards and pipelines

Push Instagram data into your BI tools, spreadsheets, warehouses, alerts, or customer-facing products.

Pricing

Start free, then scale when the use case proves out

Start with free credits, then move to a larger plan once the workflow is validated and ready to scale.

Free

$0

100 credits

Free trial included

  • All Instagram endpoints available
  • Playground and documentation included
  • No credit card required
Start Free

Starter

$49 /month

275,000 credits

Built for early production use

  • Ideal for early production usage
  • Use credits across all ScrapingBot APIs
  • Email support
Get Started

Pro

$249 /month

3,300,000 credits

Built for larger-scale usage

  • Built for heavier recurring workloads
  • Works for multi-client or multi-market usage
  • Dedicated support
Choose Pro

Credits work across Instagram, TikTok, Google, website scraping, and the rest of the ScrapingBot platform.

FAQ

Questions people ask before signing up

Do I need an Instagram account, cookies, or a logged-in session?

No. You sign up for ScrapingBot and use your ScrapingBot API key. For public Instagram data, you do not need to manage an Instagram login in your integration.

What inputs can I send to the API?

Depending on the endpoint, you can send usernames, user IDs, Instagram post or reel URLs, media IDs, shortcodes, and search keywords for users, hashtags, or places.

How much can I test before paying?

New accounts get 100 free credits so you can verify the workflow before you upgrade.

Can I paginate through posts, reels, or larger result sets?

Yes. The API returns pagination data such as page_info.end_cursor and paging_info.max_id so you can continue fetching additional pages.

Where do I start right after signup?

Start in the Instagram playground in your dashboard if you want to test visually, or go straight to the docs if you want to code immediately. Both are available as soon as you create the account.

Get your API key and test Instagram scraping today

The fastest way to see if ScrapingBot fits your use case is to create the free account, make a few requests, and inspect the JSON yourself.

100 free credits. No credit card required. Dashboard playground included.