Instagram API Pricing in 2026: Is the Graph API Free?

As of October 2026, the Instagram API costs nothing per call. Meta does not sell Instagram API access by volume. What it costs you instead is access: the API only works with Instagram professional accounts, it reads other people's accounts only in narrow ways, and serving accounts you do not own requires app review and business verification.

This guide covers what is free, what the free API can and cannot read, the rate limits, the review process, and what to use when you need public Instagram data the official API does not give you.

How much does the Instagram API cost?

There is no per-request fee and no paid tier. Meta's Instagram Platform documentation describes two set-ups, and neither has a price:

"Instagram Graph API" is the name most people still search for. In Meta's current docs it is the Instagram API, in the two configurations above.

So the honest answer to "is the Instagram Graph API free" is yes, in money. The real costs are eligibility, review time and what the API refuses to return.

What can the free Instagram API do?

The Instagram API is built for businesses and creators managing their own presence, and for tools that act on their behalf:

• Content publishing: post images, videos, reels and carousels to accounts that authorise you.
• Comment moderation: read, reply to, hide and delete comments on those accounts' media.
• Insights: reach, impressions and engagement for the account and its media.
• Mentions: find media where the account was @mentioned.
• Messaging: send and receive DMs (through the Messenger Platform for the Facebook Login set-up).

The Facebook Login set-up adds Hashtag Search, product tagging and partnership ads. The Instagram Login set-up cannot access ads or tagging.

Can the Instagram API read other accounts?

Only in two narrow ways, both in the Facebook Login set-up:

• Business Discovery returns basic metadata, follower and media counts, and media with engagement counts for another professional account. You query it through your own professional account. It does not return personal accounts or age-gated professional accounts, and you cannot then fetch the returned media objects directly.
• Hashtag Search returns top and recent media for a hashtag. It needs the Instagram Public Content Access feature, which requires app review, and allows 30 unique hashtags per account in a rolling 7-day period.

There is no official endpoint for reading any public profile by username, a personal account's posts, or the comments under someone else's post. That gap is why so many teams look beyond the official API.

What are the Instagram API rate limits?

Meta's rate limiting docs set different limits for different parts of the API:

The impressions-based limit means a small account with little reach gets a small budget. Carousels count as one post towards the publishing cap.

What does app review involve?

Meta has two access levels. Standard Access is the default and is meant for apps that serve accounts you own or manage, which is fine for building and testing on your own account.

To serve professional accounts you do not own or manage, you need Advanced Access. That means app review for each permission you request, plus business verification of the company behind the app. Meta asks you to show how your app uses each permission, so have a working build, a privacy policy and a clear description of the use case ready. Meta does not publish a fixed review time, so allow for at least one round of rejection and resubmission.

What happened to the Basic Display API?

The Basic Display API let consumer apps read a personal account's profile and media after the user logged in. Meta announced its deprecation on 4 September 2024, and from 4 December 2024 every request to it returns an error.

Meta's replacement, the Instagram API, only supports professional accounts. There is no official route left for an app to read a personal Instagram account, even with that user's permission. Website feed widgets, portfolio sites and personal dashboards built on Basic Display had to switch the account to professional or stop.

What are the hidden costs of the Instagram API?

• Account requirements. Every account you touch must be a business or creator account, and the Facebook Login set-up also needs a linked Facebook Page.
• Review and verification. Advanced Access takes time and paperwork, and a rejection resets the clock.
• Token upkeep. User tokens expire and must be refreshed, and permission scope names change: the Instagram Login scopes were renamed in January 2025.
• Reach-based limits. Rate limits scale with impressions, so the accounts that need the most monitoring may get the least headroom.
• What you cannot get at any price. Personal accounts, arbitrary public profiles and comments on other accounts' posts are simply not available.

When is the official Instagram API the right choice?

Use the official API when:

• You publish or schedule content for brands or creators.
• You moderate comments or handle DMs for accounts that authorise you.
• You need insights, which only the account owner can grant.
• You track a known set of professional accounts and Business Discovery's fields are enough.

For these, the official API is free, reliable and the only legitimate route.

What is the alternative for public Instagram data?

If you need public profiles, posts, reels and comments from accounts that have not authorised you, including personal public accounts, a public-data API fills the gap. crawlfeed serves these Instagram reads:

A profile costs 1 credit, with no app review and no professional account needed. Responses use the same Profile, Post and Comment shapes as TikTok, X, Reddit and the other 26 platforms. New accounts get 100 free credits, failed calls are refunded, and pack prices are on the pricing page.

The limits are real. crawlfeed is independent of Meta and only returns public data. It cannot publish, moderate comments, send DMs, read private accounts or return insights such as reach and impressions, which only the account owner can see. If you need any of those, use the official API.

For a side-by-side, see Instagram API alternatives, and for working code, our guide to getting public Instagram data.

The short answer

The Instagram API is free in money as of October 2026. It is limited to professional accounts, reads other accounts only through Business Discovery and Hashtag Search, and needs app review for anything beyond your own accounts. The Basic Display API for personal accounts has been gone since 4 December 2024. If you manage accounts, use the official API. If you need to read public Instagram data broadly, you will need a public-data API alongside it.