Free Instagram API in 2026: What's Free and What Isn't

Search for “free Instagram API” and you will find two kinds of answers. One says Meta’s official API costs nothing. The other offers free credits from a paid data vendor. Both are true, and they solve different problems, which is why the search is confusing.

We read Meta’s developer pages, Instagram’s Terms of Use and every vendor’s pricing page on 2026-10-23, then worked out the costs. Nothing was benchmarked or trialled, so you will find no speed or success-rate numbers. Where a page printed no figure, we write “not verified.” Serpent is one of the options, and every sum is shown.

The options at a glance (read 2026-10-23)

One row per option. “Free part” is what you get before paying. Each paid rate is in the unit that vendor bills, so read the second column before you compare the third.

Meta’s official API: free, but gated

If you manage your own Instagram account, or your customers will connect theirs, start here. Meta’s Instagram Platform overview lists two main routes: the Instagram API with Instagram Login and the Instagram API with Facebook Login. Their uses include media publishing, comment management, mentions and insights.

Is it really free?

We found no per-call price on any Meta page we read, and the overview page says nothing about cost. So “free” here means no meter, not no effort. The price is paid in setup, review and limits.

What you need before the first call

• A professional account. The overview says “your app users must have an Instagram professional account.” That means a Business or Creator account. The Facebook Login guide adds that this route “cannot access Instagram consumer accounts.”
• A registered app. You create a Meta developer app. Standard Access is the default, and Meta says it “limits the data your app can get.”
• Advanced Access for other people’s accounts. It is needed when your app serves professional accounts you don’t own or manage, and Meta says it “requires App Review and Business Verification.” See Meta’s App Review page.

We found no published review time or approval rate, so plan for delays.

The rate limits, as Meta states them

Meta’s rate-limiting page gives a formula for the Instagram Platform: calls in 24 hours equal 4,800 times the number of impressions on the account’s content. Business Discovery and hashtag search are treated separately, under Platform Rate Limits of 200 times the number of users per hour. Many blogs quote these figures differently, so read Meta’s page, not a summary of it.

The practical effect: the limit scales with your connected users and their audience, not your wallet. We found no way on Meta’s pages to buy more.

What happened to the Basic Display API

Many “free Instagram API” tutorials still describe the Instagram Basic Display API, which let an app read a personal account’s own photos after login. It is gone. Meta’s developer blog post of September 4, 2024 says: “Starting on December 4th, 2024, Instagram Basic Display API will no longer be available.” It adds that all requests fail from that day onwards.

Meta points business and creator use cases to the two routes above. If a tutorial tells you to create a Basic Display app, close the tab. Our Instagram Graph API vs public data API matrix compares the surviving routes.

Business Discovery: the closest thing to “any profile”

People who search for a free API usually want someone else’s profile: a competitor, an influencer, a prospect. Meta has one feature for that. Its Business Discovery guide and the endpoint reference describe it.

What it can do

• Read basic metadata and metrics for another Business or Creator account, named by username. Fields include follower count and media count, and the media edge can carry comment, like and view counts.
• It runs on your own professional account, so you need a Facebook user token with the permissions Meta lists: instagram_basic, instagram_manage_insights and pages_read_engagement.

What it cannot do

• It targets Business and Creator accounts only. Meta’s pages describe no route for personal accounts.
• “Data about age-gated Instagram professional accounts will not be returned.”
• Fetching a returned media object directly fails on permissions, and media_url is omitted for video with copyrighted audio.
• It is a lookup by username, one account per query, not a keyword search.

In short: if the competitor runs a Business or Creator account, Business Discovery can give you their headline numbers once you have a professional account, an app and a token. For a personal profile, or a list of thousands, it is the wrong tool.

Meta Content Library, for researchers

Meta also runs the Meta Content Library and Content Library API. It gives qualified researchers access to the public content archive from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Channels, and it has a programmatic API for people comfortable with R or Python.

• Cost. Meta says “there are no fees associated with access or computation” on its secure research environment.
• Who qualifies. Applicants need an affiliation with an academic institution or another non-university organization that is not-for-profit with scientific or public-interest research as a primary purpose.
• What it covers. For Instagram, posts from business and creator accounts, plus personal accounts that are verified or have 100 or more followers.
• The conditions. Applications go through Meta’s Research Tools Manager and are reviewed independently. Sanctioned jurisdictions are excluded, and researchers must follow Meta’s attribution guidelines.

This is a real free route, but only for academic and public-interest work. A marketing agency or SaaS product does not fit its stated eligibility.

A note on terms

Check Instagram’s terms and ask your own counsel before you build on any route, official or not. We are not lawyers, and this guide is not legal advice. It does not cover ways around blocks.

Free open-source tools

Free tools exist that fetch Instagram data without Meta’s API. The best-known is Instaloader, an MIT-licensed Python tool described as a way to “download pictures (or videos) along with their captions and other metadata from Instagram.” Its README says it is “in no way affiliated with, authorized, maintained or endorsed by Instagram,” and its disclaimer is “Use at your own risk.”

We have not run it. Our guide to using Instagram tools for free covers the common errors and the legal picture. Such tools suit a personal archive or a one-off pull. They are a poor base for a product, because nobody owes you uptime.

The near-free Instagram data APIs, one by one

These sell public Instagram data as JSON over a plain HTTP call, with no Meta app and no App Review. Each entry names what it bills. Serpent is listed first because, among the Instagram rates we could read today, its per-call rate is the lowest. The table is there so you can check the order yourself.

1. Serpent API

• Free: A free account gets 10 free calls, shared across services, and all Instagram bands can spend them. You also get one free demo run a day on the Instagram API page without signing up. That is small. Bright Data’s 5,000 records and Apify’s $5 monthly credit go much further for testing.
• Paid: $0.40 per 1,000 calls on Default. One deposit of $100 moves new credit to $0.36 (Growth), and one deposit of $500 or $1,000 to $0.28 (Scale and Enterprise). The pricing page shows the Instagram row.
• The posts are included: Adding include_posts=true returns the recent-post grid at the same per-call rate as the profile alone. Adding include_post_details=true opens up to about 12 recent posts for likes, comments and captions, at $4.00 per 1,000 on Default, $3.60 on Growth and $2.80 on Scale.
• Commitment: The first deposit is $10 minimum, which buys 25,000 Default profile calls by our arithmetic. There is no subscription, and deposited credits do not expire. Promotional bonus credits do, after 30 days.
• What you get: GET /api/social/instagram/profile takes a username, an @handle or a profile URL, and returns username, full name, biography, link in bio, follower, following and post counts, verified, business and private flags, account type, a follower-to-following ratio and the profile picture URL. Four optional field groups (contact, business, reels, profile detail) add +20% each.
• Honest data: A value that was not measured comes back as null, never as a made-up zero. postsSampled tells you how many posts the engagement averages used. A private profile still returns the public counts Instagram shows for it.
• Billing details: An unknown username returns 404 and is charged. An invalid handle returns 400 and is not charged. Other non-2xx responses are refunded.
• Watch out: There is one Instagram endpoint, and it reads public profile data only. It does not return followers lists, stories or hashtag feeds. Default allows 100 requests a minute and 10,000 a day, and the 10-call free pool runs out in minutes.

Lowest price? Among the rates we could read today, yes per call: $0.28 at Scale and $0.40 on Default are below HikerAPI’s $0.60 floor, HasData’s $0.69, ScrapeCreators’ $0.99 and every Bright Data and Apify rate. That has limits: units differ, HikerAPI and ScrapeCreators sell many more endpoints, and we read only the vendors listed here. Our Instagram API provider comparison sets out the units.

2. HikerAPI

HikerAPI gives 100 free requests on signup with no card. Its prepaid prices are $1.00 per 1,000 at a $100 top-up, $0.69 at $300 and $0.60 at $599. Its pricing file also lists a Start rate of $0.02 per request ($20 per 1,000) at a $20 balance. You can top up any amount, and the unlocked rate stays on your account. Its Instagram page still prints $299 for the $0.69 rate, while the pricing file says $300, so confirm at checkout.

Two details matter. Its FAQ says it charges for any successful response “such as 200, 400, 403, 404,” so a mistyped username costs money. And it advertises 100+ Instagram endpoints, covering stories, hashtags, locations and media, far broader than Serpent’s one. If you need those, HikerAPI is a serious option.

3. ScrapeCreators

ScrapeCreators offers 100 free credits and up to 7,000 more as bonus credits, with no card. The Freelance pack is $47 for 25,000 credits ($1.88 per 1,000) and Business is $497 for 500,000 ($0.99). Credits never expire. The profile endpoint docs price a request at 1 credit and offer a cache_max_age option that returns a cached answer for 0 credits. It lists 20 Instagram endpoints.

4. SociaVault

SociaVault gives 50 free credits with no card, then packs from $29 for 6,000 credits up to $399 for 200,000. That is $0.00483 down to $0.00199 per credit, or $4.83 down to $1.99 per 1,000 if one profile call costs one credit. The page does not print the Instagram cost, so one credit per call is our assumption. Credits never expire.

5. HasData

HasData sells Instagram Profile and Posts APIs on monthly plans: $49 for 20,000 requests ($2.46 per 1,000), $99 for 100,000 ($0.99) and $208 for 300,000 ($0.69). The free plan has 100 requests a month. Monthly plans cost the same whether you use all the quota or not.

6. Bright Data

Bright Data’s Instagram scraper gives 5,000 records a month free with no card, which does not roll over. Pay as you go is $1.50 per 1,000 records, and the $499 plan covers 384,000 records and then $1.30 per 1,000. It has separate datasets for profiles, posts, comments and reels. The page does not define a “record,” so check whether a profile with posts counts as one record or many before sizing a bill. Failed deliveries are not charged.

7. Apify

Apify’s Instagram Scraper bills “one scraped item (a post, reel, comment, profile, hashtag, or place)” per result: $2.70 per 1,000 on the Free plan, $2.30 on Starter, $1.90 on Scale and $1.50 on Business. The Free platform plan includes $5 of usage a month with no card. Because every post is its own result, a profile plus 12 posts is 13 results, which is the main thing to price before you commit.

8. Data365 and Phyllo

Data365 offers a 14-day trial through a request form. Its pricing page shows a Basic plan at €300 a month for 500,000 credits and one social network, with 9 credits for a profile. At full use that is about 55,000 profiles, or roughly €5.40 per 1,000 by our division. It does not say whether Instagram is that one network, so ask sales.

Phyllo prices by quote only and states no free trial. Its marketing talks about consented creator data, a different job from looking up any public handle, so it is not in the cost table.

What free really costs you

Your time

Meta’s route asks for an app, a Page link, permissions, a token flow and a review. For a team that only wants a competitor’s follower count each Monday, that is a lot of work. Open-source tools trade review time for maintenance time.

Coverage you assumed

The official route cannot read personal accounts, and Business Discovery hides age-gated ones. A free tool that works on your own account may not work on the one you care about.

Reliability, support and terms

Unofficial tools can stop working when Instagram changes something, and nobody owes you a fix. We ran no reliability tests, so we make no claim about any vendor’s uptime. Check the platform’s terms and ask your own counsel before you rely on any route.

Cost at 1K, 10K, 100K and 1M lookups

This is arithmetic from the published rates above, per month, for one profile lookup each, ignoring free allowances and tax. Packs and unlock balances are noted below, and units differ, so read the notes.

How to read it

• The Serpent tier rows assume you made the single qualifying deposit for that tier. Credits do not expire.
• HikerAPI and the others with unlock or pack minimums need that money in your balance first. HikerAPI’s Ultra rate needs $599 in the account, even though you may spend it over time.
• HasData’s rows are the $49 Startup and $99 Basic plans. One million lookups is past the 300,000 on its largest listed plan.
• Data365 is left out because it bills in euros and we could not confirm Instagram is in its entry plan.
• Meta’s $0 row is not comparable. It covers only accounts that connect to your app, or Business and Creator accounts through Business Discovery.

The same job, with a profile and its recent posts

Take 1,000 profiles, each with its grid of about 12 recent posts. This is arithmetic, not a measurement.

For perspective, a competitor tracker that checks 50 accounts every day is 1,500 calls a month, or $0.60 on Serpent Default. Free allowances at Bright Data or Apify would appear to cover a tracker that small, which is worth knowing. The free pools run out when your list grows.

How to choose

• You only need your own account, or accounts that sign in to your app. Use Meta’s Instagram API. It is the official route with no price we could find. Budget time for setup and review.
• You need a few competitor Business or Creator accounts. Try Business Discovery first.
• You do academic or public-interest research. Apply to Meta Content Library.
• You need arbitrary public profiles at any volume. A paid API. Serpent at $0.40 per 1,000 calls to start is the lowest entry rate we read, and $0.28 after a $500 deposit.
• You need followers lists, stories, hashtags or locations. Serpent does not return them. HikerAPI and SociaVault list endpoints in those categories, so compare those.
• You want a bigger free trial. Bright Data’s 5,000 records or Apify’s $5 monthly credit go further than our 10 calls. Confirm the free quota works on the Instagram scraper in your own account.
• You track other platforms too. See our free YouTube search API guide, free TikTok API guide and free LinkedIn API guide.

Quick start and migration

A switch needs a new URL and an X-API-Key header, with no app and no token flow. This is the profile call from the API docs:

curl "https://apiserpent.com/api/social/instagram/profile?username=natgeo&include_posts=true" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

And the same call in Python, with post details so the engagement averages are filled in:

import os
import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://apiserpent.com/api/social/instagram/profile",
    params={"username": "natgeo", "include_post_details": "true"},
    headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["SERPENT_API_KEY"]},
    timeout=60,
)
resp.raise_for_status()
p = resp.json()
print(p["username"], p["followersCount"], p["isVerified"])
# null means "not measured", never zero. postsSampled says how many posts were used.
if p["postsSampled"]:
    print(p["engagementRate"], p["avgLikesPerPost"], p["postsSampled"])

Run it once in the playground first if you would rather see the JSON before writing code. Treat null as “unknown” in your database. Our guides on missing profile fields and an Instagram profile tracker show how.

What to change when you move from Meta’s API

• No app, no review: One API key and one header replace the Meta developer app, token flow and App Review.
• Handle in, not account ID: The endpoint takes a username, an @handle or a profile URL. Field names differ too, for example followers_count becomes followersCount.
• Public data only: Insights, messaging and publishing stay with Meta’s API.

Limits and unknowns

• Nothing here was tested. Every competitor figure comes from its published page as read on 2026-10-23, and prices and allowances change, so check the page before you buy.
• Meta’s cost and timelines. No Meta page we read states a price, a review time or an approval rate. We also could not verify third-party quotes of Meta’s rate limits and used Meta’s own page.
• Units. SociaVault prints no Instagram credit cost, Bright Data does not define a record, HikerAPI does not say how many items one request returns, and Data365 does not say which network its entry plan covers.
• Vendors we did not read. There are more Instagram data APIs than the ones above. We left out any we could not verify, so a lower rate may exist.
• Legal questions. We make no claim about whether any route fits Instagram’s terms for your project. Ask your own counsel.
• Our own position. Serpent sells one of the APIs compared here, so check our sums against the rates on the linked pages.

FAQ

Is the Instagram API free?

Meta’s Instagram API has no per-call price on the pages we read. It works with Business and Creator accounts, and serving accounts you don’t own needs Advanced Access, which requires App Review and Business Verification. Free here means no meter, not no effort.

Is the Instagram Basic Display API still available?

No. Meta’s developer blog says that starting December 4, 2024, the Basic Display API is no longer available and its requests fail. Meta points business and creator use cases to the Instagram API with Facebook Login or Instagram Login.

Can the Instagram Graph API read any public profile?

No. Business Discovery can read basic data for other Business or Creator accounts by username, using your own professional account and token. Age-gated accounts return nothing, and Meta’s pages describe no route for personal accounts.

What is a free alternative to the Instagram API?

Free entry points exist at Bright Data (5,000 records a month), Apify ($5 a month), HasData (100 requests a month) and HikerAPI (100 requests). Serpent gives 10 free calls and starts at $0.40 per 1,000. Meta Content Library is free for qualifying researchers.

How much does an Instagram data API cost?

Per 1,000 profile calls we read $0.28 to $0.40 at Serpent, $0.60 to $1.00 at HikerAPI, $0.99 to $1.88 at ScrapeCreators and $0.69 to $2.46 at HasData. Bright Data is $1.30 to $1.50 per record and Apify $1.50 to $2.70 per result. Units differ.

Is it okay to collect Instagram data with a script or a vendor?

That is a legal question, and we cannot answer it for your project. Check Instagram’s terms and ask your own counsel before you build on any route, official or not.

Sources (all read 2026-10-23)

• Meta: Instagram Platform overview
• Meta: Instagram API with Facebook Login
• Meta: Business Discovery guide
• Meta: Business Discovery endpoint reference
• Meta: App Review for the Instagram Platform
• Meta: Graph API rate limiting
• Meta: Update on Instagram Basic Display API
• Meta: Content Library and Content Library API
• Instaloader on GitHub
• HikerAPI: Instagram API
• HikerAPI: pricing
• ScrapeCreators: pricing
• ScrapeCreators: Instagram profile endpoint
• SociaVault: pricing
• SociaVault: free Instagram API
• HasData: pricing
• Bright Data: Instagram scraper
• Apify: Instagram Scraper pricing
• Apify: platform pricing
• Data365: Instagram API
• Data365: pricing
• Phyllo: pricing

Related reading on Serpent: free YouTube search API, free Google search API, SERP APIs with no minimum and a free tier, Instagram post sample audit.