How to Scrape Instagram Followers in 2026: 3 Methods - The GTM with Clay Blog

Claygent Builder: The easiest way to build, test, and deploy GTM Agents

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Lead Scoring in Clay: A Step-by-Step Formula Guide

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How to Validate Cold Outbound Offers and Find Message-Market Fit

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Bulk Enrichment: Enrich Millions of CRM Records in Clay

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Clay Templates: Automate, Customize, and Replicate Any GTM Workflow

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How to Optimize Your Credit Usage in Clay

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AI for sales prospecting

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The Reverse Demo: How Clay Replaced Traditional B2B Sales Demos

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Data Waterfalls: How to Maximize Contact Coverage with Clay

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How Clay Runs ABM Campaigns: A Step-by-Step Playbook

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How We Built Clay's GTM Engineering Function

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Best Personal Email Finder Tools: Tested and Ranked

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How to Use OpenAI to Write Cold Emails from Scratch with Clay

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How to Run a Personalized Demo Play at Scale with Clay

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Automated Slide Deck Creation: How Clay Builds QBRs from Your Data

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B2B Cold Email Deliverability: 21 Best Practices

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Basics of Google Search Operators: A Practical Guide

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AI Lead Generation: The Complete B2B Guide

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Clay MCP: Ops-built workflows, consumable by reps

How to Manage and Enrich Inbound Leads Automatically

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GTM Alpha: How Winning Teams Build a Competitive Edge

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Why Good CRM Data Matters and How Clay Helps

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How to Use Formulas in Clay: AI Generator and Manual Entry

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GTM Engineering: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Hire

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Formulas in Clay: A Beginner's Intro for Non-Engineers

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How Clay Uses Clay for SEO and AEO: 3 Systems That Scale

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Turn Web Visitors into Leads: A Warm Outbound Play for B2B Sales

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How to Use Web Scraping to Enrich Your Data with Clay

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How to Create a Sales Prospect List in Minutes

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Best B2B Email List Providers: Tested and Ranked (2026)

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Outbound Sales Automation: How to 10x Pipeline Without More SDRs

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The Wake the Dead Play: Reactivate Closed-Lost Deals with Clay

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How Clay Uses Clay for Customer Support: 3 Real Workflows

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B2B Cold Email Copywriting: The Complete Guide

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Introducing Clay Functions

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How to Hire a GTM Engineer: The Complete Guide

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24 AI Email Personalization Examples for Cold Outreach (With Prompts)

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Audiences: now in Enterprise beta

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The thinking behind our new pricing: our internal memo

Clay pricing memo: INTERNAL

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Clay partners with Lusha and Beauhurst to expand European data coverage

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Clay doubles down on supporting European GTM teams

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In Nigeria, she built a life where money wouldn’t decide

Clay blog | In Nigeria, she built a life where money wouldn’t decide

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Clay has partnered with The Kiln to setup a series of large-scale data test across mobile phone, work email, personal email, email verification, and more. Below, we explain the approach to these tests.

Work Email Verification Methodology

Clay has partnered with The Kiln to setup a series of large-scale data test across mobile phone, work email, personal email, email verification, and more. Below, we explain the approach to these tests.

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Clay announces employee tender offer led by Sequoia at $1.5B valuation

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Create personalized presentations at scale with Clay and Google Slides

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Claygents

Research target companies and people with AI

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Combine multiple data providers for the best coverage

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Track job changes promotions or other signals

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Buy data from 150+ providers in one place

Ads

Sync targeted ad audiences to Linkedin, Meta, and Google

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Centralize your first and third party data sources in Clay

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Use Clay's native sequencer or automate messaging

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How to Scrape Instagram Followers: 3 Methods Compared

Scraping Instagram followers can be a great way to study industry trends, see what content gets the most attention, or even peek at your competitors' performance. But, due to Instagram's strict anti-scraping policy, the process may not be as easy as it seems.

There are several ways to scrape Instagram followers with varying requirements, speeds, and results. To zero in on the best one, our team consulted sales experts who rely on daily scraping massive amounts of data and compared their inputs with the experiences of users who scrape on a small scale.

Based on that, this article discusses three methods in-depth and teaches you how to scrape followers on Instagram most effectively.

TL;DR

There are three main ways to scrape Instagram followers: manually, via outsourced providers, or using web scraping tools. Web scraping tools are the most scalable and practical option.
Web scrapers can collect data from thousands of profiles in minutes and often include features like IP rotation, scheduling, and CAPTCHA solving to avoid detection.
Clay offers three built-in approaches to scrape Instagram followers: a native Instagram integration, the Claygent AI web scraper, and a Chrome extension.
After scraping, Clay's waterfall enrichment, data formatting, and AI enrichment features let you enrich and act on your data without switching platforms.

How to Scrape Instagram Followers: Three Methods to Try

While collecting public data that anyone can access is legal, Instagram still has a strict anti-scraping policy that prohibits automated scraping, whether the data is publicly available or not. With that in mind, ethically scraping may not lead to any legal repercussions but may still get your account blocked.

Based on these considerations, there are three methods of scraping Instagram followers:

Manually scraping

Outsourcing scraping providers

Using web scraping tools

While the first way may be the only foolproof scraping method that won't get you banned, it's impractical and ineffective in most cases.

Let's see why. 👇

Manual Scraping

Manual scraping is a straightforward approach requiring no special tools or skills. All you need to do is:

→ Open a public Instagram profile

→ Collect the list of the profiles following them

→ Paste it into a spreadsheet

Instagram has no means of knowing if users manually copy-paste data and, therefore, cannot prevent it.

That said, manually scraping Instagram followers isn't practical if you're collecting data from more than a couple of profiles. Large- or even medium-scale scraping would take months and a whole team of people.

Even without the time and effort considered, manual scraping still risks introducing human errors like typos and inconsistencies. ⚠️

💡 Bonus read: Check out these guides on scraping emails from Instagram and Facebook.

Outsourced Scraping

If you want to avoid managing your Instagram scraping projects, you can outsource the task to specialized web scraping service providers.

Outsourcing may be easier than in-house scraping because it requires no effort on your part and lets you focus on other tasks. It also frees up internal resources and improves scalability since most providers can accommodate growing scraping demands without compromising performance. 📈

That said, a drawback to consider is the risk of sharing sensitive or proprietary information with a third party, which is not everyone's cup of tea.

You'll also have limited control over the scraping methods and quality of the results. Most likely, you'll need to pay for the data even if you're not satisfied with what you got, which can turn into a wasted investment. 🚨

Web Scraping Tools

One of the most efficient methods is using specialized web scrapers to extract and export data from an online source. These tools can obtain information from thousands of profiles in minutes, making them ideal for large scraping projects.

Using a web scraper can be cost-effective as you don't need an entire team to run it. This gives you full control over data quality and guarantees security by keeping all sensitive and proprietary data in-house. 🔒

Some web scrapers come with built-in features to avoid anti-scraping measures, such as:

IP rotation: Helps avoid detection and lets you collect data from different sources

Scheduling: Lets you scrape at set intervals to avoid overburdening the server

CAPTCHA solving: Ensures scraping stays uninterrupted and the tool is undetected

As scraping tools are the most effective, scalable, and result-oriented method, we'll offer you instructions and a tool recommendation.

💡 Note: Considering Instagram's policy, it's always best to first check the Terms of Use before using any of the above scraping methods and ensure to always scrape ethically.

Choosing the Best Tool to Scrape Instagram Followers

There are dozens of Instagram follower scrapers in the market with unique feature sets, so what works for others may not work for you. To make an informed decision, differentiate between the three main types of web scrapers:

Scraping APIs: An interface for developers to build scraping bots

Scraper-building toolkits: A set of tools to build web scrapers without coding

Ready-made tools: Plug-and-play solutions to start scraping immediately

To choose the right type and zero in on the ideal Instagram followers scraper, consider the factors below as you evaluate your options:

If you need a scraping solution that checks all these boxes, Clay is an excellent choice. This data enrichment platform offers state-of-the-art scraping features that are easy to use and available immediately. 🎯

Clay offers both free and paid accounts and lets you do anything from:

Data collection

Enrichment

Formatting

Research and lead generation

Let's see why users love Clay so much!

How to Use Clay to Scrape Instagram Followers

Clay lets you choose your preferred way of scraping Instagram followers as it comes packed with both scraping and enrichment capabilities. For starters, you can use Clay's:

Native Instagram integration

AI scraping assistant

Scraping Chrome extension

Scrape Using Instagram Integration

To use Clay's Instagram integration, all you need to do is provide a public profile URL, full name, or company domain. The platform will deliver you with data points like:

Number of followers

Number of followed profiles

Username

Bio

Verification status

Clay offers over 60+ data scraping solutions and 100+ integrations, so you can combine your results and use other available ways to extract data from Instagram. Here's a peek at a few of them:

Use Clay's AI Web Scraper

Claygent is an AI web scraper that can search any corner of the internet with a simple prompt or question. Using it is simple:

Log into Clay and create a new table

Add a list of people or companies you want to research

Click Enrich Data and then search for Claygent

This will open a field for you to write your instructions using natural language, like working with ChatGPT. For example:

Visit popular public Instagram profiles and scrape their followers

After Claygent receives its prompt, it will find and deliver the information you need in a matter of minutes. ⏩

Scraping Instagram is just one way you can use Claygent. The assistant can scrape virtually any publicly available data, making it perfect for prospecting, lead enrichment, market research, or any use case you can think of. 🤖

Scrape as You Browse With the Chrome Extension

If you want to scrape Instagram followers as you browse, you can use the intuitive Chrome extension. It lets you extract data from any web page in four straightforward steps:

Install the extension

Open a public profile you want to scrape

Run the extension

Save data to your Clay table

The extension can automatically pick up data items and deliver ready-made results, or it can let you manually choose the points you need. All you have to do is load the followers list, and the extension will do the rest for you. ⚙️

Other Clay Features You'll Love

Robust data scraping features are merely the beginning of Clay's story. It offers sophisticated data enrichment features to let you fill in any blank spots. 📊

With Clay, you won't have to invest in multiple data cleaning or validation tools and jump between platforms to improve the quality of your data. Clay can access over 60 data providers to enrich any company or person without having you pay separate subscriptions.

The platform uses waterfall enrichment to sequentially search each database until it finds the data you asked for. Using it is as simple as:

Choosing the data providers you want Clay to search through

Customizing their order

Once you scrape and enrich your data, you can use many other Clay features to play with your points:

The cherry on top is Clay's flexible and transparent pricing. You can test its features through the free forever plan, and once you fall in love with it, opt for one of the paid plans listed below:

Launch: $185/month

Growth: $495/month

Enterprise: Custom

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it legal to scrape Instagram followers?

Collecting publicly available data is generally legal, but Instagram's Terms of Use explicitly prohibit automated scraping, regardless of whether the data is public. Scraping ethically may not result in legal consequences, but it can still get your account blocked. Always review Instagram's Terms of Use before scraping.

How do I extract Instagram followers into a spreadsheet?

The most practical approach is to use a web scraping tool. With Clay's Chrome extension, you open the public profile you want to scrape, run the extension, and save the results directly to a Clay table, which you can then export. Manual copy-pasting into a spreadsheet works for very small datasets but is not practical at scale.

What data can you collect when you scrape an Instagram profile?

Using Clay's native Instagram integration, you can collect follower count, followed profiles count, username, bio, and verification status. Clay's 60+ data scraping solutions let you combine these results with additional data points from other sources.

What is the difference between no-code scraping tools and scraping APIs?

Scraping APIs are interfaces designed for developers to build custom scraping bots, while no-code tools and ready-made scrapers are plug-and-play solutions that require no coding. Clay's Chrome extension and Claygent AI scraper both fall into the no-code category, letting you start scraping immediately without writing any code.

Create a Clay Account

All that's left to do is create an account, which you can do in three steps:

Visit the signup page 👈

Enter your name, email, and password

Explore Clay's features

If you'd like to learn more about the platform, visit Clay's University and join the Slack community of marketing and sales pros. You can also sign up for Clay's newsletter to receive useful updates and tips. 🛎️

💡 Keep reading: Check out these articles on scraping different social media platforms, such as:

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

TikTok

Scraping Instagram followers can be a great way to study industry trends, see what content gets the most attention, or even peek at your competitors' performance. But, due to Instagram's strict anti-scraping policy, the process may not be as easy as it seems.

There are several ways to scrape Instagram followers with varying requirements, speeds, and results. To zero in on the best one, our team consulted sales experts who rely on daily scraping massive amounts of data and compared their inputs with the experiences of users who scrape on a small scale.

Based on that, this article discusses three methods in-depth and teaches you how to scrape followers on Instagram most effectively.

TL;DR

There are three main ways to scrape Instagram followers: manually, via outsourced providers, or using web scraping tools. Web scraping tools are the most scalable and practical option.
Web scrapers can collect data from thousands of profiles in minutes and often include features like IP rotation, scheduling, and CAPTCHA solving to avoid detection.
Clay offers three built-in approaches to scrape Instagram followers: a native Instagram integration, the Claygent AI web scraper, and a Chrome extension.
After scraping, Clay's waterfall enrichment, data formatting, and AI enrichment features let you enrich and act on your data without switching platforms.