Instagram API pricing in 2026: what it costs and what it reads
Meta charges no published fee for the Instagram API. The limit is what it can read: your own professional accounts, plus a few fields of other business and creator accounts. Here are the limits and the setup.
Checked October 2026 · public pricing pages · no affiliate links
Meta does not publish a fee for the Instagram API, and it does not charge for App Review or Business Verification. Setup takes time, and access limits apply.
The API is built for account owners. It works with business and creator accounts that connect to your app. It does not read personal accounts, and Meta ended the Basic Display API for personal accounts on December 4, 2024.
$2.50 per 1,000 requests. Add balance from $10. Your first 100 requests are free.
What it reads
- —Accounts you manage. Profile, posts, comments, insights, and messages for professional accounts that log in to your app.
- —Other business and creator accounts. Business Discovery returns basic data: follower count, post count, and posts with like, comment, and view counts. It skips age-gated accounts.
- —Hashtags. Hashtag Search returns top and recent posts for a hashtag. It needs the Instagram Public Content Access feature.
- —Not covered. Personal accounts, followers lists of other accounts, Stories of other accounts, and search by keyword.
Since July 30, 2026, Business Discovery leaves out the media URL for videos with copyrighted audio or with downloads turned off.
Rate limits
| What you call | Limit |
|---|---|
| Most endpoints | 4,800 calls in 24 hours times the account’s impressions |
| Business Discovery and Hashtag Search | 200 calls per hour times the number of users of your app |
| Unique hashtags | 30 per account in a rolling 7 days |
| Private replies to comments | 750 per hour |
Calls for a hashtag’s top or recent posts count against the 30 hashtags too. See how to get hashtag posts past the 30 hashtag limit.
Setup and approval
- 01A professional account. Switch the Instagram account to business or creator.
- 02A Meta app and a login type. Instagram Login needs no Facebook Page. Facebook Login needs a linked Page. Meta recommends Unified Login, which needs no Page.
- 03Standard Access. Works right away for accounts you own or manage.
- 04Advanced Access. Needed to serve accounts you do not manage. It requires App Review and Business Verification.
- 05Public content. Hashtag Search needs Instagram Public Content Access, which also needs App Review and Business Verification, and may need extra contracts.
What it adds up to
If you build for accounts that connect to your app, the Instagram API is the right tool, and it costs nothing to call. If you need full data on accounts that never connect to your app, the API does not offer it.
Another option for public accounts
Openhandle reads any public Instagram account with one API key: profiles, posts, reels, comments, followers, hashtags, and search. $0.0025 per request, down to $0.002 at volume. 30-day cache hits are free. See the Instagram Graph API alternative page for a side-by-side, and the Basic Display API is deprecated, what now? if you used the old API.
Verdicts
We read Meta’s Instagram Platform overview, Business Discovery, Hashtag Search, rate limit, App Review, and changelog docs at developers.facebook.com on October 25, 2026. Meta publishes no fee page. If something is out of date, tell us and we fix it.
Try Openhandle on your own data.
Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, and YouTube in one API, with one response shape. Failed requests are free.
$2.50 per 1,000 requests. Add balance from $10.