ScrapeField vs the Instagram API
Instagram’s own API is built for businesses running their own accounts. It can read other business and creator accounts’ basic metrics, but not personal accounts, and it isn’t a data feed.
| ScrapeField | Instagram API | |
|---|---|---|
| Your own accounts | Read | Read, publish, moderate, insights |
| Other business and creator accounts | Profile, posts, comments, hashtags | Basic metrics and media, through Business Discovery |
| Personal accounts | Yes | No: Business Discovery reads professional accounts only |
| What you need first | An API key | Your own professional Instagram account and a Facebook Login app |
| Price | 3 credits a profile: $2.34 → $1.20 per 1,000 | Free |
| Field names | The Graph API’s own | The Graph API’s own |
Checked 22 September 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page. Rechecked quarterly — tell us if something here is out of date and we will fix it.
Questions
Can Business Discovery replace you?
For basic numbers on other professional accounts, often yes, and it is free. It needs your own professional account and Facebook Login, it doesn’t reach personal accounts, and Meta’s documentation says it returns nothing for age-gated accounts. If that covers what you need, use it.
Try it before you decide
Every endpoint has a playground that runs against the live API with no key and no account — real routing, real validation, real errors. If the response shape does not fit your code, you will know in about a minute.