The best way to get social media data for academic research (2026)

I build crawlfeed, a commercial data API. For a lot of academic work, it isn’t what I’d recommend first. Here’s the honest order.

The picks at a glance

Source	Best for	Price	Catch
TikTok Research API	eligible academic TikTok studies	No published price	Application, about 4 weeks; metrics lag up to 10 days
Apify	scraping large samples	Monthly plan, $1.50 to $2.70 per 1k results	Each Actor has its own output
Bright Data	ready-made datasets	Datasets from $2.50 per 1k records	Monthly minimums
crawlfeed (mine)	cross-platform comparisons	From $19 prepaid; $7.60 to $2.33 per 1k calls	Commercial terms, smaller catalog

Check your eligibility first

TikTok’s Research API is open to academic institutions in the US, EEA, UK, Canada and Switzerland, plus some non-profits. You need a proposal and ethics approval, and approval takes about four weeks. The quota is 1,000 requests and up to 100,000 records a day. Be aware that metrics can lag by up to 10 days, and new videos can take 48 hours to appear.

1. TikTok Research API

Best for: eligible academic TikTok studies
Price: No published price
Catch: Application and ethics approval, about 4 weeks

Sanctioned by the platform, which matters for publication and ethics review. If you qualify and can wait, start here.

TikTok Research API

2. Apify

Best for: large one-off samples
Price: Monthly plan, $1.50 to $2.70 per 1k results
Catch: Usage expires monthly

Pull tens of thousands of posts in one run, export to CSV, and cite the Actor and date in your methods section.

Visit Apify

3. Bright Data

Best for: ready-made datasets
Price: $1.50 to $1.30 per 1k records
Catch: Monthly minimums

Pre-collected datasets save you the collection step entirely, if one matches your question.

Visit Bright Data

4. crawlfeedMine

Best for: comparing behaviour across platforms
Price: From $19 prepaid; $7.60 to $2.33 per 1k calls
Catch: Commercial terms; not platform-sanctioned

Because every platform comes back in one schema, a study comparing TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky can use one codebook. For Arabic-language research, enrich=arabic labels dialect (Gulf, Egyptian, Levantine, Maghrebi, MSA), sentiment and entities. Credits never expire, which suits grant-funded budgets.

See every crawlfeed endpoint and price

My pick

Eligible and patient: the official research API. Large sample, one platform: Apify. Comparative or Arabic-language work: crawlfeed.

What I’d do today

Ask your ethics board what data sources they’ve approved before.
Check eligibility for the official research programs on the platforms you study.
Pilot your codebook on 100 free credits before committing grant money.

Questions

Is scraping public social data allowed for research?

It depends on your jurisdiction, the platform’s terms and your ethics board. Official research APIs avoid most of the question.

Is the TikTok Research API free?

TikTok doesn’t publish a price. Access requires an approved application.

Try crawlfeed

100 free credits, no card. Credits are prepaid and never expire, so a quiet month costs nothing. Run your real workload through it for a week. If another tool on this page fits better, use that one.

Get 100 free credits See pricing

I checked prices and features for every product here in October 2026, on each vendor’s own site: TikTok Research API, TikTok Research API FAQ, Apify pricing, Bright Data datasets pricing. Pricing in this market changes often, so check before you buy. Spotted something out of date? Tell me and I’ll fix it.