Instagram Comments Scraper: comments and reply threads

Which inputs and switches decide the bill?

A post costs $0.0075 to open, whichever of the two inputs you use, and 15 comments come inside that fee. Depth is set by two switches, and one of them is the only way on this actor to be billed for data you already hold.

• startUrls

  $0.0075per post

  15 comments included

  You have the links. Post, reel and video URLs all work.

  instagram.com/p/DC7Q4z5JPMX/

• postIds

  $0.0075per post

  15 comments included

  You have shortcodes in a database. Same price, one less thing to parse.

  DCKDRSpiy3b

• fetchReplies

  +$0.0075per comment with replies

  15 replies free per run

  Off by default. On, every comment that has replies fires another query before its thread is read.

  fetchReplies: true

• The switch that costs money

  continueOnDuplicates

  offleave it that way

  Duplicates bill at $0.0005

  Instagram tends to re-serve the same page of comments. Off, the run stops there. On, it keeps paying for what it already has.

  continueOnDuplicates: false

Every comment past the first 15 of a post costs $0.0005. maxItems is the hard spending limit, and the actor’s own formula for it is (budget − query cost) ÷ $0.0005.

Listed on Apify as Fast Instagram Comments Scraper API. Apidojo uses the short name.

Three ways to pull comments

There are 3 ways to run Instagram Comments Scraper: read one post’s comments, follow the reply threads underneath them, or watch many posts at once inside the free fifteen each one includes.

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/p/DC7Q4z5JPMX/"],
  "fetchReplies": false,
  "maxItems": 1000
}

{
  "type": "comment",
  "id": "17919079491232885",
  "postId": "DS5IfIWDTHk",
  "message": "😍",
  "createdAt": "2025-12-30T15:37:46.000Z",
  "likeCount": 3,
  "replyCount": 0,
  "isRanked": true,
  "user": {
    "username": "beah_us",
    "fullName": "Beatriz Macedo",
    "isVerified": true,
    "isPrivate": false
  }
}

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZIh4qTIURK/"],
  "fetchReplies": true,
  "maxItems": 500
}

{
  "type": "reply",
  "id": "18093151901211540",
  "commentId": "18088658141574216",
  "message": "Link please",
  "createdAt": "2026-06-20T11:17:17.000Z",
  "likeCount": 0,
  "hasReply": false,
  "user": {
    "username": "ncruse1",
    "fullName": "Kita",
    "isVerified": false,
    "isPrivate": true
  }
}

{
  "postIds": [
    "DCKDRSpiy3b", "DC7Q4z5JPMX", "DS5IfIWDTHk"
  ],
  "fetchReplies": false,
  "maxItems": 45
}

{
  "inputSource": "https://www.instagram.com/p/DS5IfIWDTHk",
  "postId": "DS5IfIWDTHk",
  "type": "comment",
  "message": "when is the restock",
  "likeCount": 3,
  "replyCount": 2
}

What is in a comment record?

Two record types come back, and they differ by two fields. A comment hangs off a postId; a reply hangs off a commentId and carries hasReply. Everything else, the message, the engagement and the commenter, is identical.

• 7

  The comment

  type: "comment"

  • id, postId
  • message
  • createdAt
  • likeCount, replyCount
  • isRanked
  • inputSource, which post

• 8

  The reply

  type: "reply", with fetchReplies on

  • id, commentId
  • message
  • createdAt
  • likeCount, replyCount
  • hasReply
  • isRanked, inputSource

• 6

  The commenter

  user, on both types

  • user.username, user.id
  • user.fullName
  • user.profilePicUrl
  • user.isVerified
  • user.isPrivate

Reshape any of these with customMapFunction, a JavaScript function that receives one object and returns one object. Rename, compute, drop a field, but never use it to discard records, which triggers automatic bans.

What decides the size of the bill?

Six rules decide what a run returns and what it costs. Two are switches you set, and the rest come from Instagram.

• 01

  Leave continueOnDuplicates off

  Instagram tends to serve the same page of comments repeatedly after the first. The actor detects that and stops, which is what keeps the dataset clean. Turned on, it keeps paginating and you pay $0.0005 for each redundant comment. It is a last-resort fallback, not a completeness setting.

• 02

  Replies cost a query each, and the free fifteen is per run

  Every comment with replies fires another $0.0075 query. Fifteen replies are included across the whole run, not fifteen per thread, the event table reads the other way, but the actor’s own worked example bills 25 of 40.

• 03

  Fifteen free comments is per post, not per run

  Ten posts carry 150 included comments between them. That is what makes wide, shallow monitoring nearly free and deep single-post extraction the thing you budget for.

• 04

  Public posts only

  No login and no cookies, so private accounts and restricted posts return nothing. Check the post in a logged-out window first.

• 05

  Both inputs cost the same

  startUrls and postIds are $0.0075 either way. Choose on what your data already looks like: links or shortcodes.

• 06

  customMapFunction must not filter

  It transforms each record. Using it to drop records can trigger automatic bans.

Free Apify accounts get 5 runs a month, capped at 10 items each.

What does a comments run cost?

A run costs $0.0075 per post plus $0.0005 for every comment past the 15 that post includes. A 1,000-comment post costs $0.50; ten posts with 150 comments between them cost $0.075 and nothing more.

Computed from the query fee and per-comment price the Apify Store API reports. All six of the actor’s own cost-table rows reproduce exactly, and so does its replies example, which is the row that shows the free fifteen replies applying once per run.

Who reads Instagram comments at scale?

Instagram Comments Scraper is used by 6 kinds of team: community managers, brand monitors, product teams, influencer marketers, researchers and support. The job each one reaches for is what sets their cost.

• Community managers

  Watch many posts, daily

  See what is being asked under every recent post without reading each one by hand

  $0.075 per 10 posts

• Brand monitoring

  Read a post, on launch content

  Pull the full comment thread on a launch and read sentiment where it actually happens

  $0.50 per 1,000 comments

• Product teams

  Follow the threads

  Mine recurring questions and complaints, where the detail sits in the replies rather than the comment

  From $0.035 a post

• Influencer marketing

  Read a post, on creator content

  Check whether engagement is real, isVerified, isPrivate and likeCount per commenter tell you fast

  $0.05 per 100 comments

• Researchers

  Watch many posts, batched

  Build comment corpora across many posts for sentiment and discourse analysis

  $1.00 per 2,000 comments

• Support teams

  Read a post, on the current pinned post

  Catch the questions people ask in comments instead of the inbox

  $0.0075 per post at 15 comments

How do you drive it from code?

The actor is apidojo/instagram-comments-scraper-api. The REST API and both official clients accept exactly the JSON the web form builds, so a tested run copies straight over.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

# Cheap first pass: no replies, so replyCount tells you what a
# thread run would cost before you commit to one.
run = client.actor("apidojo/instagram-comments-scraper-api").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/p/DC7Q4z5JPMX/"],
    "fetchReplies": False,
    "maxItems": 1000,
})

rows = list(client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items())
threaded = [c for c in rows if c["replyCount"] > 0]
print(len(rows), "comments,", len(threaded), "with threads")
print("a replies pass would add", f"${len(threaded) * 0.0075:.3f}")

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

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

// Ten posts in one run: ten query fees, 150 comments included between them
const run = await client.actor('apidojo/instagram-comments-scraper-api').call({
  postIds: ['DCKDRSpiy3b', 'DC7Q4z5JPMX', 'DS5IfIWDTHk'],
  fetchReplies: false,
  maxItems: 45,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
// inputSource carries the post onto every record, so one dataset splits
const byPost = Object.groupBy(items, (c) => c.postId);
console.log(Object.entries(byPost).map(([p, c]) => [p, c.length]));

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apidojo~instagram-comments-scraper-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"postIds":["DCKDRSpiy3b"],"fetchReplies":true,"maxItems":500}'

Every run writes to an Apify dataset, exportable as CSV or readable over the API. The keys in these snippets all come from the actor’s input schema.

Instagram Comments Scraper FAQ

Where Instagram Comments Scraper fits