Raw Instagram Post Lookup and Video Transcripts

The Influship Instagram scraper API supports raw Instagram post lookup and Instagram video transcript extraction, with single and batch endpoints for each. A fresh transcript extraction can include the full post payload, so you can pull spoken content and post metadata in one call. Cached transcript responses omit that optional field.

The surface has four endpoints: single-post lookup, batch post lookup, single video transcript extraction, and batch video transcript extraction. Full schemas, credit-based rate limits, and error codes are in the API reference.

The endpoints

Call them at api.influship.com under the /v1/raw/instagram namespace:

• GET /v1/raw/instagram/post/{shortcode}: single post lookup. Returns the raw Instagram post payload (caption, media, owner, engagement counts, timestamp).
• POST /v1/raw/instagram/posts: batch lookup, up to 20 shortcodes per request. Returns one success or error item per shortcode, in input order.
• GET /v1/raw/instagram/transcript/{shortcode}: video transcript for a single post. A fresh extraction also includes the post payload; a cache hit does not.
• POST /v1/raw/instagram/transcripts: batch transcripts, up to 10 video shortcodes per request. Each successful item includes the transcript and can include the post payload when the transcript was freshly extracted.

Full request and response schemas, error codes, and rate-limit headers live in the API reference at docs.influship.com.

Fresh transcript responses can include the post payload

Both transcript endpoints return the transcript. On a fresh extraction, the response can also include the full post payload in the same shape as the post lookup endpoint:

{
  "data": {
    "shortcode": "CxxxxYYY",
    "transcript": "okay so I had to come back and show you this...",
    "full_text": "okay so I had to come back and show you this...",
    "language": "en",
    "word_count": 234,
    "duration_seconds": 38.2,
    "scraped_at": "2026-05-14T18:24:00Z",
    "post": {
      "id": "...",
      "shortcode": "CxxxxYYY",
      "caption": "...",
      "owner_username": "...",
      "post_type": "video",
      "is_video": true,
      "like_count": 1234,
      "comment_count": 56,
      "view_count": 9876,
      "taken_at": 1715712240,
      "video_url": "https://..."
    }
  }
}

On a fresh extraction, one call can cover the spoken content plus the post's caption, owner, engagement counts, post type, timestamp, and media URLs. On a cache hit, the transcript is returned without data.post; call the post lookup endpoint if you also need that metadata.

Authenticating and making a call

Production traffic on the Influship API uses an API key. Generate one from the developer dashboard, send it in the X-API-Key header, and you can call any of the raw endpoints:

curl https://api.influship.com/v1/raw/instagram/transcript/CxxxxYYY \
  -H "X-API-Key: $INFLUSHIP_API_KEY"

If you're building an agent or a per-request integration and you don't want a human to stop and sign up first, the x402 and MPP payment protocols also work on these endpoints. Your client pays per request over HTTP, no API key required.

When to use raw over creator search

Use the raw endpoints when you already have a shortcode and you want the source post or transcript. If you're still looking for the creator, run a natural language query through POST /v1/search first: describe the creator profile or content theme you're after and get back matches with profile summaries. Then call GET /v1/posts for a selected creator to retrieve recent post shortcodes before sending the ones you need to the raw endpoints.

Some common cases:

• An agent or workflow surfaced a post and you want the data behind it without re-running discovery
• You're running your own analytics or scoring on top of post, caption, and transcript content
• You need spoken content for sentiment, topic classification, claim detection, or brand-safety review
• You're enriching a creator profile in your own database with recent posts and their captions
• You're building a content classification pipeline that needs both the post context and what the creator says on camera

Pricing and limits

Per-call pricing:

• GET /v1/raw/instagram/post/{shortcode}: 1 credit per post ($0.01)
• POST /v1/raw/instagram/posts: 1 credit per successful post ($0.01), up to 20 shortcodes per request with an API key
• GET /v1/raw/instagram/transcript/{shortcode}: 5 credits per transcript ($0.05)
• POST /v1/raw/instagram/transcripts: 5 credits per successful transcript ($0.05), up to 10 shortcodes per request with an API key

That success-based billing applies to API-key requests. x402 and MPP calculate the price from the number of shortcodes requested before the batch runs, so failed items in those pay-per-request batches are still included in the quoted price.

Influship enforces account-wide per-minute and per-hour credit budgets. The current budgets and RateLimit-* response headers are documented in the quotas and limits guide. If you're scaling past the default limits, talk to us about a higher-volume tier.

Raw YouTube data is also live

The YouTube transcript API includes live endpoints for channel data, individual video transcripts, channel transcript batches, and search. Their request and response shapes differ from the Instagram endpoints, so use the current API reference when adding YouTube to the same pipeline.

For authentication, rate limits, error codes, and response schemas, the API reference has the full picture. If you don't have an API key yet, you can generate one in the developer dashboard.