Is the Instagram API free? Prices, limits and approval (2026)

November 8, 2026

Short answer

Meta's developer docs list no per-call price for the Instagram API, but it only works with Instagram professional accounts. Reading accounts you don't own needs Advanced Access, which requires App Review and Business Verification, and even then you can look up only other professional accounts and 30 unique hashtags a week. The Basic Display API, which covered personal accounts, ended on 4 December 2024.

Short answer: there is no price list, so in money terms it is free. In access terms it is not. Instagram's API is built for businesses and creators managing their own professional accounts, and every step beyond that needs Meta's review.

The official Instagram options at a glance

Option	Who can use it	Approval	Limits	Reads other accounts?
Instagram API with Instagram Login	Professional accounts, no Facebook Page needed source	Standard Access for your own accounts; Advanced Access needs App Review and Business Verification	4,800 calls x impressions per 24 hours	No hashtag search
Instagram API with Facebook Login	Professional accounts linked to a Page	Same	Same	Yes, through Business Discovery and Hashtag Search
Business Discovery	Apps with Facebook Login	Advanced Access for public use	Platform rate limits source	Other professional accounts only
Hashtag Search	Apps approved for Instagram Public Content Access source	App Review	30 unique hashtags per 7 days per account	Public posts under a hashtag
Meta Content Library	Researchers at non-profit research organizations source	Application reviewed by an independent partner	Up to 100,000 results per query	Yes, for research
Basic Display API	Nobody	Closed	Ended 4 December 2024 source	No

Who can get access, step by step

Your users need a professional account. Meta's overview says app users "must have an Instagram professional account". Personal accounts are not covered source.
Standard Access is the default. It covers people with a role on your app and accounts you own or manage. Many internal dashboards never need more.
Advanced Access is needed to serve accounts you don't own or manage. It requires App Review and Business Verification source.
Hashtag Search also needs App Review for the Instagram Public Content Access feature source.

Meta does not publish a review time on these pages, so put a buffer in your plan and expect at least one round of feedback.

What you get once approved

Business Discovery returns another professional account's follower count, media count and per-post like, comment and view counts. Age-gated accounts return nothing, and you can't fetch the returned media objects directly Business Discovery docs.
Hashtag Search allows 30 unique hashtags in a rolling 7 days per account. Repeat queries on the same tag don't count again. Story hashtags and emoji hashtags are not supported, and media_url is left out for other users' media source.
Insights for accounts that authorized your app.

What you don't get: personal accounts, reel transcripts, the text of comments on other accounts' posts, or anything from a private account.

Rate limits, with a worked example

Most Instagram endpoints use the Business Use Case limit: calls within 24 hours = 4,800 x the number of impressions of the account's content in the last 24 hours, per app and user pair. Business Discovery and Hashtag Search use Platform limits instead: calls within one hour = 200 x the number of users of your app Meta rate limits.

So an internal tool with 3 daily users gets 600 Business Discovery calls an hour. To refresh 2,000 competitor accounts, you need about 3.5 hours of calls. That's fine for a daily job, tight for anything live.

Which one fits you

You manage your own brand or clients' accounts: Instagram API, Standard Access. It is the right tool.
You build a SaaS that other brands connect: Advanced Access, with App Review and Business Verification.
You benchmark competitors who all have professional accounts: Business Discovery, after review.
You are an academic or non-profit researcher: Meta Content Library. Meta says there are no fees for the web tool or the API in its secure research environment source.
You need personal creator accounts, reel plays by URL, comments or transcripts: no official route. Use a public-data API.

The free open-source route

Instaloader is an MIT-licensed Python tool that downloads profiles, hashtags, stories, feeds, comments and captions Instaloader. It tracks its own requests to stay under Instagram's rate limits and retries after a 429. Its docs note that cloud, VPN and proxy IPs may face stricter anonymous limits, and recommend keeping a login session file troubleshooting. The project says it is not affiliated with Instagram and to use it at your own risk.

Two risks to weigh. Logged-in collection ties the activity to your account. And Meta's Automated Data Collection Terms say you may not collect data by automated means without Meta's express written permission Meta terms.

This is not legal advice. If your project depends on it, ask a lawyer who knows your use case and your country.

The pay-per-call option

For public data on any public account, a data API is the shortest path. ScrapeIO's instagram profile API, instagram user reels API, instagram comments API and instagram hashtag API cost 1 credit per call. The instagram transcript API costs 2. There is no review and no professional-account requirement for the accounts you look up.

Worked example: a weekly report on 200 creators, each with one profile call and one page of reels, is 400 calls a week, about 1,750 a month, or roughly $3.29 at the Starter rate of $1.88 per 1,000 credits.

We cover what public Instagram data includes, and what stays private, in Instagram public data without the Graph API. For a direct comparison, see Instagram Graph API alternative. Start with 100 free credits on the Instagram platform page, or let an agent call it through the Instagram MCP server.

Sources

Checked on 8 November 2026 from each vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change; follow the links before you decide.

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