# Best social media scraping APIs in 2026: prices compared

Compare nine social media scraping APIs. See how each API bills, its published prices, free use, and failed request rules.

Checked November 2026. Public pricing pages. No affiliate links.

We make Openhandle. It is one of the APIs on this page. Check the numbers yourself. We read every other price on the vendor’s own site on November 3, 2026. This is not a full list of the market.

All nine APIs return public social data as JSON. This page shows how they bill and what they cost. Test the data from each API. Then work out the cost for your use.

## Price comparison

| API | Price | How you pay | Lowest paid start | Free to start |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Openhandle | $2.50 per 1,000 requests, $2 above 100,000 a month | Balance, per request | $10 balance | 100 requests |
| ScrapeCreators | $1.88 per 1,000 credits, $0.99 on the biggest pack | Credit packs | $47 for 25,000 credits | 100 credits |
| Apify | Set per scraper. See the note below | Monthly plan plus usage | $19 a month | $5 of usage a month |
| Bright Data | $1.50 per 1,000 records, $1.30 on the $499 plan | Per record | Pay as you go | 5,000 records a month |
| EnsembleData | About $2.22 per 1,000 units, about $0.93 on the biggest plan | Monthly plan, daily units | $100 a month for 1,500 units a day | 50 units a day |
| TikHub | $1 to $10 per 1,000 requests, set per endpoint | Balance, per request | $5 balance | $0.05 credit |
| SociaVault | $4.83 per 1,000 credits, $2 on the biggest pack | Credit packs | $29 for 6,000 credits | 50 credits |
| SocialCrawl | £6 per 1,000 credits, £1.99 on the biggest pack | Credit packs, in pounds | £15 for 2,500 credits | 100 credits |
| Data365 | €0.60 per 1,000 credits on the Basic plan | Monthly plan, in euros | €300 a month for one network | 14-day trial |

Each Apify scraper has its own price. Apify’s own Instagram scraper costs $2.30 per 1,000 results on the Starter plan. It costs $1.50 on the Business plan.

## How billing works

A lower listed price can still give you a higher bill. Each vendor counts use in a different way.

- **Records and results.** Bright Data and Apify’s Instagram scraper charge for each item returned. A list of 100 posts counts as 100.
- **Per request.** Openhandle and TikHub charge for each call. Openhandle counts one page of results as one request.
- **Credit and unit costs.** Some calls use more than one credit or unit. Instagram replies use 15 credits on ScrapeCreators. A profile with its info uses 9 credits on Data365. A TikTok search uses 1 to 42 credits on SocialCrawl. Set endpoints use 1 to 10 units on EnsembleData.
- **Unused credits.** ScrapeCreators, SociaVault, and SocialCrawl say their credits never expire. Apify’s monthly usage ends after each billing cycle. EnsembleData’s units reset each day.

Work out what your mix of calls costs on the two or three APIs you prefer.

## Platform coverage

- **Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, and YouTube.** Openhandle, ScrapeCreators, Bright Data, EnsembleData, TikHub, SociaVault, and SocialCrawl list all five.
- **Data365.** Data365 lists Instagram, TikTok, X, and Reddit. It also lists Facebook, Threads, and Pinterest. We did not see YouTube listed.
- **Apify.** Apify publishes its own Instagram scraper. Other publishers provide the TikTok, X, Reddit, and YouTube scrapers we saw in its store. We did not compare their quality.

## Failed requests

| API | What the public pages say about failed requests |
|---|---|
| Openhandle | Failed requests are free |
| ScrapeCreators | We found no rule for all endpoints |
| Apify | We found no rule on the pages we read |
| Bright Data | Failed deliveries are free. Failures caused by wrong input are billed |
| EnsembleData | Internal errors are free. A search with no results can still cost a unit |
| TikHub | Only HTTP 200 responses are billed. One endpoint doc says a 200 response with empty data is billed |
| SociaVault | Failed requests are not charged |
| SocialCrawl | Credits come back after upstream errors and 5xx errors |
| Data365 | We found no rule on the pages we read |

## Verdicts

- **Openhandle.** Openhandle has one price for every endpoint and no plan to choose. It is not the cheapest at high volume. We make Openhandle, so test it against the other APIs.
- **ScrapeCreators.** ScrapeCreators sells credits up front. Its biggest pack has the lowest credit price of the packs on this page.
- **Apify.** Apify offers many ready-made scrapers. Check each scraper before you rely on it.
- **Bright Data.** Bright Data provides large batches and charges for each record.
- **EnsembleData.** EnsembleData uses daily units with a monthly plan. This can suit steady daily use.
- **TikHub.** TikHub has the lowest published paid start on this page, at $5.
- **SociaVault.** SociaVault offers a small one-time pack. Its credits do not expire.
- **SocialCrawl.** SocialCrawl sells one-time packs in pounds.
- **Data365.** Data365 has monthly plans for a few networks. Its monthly price starts at €300.

## How we checked

We used each vendor’s own price page: [ScrapeCreators](https://scrapecreators.com), [Apify](https://apify.com/pricing), [Bright Data](https://brightdata.com/pricing/web-scraper), [EnsembleData](https://ensembledata.com/pricing), [TikHub](https://tikhub.io/pricing), [SociaVault](https://sociavault.com/pricing), [SocialCrawl](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/pricing), and [Data365](https://data365.co/pricing). We calculated the per-1,000 prices from the published packs. For EnsembleData, we assume a 30-day month with every unit used. Vendors change prices. Tell us if a number is out of date, and we will fix it.

See [Social media scraping API: options and pricing](/compare/social-media-scraping-api) for more choices, including building your own scraper.