Instagram Reels Search Scraper

Instagram Reels Search Scraper

Discover public Instagram Reels by keyword or hashtag. Each term is searched directly against Instagram's own Reels search surface — the one the mobile app uses for the Reels tab — and only video or clips records are returned. There is no keyword-to-hashtag detour: a keyword gets the Reels Instagram ranks for that keyword, not whatever happens to be sitting in a hashtag it loosely matched.

$0.40 per 1,000 reels ($0.0004 each), plus $0.001 each time a run starts. Flat rate — no volume tiers, no plan gates — and you are charged only for reels actually returned. Keyword-driven Reels discovery is a capability most Instagram tooling does not offer at all: it takes a hashtag or a profile and stops there.

What you need to know before you run it

Runs work out of the box. No login, no cookie, no app review, nothing to supply. Reels search is a surface Instagram serves only to a signed-in caller — there is no logged-out route to it, at any price — so this actor reads it through a licensed data source. You supply your search terms and nothing else.

A run can stop short of the limit you asked for. This is the one real limitation and it is worth knowing before you start: the licensed source is bought per request under a per-run ceiling we set, so a run asking for a large maxReels across several terms can land on fewer reels than requested. Everything it collected is delivered and correct, and one uncharged row tells you it stopped and why — never a silent empty result, and never a charge for the stop. Re-run to collect more.

Your own cookie takes priority when you supply one. Put it in sessionCookies to run on your own account's rate limit instead:

• In Chrome: F12 → Application → Cookies → https://www.instagram.com → copy the sessionid value. Pasting the whole cookie string works too.
• Your cookie is tried first, for every term. Only the terms it cannot answer at all are bought from the licensed source, and if it returns nothing anywhere, every term falls back. Either way you are charged the same per-reel price and never twice for the same reel.
• Use an account you own and are authorized to automate.

Cookie values, proxy URLs, and request headers are never logged or written to output. Logs contain only slot numbers, retry reasons, and result totals.

Input

• searchQueries: up to five keywords. Each is searched as-is against Instagram's Reels search.
• hashtags: up to five direct hashtags. Each is searched as #tag on the same surface.
• maxReels: hard run-wide limit of 1-100 genuine Reels; default 30.
• sessionCookies: optional. Your own Instagram account cookie, for a rate limit nobody else shares. Leave it empty and the licensed source answers the search.
• proxyConfiguration: optional proxy configuration, applied to the requests made with your own cookie. Rotating Apify datacenter addresses are used by default; your own proxyUrls are honoured exactly as supplied. Metered groups (RESIDENTIAL, GOOGLE_SERP) are not offered and are replaced with datacenter addresses.
• maxAttempts: 1-12 bounded attempts, used only for the cookie lane; default 8.
• requestTimeoutSeconds: 5-30 seconds per cookie-lane request.
• maxRunSeconds: 20-180 second hard run deadline. The one exception: if the cookie lane spends the whole budget and delivers nothing, the licensed source is given a short grace period past that deadline rather than handing you an empty run.

Empty or invalid input emits exactly one clearly labeled _sample record. It makes no Instagram request, proxy connection, or billing event. The sample is solely an output-shape preview.

What you are charged for

You are charged per delivered Reel row, once each, and for nothing else.

Reels are deduplicated by ID across both lanes, so the same Reel is never delivered twice or charged twice no matter which lane found it. Every other outcome is free and clearly labeled: sample rows, terms that genuinely return no Reels, blocked or failed requests, problems on our own upstream, and runs that stop early all arrive as uncharged diagnostic rows carrying an errorCode and a plain-English explanation. A run that returns nothing costs nothing beyond the start fee.

How it works

One search request per term. With no cookie supplied, each term goes straight to the licensed source — no attempts are spent discovering that a gated request will be refused. With a cookie, that lane runs first, paired with one sticky datacenter proxy session and rotating to a fresh one on 403, 429, a login redirect, or server and network failures, within the configured bound; only what it cannot answer is bought.

Each genuine Reel is written to the dataset before it is billed. Video files are never downloaded, so you are not paying for video bandwidth.

Failures are named for what they are rather than flattened into one generic error: a rate limit reads as a rate limit, a no-result search reads as a no-result search, and a problem on our side is reported as ours instead of being dressed up as Instagram refusing you. Every run ends with a STATUS line carrying the number of Reels delivered.

Output

Each genuine Reel includes its ID, shortcode and URL, caption, parsed hashtags and mentions, play/like/comment counts, duration, thumbnail and video URLs, creator information, available audio metadata, timestamp, and the source term that found it.

sourceQuery is the term as searched — the keyword, or #tag for a hashtag input. sourceHashtag is the hashtag for a hashtag input and null for a keyword, because keywords are searched directly rather than routed through a hashtag first.

Pricing

Because maxReels is capped at 100 per run, a full run costs at most $0.041. A run with empty or invalid input returns one _sample row, makes no Instagram request and no proxy connection, and is charged only the start fee.

Limits, stated plainly

• Reels search is login-gated. There is no logged-out route to it, so every result comes either from the licensed data source or from your own cookie. You do not have to bring anything, but the licensed source runs under a per-run request ceiling we set, which is why a run can finish with fewer Reels than requested and say so in an uncharged row.
• 100 reels per run, 5 keywords, 5 hashtags per run. These are hard input caps, not throttles that lift at higher volume.
• Unmetered proxy egress. The cookie lane pins one sticky datacenter session, rotating on 401, 403, 429, server or network failures, up to maxAttempts. Metered residential egress is never used.
• Hard run deadline. maxRunSeconds (20–180) ends the run cleanly rather than letting a blocked search burn time, with the single documented grace above for a cookie lane that returned nothing.