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
Instagram Basic Display API Deprecation — Your Options After 4 December 2024
If your integration read a signed-in user's own media with that user's consent, Meta's Instagram API with Instagram Login is the correct successor and we will say so before you read another line. This page is about the other half of the problem: the accounts your users never connected.
Quick verdict
Basic Display cannot be chosen because Meta retired it. Use Instagram Login for authorized professional accounts, and use InScrape only for the separate job of reading public accounts that never authorize your app.
- Current entry
- Retired on 4 December 2024
- Published rate
- Not available
- Billing unit
- No longer operates
- Best for
- Migration guidance, not vendor selection
Pricing snapshot
InScrape and Instagram Basic Display API 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.
Instagram Basic Display API
Not available
- Entry
- Retired on 4 December 2024
- Billing unit
- No longer operates
- Failure billing
- Not applicable
- Best fit
- Migration guidance, not vendor selection
When Instagram Basic Display API is the right call
When Instagram Basic Display API 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.
- Never again for the API itself — Meta switched it off on 4 December 2024. Everything below is where Meta's replacement, not us, is the right answer
- You need the logged-in user's own media with their consent: the Instagram API with Instagram Login is the direct successor and the correct choice
- You need private metrics — reach, impressions, profile views, story taps — on an account that authorises your app. No public-data API can see those numbers
- You are publishing or scheduling content: that lives behind an official token and nowhere else
- Your users will convert to a Creator or Business account without complaint, and app review is a one-off cost you can absorb
Why people switch
Why teams compare InScrape with Instagram Basic Display API.
These are the four reasons that show up in support conversations, not a marketing list.
What was retired, precisely
The Basic Display API and its OAuth flow stopped serving on 4 December 2024. Apps whose only job was showing a user their own photos after a connect button lost that access on the date, not gradually. There is no compatibility mode and no extension to apply for.
The successor still only reads accounts that authorise you
Both replacement paths — the Instagram API with Instagram Login, and the Graph API through a Business account linked to a Facebook Page — read the account that granted the token. If your feature had quietly grown into showing competitor accounts, creator shortlists or any handle the user does not control, no permission scope covers that and the migration will not fix it.
The professional-account requirement lands on your users
Instagram Login needs a Creator or Business account; the Facebook Login route additionally needs a linked Page. Every user still on a personal account has to convert before they can connect, which is a conversion step you now own in onboarding.
App review and token refresh come back with it
Permissions need review before a public launch, and long-lived tokens last 60 days and must be refreshed while still valid. A user who does not open your app for two months falls out and has to re-authorise. That is a refresh job, a failure state and a re-auth prompt to build and keep running.
Side by side
InScrape vs Instagram Basic Display API: API differences.
| InScrape | Instagram Basic Display API | |
|---|---|---|
| Status today | Live | Switched off 4 December 2024 |
| Reads the signed-in user's own media | No — use the Instagram API with Instagram Login | That was its entire job |
| Reads accounts the user does not own | Yes, any public account | No, and neither does the successor |
| Auth | One x-api-key header | OAuth, 60-day long-lived tokens, manual refresh |
| Account type demanded of your users | None | Successor needs a Creator or Business account |
| Meta app review | Not required | Required before public launch |
| Private metrics (reach, impressions) | No — public data only | Only on accounts that authorise your app |
| What happens when a user stops opening your app | Nothing — there are no per-user tokens | Token expires, access ends until re-auth |
FAQ
Instagram Basic Display API deprecation FAQ.
What exactly happened on 4 December 2024?
Meta retired the Instagram Basic Display API. Its endpoints and its OAuth flow stopped serving on that date, so apps that read a user's own media through it lost access outright. Meta's stated paths forward are the Instagram API with Instagram Login, where a Creator or Business account authorises your app directly, and the Graph API through a Business account linked to a Facebook Page.
Is this a drop-in replacement for Basic Display?
No, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If your feature was 'the user logs in and sees their own posts', the direct successor is Meta's Instagram API with Instagram Login. Take that. We read public data on accounts nobody has connected to your app, which Basic Display never did either.
Then when is a public-data API the right migration?
When the feature had outgrown the user's own photos: competitor tracking, creator discovery, brand and hashtag monitoring, showing a public profile the viewer does not own, or filling a dashboard before anyone has connected anything. Basic Display could not serve those, and its successor cannot either. The same wall from the Graph API side, without the deprecation, is at /compare/instagram-graph-api-alternative.
Can I run both?
That is the usual end state. Official token for the connected account's own media and its private metrics, this API for every account the user has not connected. They cover different halves of the same product.
Do I need a Meta app, a Facebook Page or a Business account to use you?
None of them. No OAuth client, no review queue, no Page. A key in an x-api-key header and a public handle in the query string.
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.