Instagram Profile Scraper: accounts, followers and emails

Which input method should you use?

Instagram Profile Scraper accepts 4 input fields, and each one bills differently. Keywords are the cheapest way to find accounts you do not know yet; handles, URLs and IDs are for accounts you already have.

• Cheapest per profile

  keywords

  $0.02per search

  40 profiles included

  You are looking for accounts by topic

  ["yoga studio"]

• handles

  $0.01per profile

  No profiles included

  You have a list of usernames

  ["nike"]

• startUrls

  $0.01per URL

  No profiles included

  You have profile links

  https://www.instagram.com/nike/

• userIds

  $0.01per ID

  No profiles included

  You have numeric Instagram IDs

  ["1644335255"]

Every profile after the free ones costs $0.0005, and so does every follower or following item, on all four methods.

Listed on Apify as Instagram User Scraper, same actor. Apidojo uses the job name.

What are the three Instagram Profile Scraper jobs?

Instagram Profile Scraper runs 3 jobs, and which one you are running decides both the price and the fields you get back: discover accounts by keyword at $0.02 a search, look up accounts you already have at $0.01 each, or export a follower list at $0.0005 an item.

{
  "keywords": ["yoga studio", "pilates", "reformer"],
  "getFollowers": false,
  "getFollowings": false,
  "maxItems": 200
}

{
  "type": "user",
  "isAvailable": true,
  "id": "23678829",
  "username": "marketing_guru",
  "fullName": "Marketing Expert",
  "profilePicUrl": "https://…",
  "isPrivate": false,
  "isVerified": true
}

{
  "handles": ["nike", "adidas", "newbalance"],
  "getFollowers": false,
  "getFollowings": false
}

{
  "username": "techstartups",
  "fullName": "Tech Startups™️",
  "biography": "Daily tech news and startup insights",
  "followerCount": 106950,
  "followingCount": 227,
  "postCount": 1401,
  "isBusiness": false,
  "category": null,
  "website": "http://techstartups.com/",
  "publicEmail": "[email protected]",
  "totalReelsCount": 1,
  "isVerified": false,
  "isPrivate": false
}

{
  "handles": ["nike"],
  "getFollowers": true,
  "getFollowings": false,
  "maxItems": 10000
}

{
  "type": "user",
  "isAvailable": true,
  "id": "38092762173",
  "username": "john.developer",
  "fullName": "John Developer",
  "profilePicUrl": "https://…",
  "isPrivate": true,
  "isVerified": false,
  "related": "https://www.instagram.com/techstartups/"
}

What does each output shape contain?

Instagram Profile Scraper returns 3 output shapes. Full profiles come from handles, URLs and IDs; follower items come from getFollowers and getFollowings; keyword searches return the short identity shape.

• 30

  Full profile

  From handles · URLs · IDs

  • username, fullName, id
  • biography, website, bioLinks
  • followerCount, followingCount
  • postCount, totalReelsCount
  • isBusiness, category
  • publicEmail, contactPhoneNumber
  • isVerified, isPrivate

• 9

  Follower / following item

  From getFollowers · getFollowings

  • username, fullName, id
  • profilePicUrl
  • isPrivate, isVerified
  • isAvailable, type
  • related, whose list it is

• 8

  Keyword search result

  From keywords

  • username, fullName, id
  • profilePicUrl
  • isPrivate, isVerified
  • isAvailable, type

Reshape any of these with customMapFunction, a JavaScript function that receives one object and returns one object. Use it to rename or drop fields on the way out, never to decide which records survive.

Which rules change your results?

Six rules decide whether a run returns what you expected. Five come from Instagram itself; one is an Apify plan limit.

• 01

  Verified accounts cap follower data at 50

  Instagram limits follower data for verified accounts to the first 50 followers, regardless of maxItems. Non-verified accounts are not affected.

• 02

  Private accounts cannot be scraped

  The scraper uses no login and no cookies, so private profiles return nothing. Check the account in a logged-out window first.

• 03

  Public emails exist only on business accounts

  And only where that account added contact information. An empty publicEmail is expected behaviour, not a failure.

• 04

  URLs need https:// and no @

  https://www.instagram.com/nike/ works; instagram.com/nike and …/@nike/ do not. Usernames are case-sensitive.

• 05

  Follower lists are on by default, following lists are not

  getFollowers defaults to true in the input schema and getFollowings to false, so a plain profile lookup already pulls followers and bills for every one. Set both explicitly on any run where cost matters. The README’s input table says getFollowings defaults to true; the schema the form actually uses says false.

• 06

  customMapFunction must not filter

  It transforms each item. Using it to drop items can trigger automatic restrictions.

On the free Apify plan the ceiling is 5 runs a month and 10 items in each.

How much does a run cost?

A run costs the query fee plus $0.0005 for every item beyond the free ones. Keyword searches include 40 free profiles each; handle, URL and ID lookups include none.

Computed from the two query fees and the per-item price the Apify Store API reports, and rounded the way the estimator rounds: three decimals below ten cents, two at or above. The actor’s own "5 profiles + 100 followers each" example reads $0.305, where its formula gives $0.3025.

Who uses Instagram Profile Scraper?

Instagram Profile Scraper is used by 6 kinds of team: influencer marketers, lead generation and B2B sales, social media agencies, market researchers, growth teams and e-commerce brands. Which of the three jobs they run is what separates them.

• Influencer marketing teams

  Discover, then Enrich the shortlist

  Find creators by niche, then vet verification, follower counts and public emails before outreach

  $0.02 per search + $0.01 per shortlisted profile

• Lead generation and B2B sales

  Discover, follower switches off

  Build prospect lists with public business emails and export them as CSV for the CRM

  $0.50 per 1,000 profiles

• Social media managers and agencies

  Export an audience, on competitor accounts

  Compare audiences between brands and find partnership and overlap opportunities

  $0.01 + $0.0005 per follower

• Market researchers and data analysts

  Discover, across many keywords

  Build structured profile datasets for demographic analysis, network analysis and ML training

  $5.00 per 10,000 profiles

• Growth teams and founders

  Export an audience, on one niche account

  Pull the audience of an adjacent account to find micro-influencers and early adopters

  $5.01 per 10,000 followers

• E-commerce and retail brands

  Enrich, on a schedule

  Track follower growth and profile changes for ambassadors and competitors over time

  $0.01 per profile per run

How do you run Instagram Profile Scraper from code?

The actor is apidojo/instagram-user-scraper. Anything the web form can set, the REST API and the official Python and JavaScript clients can set too, in the same JSON.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

# Enrich a list of known accounts, no follower lists
run = client.actor("apidojo/instagram-user-scraper").call(run_input={
    "handles": ["nike", "adidas", "newbalance"],
    "getFollowers": False,
    "getFollowings": False,
})

for user in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    # publicEmail is read with.get(): most accounts do not publish one
    print(user["username"], user["followerCount"], user.get("publicEmail"))

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apidojo~instagram-user-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"handles":["nike"],"getFollowers":true,"getFollowings":false,"maxItems":1000}'

Results land in an Apify dataset, ready to export as CSV or read back through the API. None of the keys above are invented: every one is in the actor’s input schema.

Instagram Profile Scraper FAQ

Where Instagram Profile Scraper fits