herascrape vs Meta Graph API
The official Graph API can’t read arbitrary public profiles — it needs each account’s own OAuth consent plus Meta app review and business verification; herascrape reads any public profile over REST with no Meta app.
Meta Graph API sits in the “official & consent-based apis” tier. Meta’s own API and consent-based creator-data vendors. Sanctioned, but structurally unable to read an arbitrary public profile — they need the account’s own authorization.
| herascrape | Meta Graph API | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Instagram-only | Official (own accounts) |
| Instagram data | Deep — 37 structured endpoints: profiles, followers, following, likers, comments, stories, highlights, tagged, reels, hashtags, locations | Own/authorized Business/Creator accounts only; no arbitrary public profiles |
| Data format | Structured JSON | Structured JSON |
| API type | REST | Official OAuth REST |
| Delivery | Synchronous | Synchronous |
| Response time (p90) | 1,720 ms | Not measured |
| Rate limit | 50 req/s (raisable) | Platform limits |
| Price / 1,000 | $0.40 flat | Free |
| Pricing model | Flat per request at any balance; only successful (2xx) calls billed | Free, rate-limited (app review + business verification) |
| Billing | Only successful (2xx) | Free |
| MCP server | Yes | No |
| Client SDKs | Python, JavaScript | Facebook SDKs (Python, Node, PHP, Java, Ruby) |
| Free tier | $1 free (~2,500 calls) | Free (gated by review) |
Figures normalized to US$ per 1,000 and verified on each vendor’s live pages on 2026-10-24; re-check before relying on a number. Trademarks belong to their owners.
Why developers pick herascrape
Followers, likers, comments, stories, highlights, tagged and reels as real structured endpoints.
A synchronous REST response in about a second — no job to trigger, poll, or collect from storage.
One rate at any balance, only successful calls billed — no tiers, quotas, or credit multipliers.
$0.0004 per request, flat. 37 real-time Instagram endpoints. Only successful calls billed.