Picking an Instagram data API is mostly a question of shape, not quality. Some tools bill per result and shine on huge batch jobs. Some bill per request and suit tight lookup loops. Some sell a monthly plan with a daily allowance. And Meta's own API only really works for accounts your users own.

We build one of the options below, so read this with that in mind. We've tried to be straight about where each tool, ours included, is the better or worse fit. Every competitor price here comes from that company's own pricing page, checked in September 2026. Prices change, so confirm before you commit.

What should you compare?

Five things decide whether an Instagram API works for your project:

Whose data you can read. Your own accounts, other business accounts, or any public profile.
Coverage. Profiles and posts are table stakes. Comments, followers, reels, hashtags and stories separate the tools.
Billing unit. Per result, per request, per credit or per daily unit. The same job can cost 10x more on the wrong model.
What failures cost. Some providers bill any response, including not-found. Others bill only successful data.
Output shape. Raw platform JSON you have to map, or a normalised schema you can reuse across platforms.

Instagram data APIs at a glance

API	Model	Entry price (as of September 2026)	Reads any public profile	Other platforms
Instagram Graph API (Meta)	Free, app-based	Free	No, professional accounts only	Meta only
InsightSocial API	Credits per endpoint	Free 500 credits/mo; Pro $9.99/mo	Yes	9 platforms
Apify Instagram Scraper	Pay per result	$2.70 per 1,000 results on free plan	Yes	Many, via separate actors
Bright Data Instagram Scraper	Pay per record	$1.50 per 1,000 records	Yes	Many
HikerAPI	Pay per request	From $0.0006 per request	Yes	Instagram only
EnsembleData	Monthly plan, daily units	$100/mo for 1,500 units/day	Yes	8 platforms
Data365	Monthly plan, credits	€300/mo for 500,000 credits	Yes	Several

1. Instagram Graph API (Meta's official API)

Best for: apps that manage their users' own business or creator accounts.

The official Instagram Platform requires your app's users to have a professional account, and you act on their behalf through OAuth. Within that scope it's excellent: insights, publishing, comment moderation, messaging, all free and fully sanctioned.

Reading other people's data is where it stops. Business Discovery returns public metrics such as follower and media counts for other professional accounts, but not personal or age-gated ones, and you can't then fetch those media objects directly. Hashtag search needs App Review and is limited to 30 unique hashtags per account in a rolling 7-day window. The general rate limit scales with the account's reach: 4,800 calls per 24 hours times the account's impressions (as of September 2026).

There's no endpoint for another account's followers, or for comments on posts you don't own. If your product analyses accounts you don't control, you'll need one of the third-party options below.

2. InsightSocial API

Best for: developers who want Instagram plus other platforms under one key, at small to mid volume, with predictable per-call pricing.

This is ours. The InsightSocial API covers 38 Instagram endpoints: profiles, posts, reels, single posts with stats, comments and replies, followers and following, hashtag, location and keyword search, stories, highlights, tagged posts, audio and transcripts. The same key reaches TikTok, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, Reddit and Pinterest, and every platform returns the same post, author and comment shape.

Pricing is per endpoint in credits. An Instagram profile or single post is 20 credits. Follower pages are 100–200 and comment pages 100–380. The metered endpoints hold their ceiling and settle what the call actually used. The endpoint pricing table lists every one. The free plan includes 500 credits a month plus 10 free calls. Pro is $9.99/month ($7.99 billed yearly) for 10,000 credits, which works out to about $0.001 a credit, so a profile lookup costs about 2 cents.

What we do well:

You don't pay for misses. Failed calls and empty results cost 0. Re-running the exact same call inside its window (1 to 24 hours, depending on the endpoint) is free. A shared-cache hit costs 5 credits.
Built for code and agents. GET /v1/endpoints is a public, free catalogue with prices, and there's a guide for AI agents.
One balance with the Chrome extension. Teammates who don't code can pull the same data with the Instagram scraper extension.

Where we're not the best pick: for very large batch jobs, the per-result tools below come out cheaper per row. Pro's 10,000 credits a month suits auditing accounts or monitoring a few hundred creators. It doesn't suit pulling millions of records. Credit packs top you up to 25,000 at a time, but at that volume, compare against Bright Data and Apify. Each key allows 60 requests a minute and 10 in flight. The Instagram scraping API guide shows the code and a costed example job.

3. Apify Instagram Scraper

Best for: batch jobs where you want a managed scraper and pay only for what comes out.

Apify's Instagram Scraper actor bills per result, where a result is one post, reel, comment, profile, hashtag or place. As of September 2026 it's $2.70 per 1,000 results on the free plan, falling to $2.30 on Starter, $1.90 on Scale and $1.50 on Business. It covers posts, reels, comments, profiles, hashtags, places and mentions.

The actor model is the trade-off. You start a run, wait, and collect a dataset. That suits nightly exports well, and it's clunkier inside a request/response app. Apify has separate actors for other platforms, so output shapes vary between them.

4. Bright Data Instagram Scraper

Best for: high-volume, enterprise-grade collection with a monthly commitment.

Bright Data prices its Instagram scraper per record: $1.50 per 1,000 on pay-as-you-go, or $499/month for 384,000 records with overage at $1.30 per 1,000 (as of September 2026). New accounts get 5,000 free credits a month without a card. It charges only for successful deliveries and covers profiles, posts, reels and comments.

At scale this is one of the lowest per-record prices around, and it comes with proxy and unblocking infrastructure behind it. The cost is setup weight. It's a large platform built for data teams, and more than you need for a handful of lookups.

5. HikerAPI

Best for: Instagram-only products that make many small lookups.

HikerAPI is a pay-as-you-go Instagram specialist with 100+ endpoints across users, media, hashtags, locations, stories and search. As of September 2026 it starts at $0.0006 per request, with 100 free requests on signup and a prepaid balance that doesn't expire.

The per-request price is very low. Two things to watch: it bills successful responses including 403 and 404, so lookups for missing or private accounts still cost you. And it's Instagram only, so a second platform means a second integration.

6. EnsembleData

Best for: teams running steady daily volume across several platforms.

EnsembleData sells monthly plans with a daily unit allowance that resets at 00:00 UTC. As of September 2026, the entry Wood plan costs $100 a month and grants 1,500 units daily; the Platinum tier is $1,400 for 50,000 a day. There's a free trial at 50 units a day. Endpoints cost 1 to 10 units, and it covers eight platforms including Instagram.

Daily allowances suit a steady pipeline and punish bursty ones: units you don't use today don't roll over, and a one-off backfill can hit the daily cap.

7. Data365

Best for: larger organisations wanting a contracted social data feed.

Data365 prices by plan and number of networks. As of September 2026, Basic is €300/month for one network and 500,000 credits, and Standard is €850/month for three networks and 1,000,000 credits. There's a 14-day free trial. The entry price puts it firmly in the business-contract category rather than side-project territory.

Which Instagram data API should you choose?

If you need…	Look at
Insights and publishing for your users' own accounts	Instagram Graph API
Instagram plus other platforms in one schema, small to mid volume	InsightSocial
Millions of records per month	Bright Data or Apify's higher tiers
A cheap per-request Instagram lookup loop	HikerAPI
Steady daily volume on a fixed budget	EnsembleData
A contracted enterprise feed	Data365 or Bright Data
No code at all	The InsightSocial Chrome extension

A sensible way to decide: take one real job, such as 50 profiles with their last 30 posts and the comments on their top post, and price it on each tool's own model. Most offer a free tier or trial large enough to run it. On ours, check the credits docs and use dry_run=1 on metered endpoints to see the estimate before you spend anything.

FAQ

Can Meta's official API read any public Instagram profile?

Not in general. Meta's Instagram Platform works on professional accounts your app is authorised for. Business Discovery reads basic public metrics of other professional accounts, but not personal accounts, and it doesn't return follower lists or comments on others' posts.

What is the cheapest Instagram data API?

It depends on the unit. Per record at high volume, Bright Data ($1.30 to $1.50 per 1,000) and Apify's Business tier ($1.50 per 1,000) are the lowest here (as of September 2026). Per request, HikerAPI starts at $0.0006. For small jobs, a free tier is usually cheapest. InsightSocial's is 500 credits a month.

Which Instagram APIs give comments and followers?

InsightSocial, HikerAPI and Apify all offer comments, and InsightSocial and HikerAPI both offer follower lists. Bright Data covers comments. Meta's official API only returns comments on media your authorised account owns.

The third-party APIs here read public data, and none ask you to hand over an Instagram password. Meta's official API uses OAuth on the account owner's behalf.

Can I use one API for Instagram and TikTok?

Yes. InsightSocial, EnsembleData, Bright Data and Data365 cover several platforms. InsightSocial returns every platform in one unified schema, so one parser handles all of them. See the Instagram platform docs to start, and pricing for plans.