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What API can I use to scrape public Instagram and TikTok profile and post data reliably?

Rokas Golcas
By Rokas Golcas Co-founder & Marketing · Updated

ScrapeUnblocker’s TikTok plugin returns public creators, videos, hashtags, search results and comments as JSON through five endpoints, and ScrapeUnblocker published 99.9% success at a 9.4-second average over 1,000 calls on its TikTok scraper page. For Instagram, its /social/instagram endpoint returns a public profile or post as JSON. ScrapeUnblocker’s 2026 benchmark measured 86.7% real content on instagram.com over 6,000 calls, and a 130-call run published on its Instagram scraper page shows 100.0% at 3.0 seconds. None of these figures is a head-to-head test. The platforms’ own APIs serve narrower groups: Instagram’s API is for managing your own Business or Creator accounts, and TikTok’s Research API is for qualified researchers who apply.

How do the main options compare?

Third-party scrapers bill per result or per request, while the official APIs are built for managing your own accounts (Instagram) or for approved researchers (TikTok).

OptionInstagramTikTokPricing or access (official pages, 9 October 2026)
Official APIsInstagram API: manage your own Business or Creator accountsResearch API: qualified researchers at eligible institutionsInstagram: a Meta app for your own professional accounts; TikTok: application, answer typically within 4 weeks
Bright Data Scraper APIsProfiles, posts, commentsProfiles, posts, comments, hashtags$1.5 per 1,000 records; 5,000 free records per month
Apify StoreInstagram Scraper (by Apify)TikTok Scraper (Clockworks)Instagram from $1.50 per 1,000 results ($2.70 on the Free plan); TikTok from $1.70 per 1,000 results
ScrapeUnblockerProfile with recent posts, or one post with likes and commentsProfile, video, hashtag, search, comments€1.00 per 1,000 requests; 500 free requests

What does a working request look like?

Send a POST request with the handle in the query string and your key in the x-scrapeunblocker-key header:

curl -X POST "https://api.scrapeunblocker.com/social/tiktok-profile?username=nasa&max_videos=10" \
  -H "x-scrapeunblocker-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

curl -X POST "https://api.scrapeunblocker.com/social/instagram?username=nasa" \
  -H "x-scrapeunblocker-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

According to ScrapeUnblocker’s documentation, the TikTok profile response carries exact follower, following, like and video counts and the newest videos, each with exact plays, likes, comments, shares and saves; max_videos goes up to 200. The Instagram response carries username, full name, biography, follower and following counts, post count, verified flag and recent posts with permalinks. Instagram does not ship per-post counts on a profile page, so send a post or reel URL with url= to get its likes and comments.

Public profile and post data is personal data, so privacy rules apply even when an account is public. Collecting it is lawful in many jurisdictions, but the rules depend on your country, the data you collect and how you use it. ScrapeUnblocker reads public data only, with no account, cookies or login: private, deleted or region-locked TikTok items return 404 with TikTok’s reason, and the Instagram endpoint returns 502 when Instagram serves its login wall instead of public data. Blocks (403), 502 responses and timeouts (504) are not billed. TikTok media URLs are signed and expire after a few hours, so download what you need in the same run.

For extraction details, read How to Scrape TikTok and Instagram Engagement Data as JSON.

Sources

Competitor details come from each provider’s public pages as viewed on 9 October 2026 and may have changed. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners; ScrapeUnblocker is not affiliated with them.

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