InScrape
$0.60–$1.20 per 1,000 standard requests
- Entry
- 100 free; $12 for 10,000
- Billing unit
- Successful request
- Non-200 responses
- 0 credits
- Purchased-credit expiry
- Never
Compare · reviewed 20 September 2026
InScrape vs Apify Instagram Scraper — Requests or Dataset Runs?
Apify's maintained Instagram Scraper now uses per-result pricing. The practical choice is no longer credits versus compute alone; it is synchronous API lookups versus actor runs, datasets, exports and schedules.
Quick verdict
Choose InScrape for synchronous lookups with one stable Instagram API contract. Choose Apify for batch datasets, schedules, exports or a marketplace that covers many sites.
- Current entry
- $0 plan with $5 monthly platform usage
- Published rate
- $2.70–$1.50 per 1,000 results for Apify's Instagram Scraper
- Billing unit
- Delivered result, such as one post, profile or comment
- Best for
- Batch collection, datasets, schedules and multi-site scraping
Pricing snapshot
InScrape and Apify use different cost models.
Normalize the workload before choosing a lower-looking number. InScrape prices below are for standard one-credit requests; followers and following cost two credits.
Apify
$2.70–$1.50 per 1,000 results for Apify's Instagram Scraper
- Entry
- $0 plan with $5 monthly platform usage
- Billing unit
- Delivered result, such as one post, profile or comment
- Failure billing
- The maintained Instagram Actor bills delivered results
- Best fit
- Batch collection, datasets, schedules and multi-site scraping
When Apify is the right call
When Apify is the better choice.
A comparison page that says the competitor is bad at everything is a comparison page nobody believes. Here is where they genuinely win.
- You scrape many different sites and want one platform for all of them
- You want to run and schedule your own custom crawler code in their cloud
- You need a niche source that only a community actor covers
- Your workflow is batch dataset production, not per-request lookups
Why people switch
Why teams compare InScrape with Apify.
These are the four reasons that show up in support conversations, not a marketing list.
Choosing between a dozen Instagram actors
Search for an Instagram scraper and you get a list, each with a different author, maintenance history, input schema and output shape. Picking is a research task, and the one you pick can go unmaintained without warning.
Runs, not requests
The actor model means starting a run, polling for completion, then reading a dataset. For a synchronous lookup — a user typed a handle and is waiting — that is the wrong shape, and you end up writing a queue to paper over it.
A result is not the same billing unit as a request
Apify's maintained Instagram Scraper publishes per-result pricing. One run can return many billable posts or comments, while one InScrape request returns one documented response page. Compare the number of useful records your workload needs, not only the headline price.
Output schema varies per actor
Switching actors means remapping fields. There is no shared contract across Instagram actors, so the migration cost is paid again every time one breaks.
Side by side
InScrape vs Apify: API differences.
| InScrape | Apify | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Synchronous REST request | Actor run plus dataset read |
| Time to first byte | Seconds | Run start plus execution |
| Pricing unit | Credits per successful request | Results for the maintained Instagram Scraper; other Actors can differ |
| Published Instagram rate | $0.60–$1.20 per 1,000 standard requests | $2.70–$1.50 per 1,000 results, depending on plan |
| Who maintains the compared scraper | The InScrape team | Apify |
| Shared response schema | Yes, across all endpoints | Per actor |
| Breadth beyond social | No | Thousands of sources |
| Best workload shape | One public Instagram lookup at a time | Batch runs, datasets, exports and schedules |
FAQ
Apify alternative FAQ.
Is this cheaper than Apify?
InScrape publishes a lower number per 1,000 standard requests, but Apify bills results rather than requests. For large batch jobs, one Actor run can be the better operational fit. Model the records you need, not just the number of calls.
Can I keep Apify for other sources?
Yes, and most teams do. The migration worth making is the Instagram path, not the whole platform.
How do I migrate an actor call?
Replace the run-and-poll cycle with a single GET, then remap the actor's output fields to our schema once. There is no dataset step.
Compare next
Evaluate the closest alternatives with the same method.
Each page separates billing units, product fit and the cases where the other provider is the better choice.
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