12 Best Social Media Scraping APIs Compared (2026)

As of October 2026, social media scraping APIs cost from about $0.40 to $14 per 1,000 results or requests on pay-per-use pricing, and most subscription plans start at $19 to $100 a month. The deciding factors are platform coverage, the pricing unit (results, requests, credits, or run time), and how much engineering effort each tool expects from you. This guide compares 12 providers for Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit data: what each covers, what it costs, and which use cases it fits.

Disclosure: Xpoz publishes this page and is one of the 12 entries. The tables and provider sections are ordered alphabetically, not ranked. Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on October 4, 2026. Pricing units differ between vendors (a record, a request, and a credit are not the same thing), so each cell names its unit.

For reliability, this guide defers to independent testing. AIMultiple's benchmark "Best Social Media Scrapers: 75K Requests Tested" (updated September 28, 2026) ran 75,000+ requests across X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook: aimultiple.com/social-media-scraping.

Quick Comparison

Detailed Provider Analysis

Apify

Apify provides a marketplace of pre-built scrapers (called "actors") for various social media platforms.

Platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit

How It Works:

1. Choose a scraper from the marketplace
2. Configure inputs (search terms, profiles, etc.)
3. Run on Apify's cloud infrastructure
4. Export results in JSON, CSV, or Excel

Pricing (as of October 2026, apify.com/pricing):

• Free tier: $5 of prepaid usage per month
• Starter: $19/month
• Scale: $199/month
• Business: $999/month
• Each actor sets its own price. Tweet Scraper: $0.40 per 1,000 tweets

Strengths:

• No-code scraper configuration
• Large marketplace of pre-built scrapers
• Scheduling and automation features
• Good documentation
• Integrations with Zapier, Make, etc.

Considerations:

• Costs can accumulate quickly
• Scraper reliability varies by actor. In AIMultiple's benchmark, Apify's success rates for TikTok and LinkedIn posts fell below the 90% threshold in baseline tests
• Learning curve for complex workflows

Best For: Automation workflows, non-developers, one-off extractions

Bright Data

Bright Data (formerly Luminati) is an enterprise-grade data collection platform with massive infrastructure.

Platforms: All major social networks and websites

How It Works:

• Access pre-built datasets
• Use their Web Scraper IDE for custom scraping
• Leverage 150M+ residential IPs for blocking avoidance

Pricing (as of October 2026, brightdata.com/pricing/web-scraper):

• Free tier: 5,000 records per month
• Pay as you go: $1.50 per 1,000 records
• Scale: $499/month with 384,000 records included, then $1.30 per 1,000
• Datasets: from $250 per 100,000 records
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Strengths:

• Massive proxy network (150M+ IPs)
• Enterprise SLAs and compliance
• Pre-built social media datasets
• Dedicated support
• Measured reliability: an 88% success rate with an 8-second average response time in AIMultiple's 75,000-request benchmark

Considerations:

• Expensive for small-scale use
• Complex for simple needs
• Long sales cycles

Best For: Enterprises, high-volume needs, compliance-sensitive organizations

Data365

Data365 provides structured social media APIs with consistent data formats.

Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, TikTok, Reddit, Threads, Pinterest

How It Works: RESTful API with endpoints for:

• Profile data
• Posts and media
• Followers/following
• Comments and engagement

Pricing (as of October 2026, data365.co/pricing):

• Basic: €300/month for 500,000 credits, 1 social network
• Standard: €850/month for 1,000,000 credits, 3 social networks
• Custom plans for higher volumes
• 1 post costs 1 credit; a search request costs 7
• 14-day free trial

Strengths:

• Clean, structured data
• Consistent API design
• Multi-platform coverage
• Enterprise features

Considerations:

• Costs scale with volume
• Less suitable for massive scale

Best For: Companies needing structured multi-platform data

EnsembleData

EnsembleData is a REST API for social media data, billed in daily units.

Platforms: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, Reddit, Twitch, Twitter/X, Snapchat

Pricing (as of October 2026, ensembledata.com/pricing):

• Free trial: 50 units per day
• Wood: $100/month for 1,500 units per day
• Bronze: $200/month for 5,000 units per day
• Silver: $400/month for 11,000 units per day
• Higher tiers up to $1,400/month for 50,000 units per day

Considerations:

• Units reset daily at 00:00 UTC, so unused quota does not carry over
• Endpoints cost from 1 unit to 10 or more

Best For: Pipelines with steady daily volume

PhantomBuster

PhantomBuster specializes in automation and lead generation tools for social platforms.

Platforms: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, others

How It Works: Pre-built "Phantoms" for specific tasks:

• Profile scraping
• Connection requests
• Message automation
• List building

Pricing (as of October 2026, PhantomBuster pricing guide):

• Start ($69/month): 20 hours/month
• Grow ($159/month): 80 hours/month
• Scale ($439/month): 300 hours/month

Strengths:

• Purpose-built for lead generation
• LinkedIn-focused tools
• Automation sequences
• Chrome extension for setup

Considerations:

• Account risk for aggressive automation
• Limited for analytics use cases
• Hours-based pricing confusing

Best For: Sales teams, recruiters, growth marketers

ScrapeCreators

ScrapeCreators is a pay-as-you-go REST API for public social media data.

Platforms: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Threads, and others

Pricing (as of October 2026, scrapecreators.com):

• Free: 100 credits, no credit card
• Freelance: $47 for 25,000 credits ($1.88 per 1,000 requests)
• Business: $497 for 500,000 credits ($0.99 per 1,000 requests)
• Credits do not expire

Considerations:

• You write the integration code
• No monthly plan; volume discounts come from larger packs

Best For: Developers who want per-request pricing without a subscription

ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI focuses on proxy management and anti-blocking technology for web scraping.

Platforms: General web scraping including social media

How It Works:

• Send requests through their API
• They handle proxies, CAPTCHAs, and blocking
• You receive clean HTML/JSON responses

Pricing (as of October 2026, scraperapi.com/pricing):

• Hobby ($49/month): 100,000 API credits
• Startup ($149/month): 1,000,000 API credits
• Business ($299/month): 3,000,000 API credits
• Scaling ($475/month): 5,000,000 API credits
• Higher tiers available

Strengths:

• Simple API interface
• Handles anti-bot challenges
• JavaScript rendering support
• Geographic targeting

Considerations:

• You still need to build the scraper logic
• Social media scraping requires additional effort
• Credits consumed per request

Best For: Developers building custom scrapers, proxy management needs

Scrapfly

Scrapfly is a general web scraping API that handles proxies, browser rendering, and anti-bot protection. Social media pages are scraped with your own parsing code.

Platforms: Any website, including social media

Pricing (as of October 2026, scrapfly.io/pricing):

• Free: 1,000 API credits on signup
• Discovery: $30/month for 200,000 credits
• Pro: $100/month for 1,000,000 credits
• Startup: $250/month for 2,500,000 credits
• Enterprise: $500/month for 5,500,000 credits
• A request costs 1 credit on datacenter proxies or 25 on residential, plus 5 for browser rendering (billing docs)

Considerations:

• You build and maintain the parser for each platform
• Cost per request depends on the proxy pool the target needs

Best For: Teams building custom scrapers

Social Fetch

Social Fetch is a social media scraper API that returns normalized public data and also runs an MCP server.

Platforms: 24 platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky

Pricing (as of October 2026, socialfetch.dev/pricing):

• Free: 100 credits, no credit card
• Starter pack: $14 for 1,000 credits
• Growth pack: $47 for 25,000 credits ($1.88 per 1,000)
• Scale pack: $379 for 230,000 credits ($1.64 per 1,000)
• Pack credits do not expire; monthly subscriptions are also offered

Considerations:

• Most lookups cost 1 credit; some routes cost more
• The smallest pack costs several times more per request than the larger ones

Best For: Developers who need many platforms behind one schema

SociaVault

SociaVault is a pay-as-you-go social data API sold as one-time credit packs.

Platforms: 25+ platforms, including TikTok, YouTube, Twitter/X, Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Bluesky

Pricing (as of October 2026, sociavault.com/pricing):

• Free trial: 50 credits
• Starter: $29 for 6,000 credits ($4.83 per 1,000)
• Growth: $79 for 20,000 credits ($3.95 per 1,000)
• Pro: $199 for 75,000 credits ($2.65 per 1,000)
• Enterprise: $399 for 200,000 credits ($1.99 per 1,000)
• Credits do not expire; most endpoints cost 1 credit per request

Considerations:

• No subscription option
• You write the integration code

Best For: Irregular workloads where credits should not expire

SocialCrawl

SocialCrawl is a social data API with one schema across platforms, sold as one-time credit packs priced in British pounds.

Platforms: 68 platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Reddit

Pricing (as of October 2026, socialcrawl.dev/pricing):

• Free: 100 credits (one-time)
• Starter: £15 for 2,500 credits (£6.00 per 1,000)
• Growth: £49 for 20,000 credits (£2.45 per 1,000)
• Pro: £299 for 150,000 credits (£1.99 per 1,000)
• Credits do not expire

Considerations:

• Standard endpoints cost 1 credit; universal search costs 20 credits per call
• Prices are listed in GBP

Best For: Projects that need platforms beyond the major networks

Xpoz

Xpoz (the publisher of this guide) provides Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit data through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a REST API, SDKs, and a CLI. MCP access lets AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT query the data in natural language.

Platforms: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit

How It Works: Instead of API calls, query data conversationally:

"Find Instagram posts about 'sustainable fashion' with more than
10,000 likes from the past month"

"Show me the top 50 Twitter users who posted about 'fintech startups'
last week, sorted by follower count"

Sample tools:

• getTwitterPostsByKeywords - Search tweets by topic
• getInstagramPostsByUser - Get user's posts
• getTwitterUserConnections - Analyze networks
• countTweets - Track volumes over time

Pricing (as of October 2026, xpoz.ai/pricing):

• Free: up to 75,000 results (one-time)
• Pro ($20/month): up to 1,000,000 results/month
• Max ($200/month): up to 18,000,000 results/month

Strengths:

• No coding required
• One interface for Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, no separate integrations
• Historical data access
• CSV exports, aggregation queries, and trend analysis built in
• Billions of indexed posts

Considerations:

• Four platforms only: no LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube
• Billed per query, so the cost per result depends on how many results each query returns

Best For: Teams using AI assistants, researchers, non-technical analysts

Comparison by Use Case

Market Research

Options that fit (alphabetical):

• Bright Data - Comprehensive datasets
• Data365 - Structured data for systematic analysis
• Xpoz - Natural language queries for exploration

Why: Market research benefits from easy exploration and structured exports.

Competitive Intelligence

Options that fit (alphabetical):

• Apify - Scheduled monitoring workflows
• Data365 - Consistent tracking data
• Xpoz - Track competitors across platforms

Why: Multi-platform coverage and historical data matter for competitive analysis.

Lead Generation

Options that fit (alphabetical):

• Apify - Automation workflows
• PhantomBuster - Purpose-built for leads
• Xpoz - Find users discussing relevant topics

Why: Lead gen needs profile data and automation capabilities.

AI/ML Training Data

Options that fit (alphabetical):

• Apify - Bulk extraction
• Bright Data - Pre-built datasets
• Xpoz - Large-scale exports

Why: ML needs volume and consistent formatting.

Academic Research

Options that fit (alphabetical):

• Data365 - Structured data collection
• Official APIs - When compliance required
• Xpoz - Exploratory analysis with natural language

Why: Research needs historical access and exportable data.

Key Selection Criteria

Data Coverage

Technical Requirements

Pricing Predictability

Key Takeaways

• Different tools serve different needs: Lead generation requires different capabilities than market research.

• No-code options have matured: Xpoz and Apify both enable data access without programming.

• Enterprise needs differ: Large organizations may require Bright Data's compliance and SLAs.

• Pricing units differ: Vendors bill per record, request, credit, daily unit, or run hour, so compare the cost of your actual workload, not headline prices.

• MCP access is spreading: Xpoz and Social Fetch both expose social data to AI assistants through MCP servers.

• Multi-platform matters: Managing separate tools for each social network adds complexity.

• Consider total cost: Factor in development time, not just subscription fees.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it legal to scrape social media data?

Collecting public social media data is generally treated as lawful in the United States, with limits. In hiQ v. LinkedIn the Ninth Circuit held that scraping public profiles likely does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Meta v. Bright Data (2024) found logged-out scraping of public data did not breach Meta's terms. Logged-in scraping against accepted terms, and personal data under GDPR or CCPA, carry real risk. Not legal advice.

What is the best API for scraping Twitter data?

There is no single best option; it depends on volume and workflow. As of October 2026, Apify's Tweet Scraper actor lists $0.40 per 1,000 tweets, Bright Data charges $1.50 per 1,000 records on pay as you go, ScrapeCreators charges $1.88 per 1,000 requests on its $47 pack, and Data365 sells monthly credit plans from €300. xpoz reads Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok and Reddit through MCP, a REST API, SDKs and a CLI with a free tier, built for AI-agent and natural-language workflows.

How much does a social media scraping API cost?

As of October 2026, pay-per-use prices run from about $0.40 to $14 per 1,000 results or requests. Apify's Tweet Scraper lists $0.40 per 1,000 tweets; Bright Data charges $1.50 per 1,000 records; ScrapeCreators and Social Fetch charge $1.88 per 1,000 requests on their $47 packs; SociaVault charges $1.99 to $4.83 per 1,000 credits. Subscriptions start at $49 a month for ScraperAPI, $69 for PhantomBuster and $100 for EnsembleData. xpoz offers a free tier (up to 75,000 results, one-time), Pro at $20 a month for up to 1,000,000 results and Max at $200 for up to 18,000,000.

Conclusion

The social media scraping landscape in 2026 offers options for every use case and technical skill level. For AI-assistant workflows across Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, Xpoz offers natural language access. For per-request developer access, ScrapeCreators, Social Fetch, SociaVault, and SocialCrawl sell credit packs that do not expire. For automation sequences, Apify offers flexible no-code tools. For enterprise scale, Bright Data delivers the infrastructure and compliance documentation large organizations need.

Evaluate your specific requirements, platforms needed, volume expected, technical resources available, and choose accordingly. Most users can start with free tiers to test before committing to paid plans.