Instagram MCP Server

A hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives Claude, Cursor, Windsurf and any other MCP client two read-only Instagram tools. Look up a public profile by handle, and walk its public post feed, as structured JSON.

It reads public data about accounts. It does not act as an account. There is nothing to connect and no account of yours involved anywhere in the flow.

https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram

Contents

• What you need
• Quick start
• Example prompts
• Tools
• Errors and failure paths
• Pricing, free tier and limits
• Tool selection
• How it compares
• FAQ
• HasData links
• Development
• Contributing
• License

What you need

An MCP client that speaks streamable HTTP with custom headers. A HasData API key from the dashboard, free to create with no card, and the trial covers 100 calls. Nothing else. This is a remote server, so the simplest path is a URL and a header, with no container to run. A stdio-only client can use the @hasdata/instagram-mcp (npm) or hasdata-instagram-mcp (PyPI) launcher instead.

Quick start

The server URL is the same for every client. We run it hands-on in Claude Code and Claude Desktop. The other blocks follow each client's own documented format for a remote server.

Clients with OAuth support can add the same URL as a connector and sign in without putting a key in a config file.

claude mcp add --transport http instagram "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram" \
  --header "x-api-key: HASDATA_API_KEY"

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@hasdata/instagram-mcp"],
      "env": { "HASDATA_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["hasdata-instagram-mcp"],
      "env": { "HASDATA_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "url": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "url": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram",
      "type": "streamableHttp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" },
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

{
  "servers": {
    "instagram": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/api/mcp?apis=instagram",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Example prompts

Each of these is one tool call unless the count says otherwise.

Pull the profile for @nasa and tell me the follower count, the category and every link in the bio.

One call, 10 credits. For a public account the profile response already carries the twelve most recent posts, so a follow-up about recent activity needs no second call.

Compare @nasa, @natgeo and @bbcearth on followers, posts published and whether each is a business account.

Three calls, 30 credits. One per handle.

Walk the last fifty posts from @nasa and list every hashtag with how often it appears.

Five calls, 50 credits. Twelve posts arrive per call, and fifty takes five pages.

For the last twelve posts on @natgeo, give me likes, comments and the accounts mentioned in each caption.

One call, 10 credits. Engagement counts and mentions come parsed in the post objects.

Two things make these work. Hashtags and mentions arrive as arrays parsed out of the caption, and an agent counts them instead of running a regex over prose. And a profile lookup returns the recent feed in the same response. That is why so many research questions land in a single call.

Tools

Two tools, both read-only, both keyed on a public account handle. Samples below are trimmed from real calls, and the numbers in them move as accounts post. Read them as shapes. Each tool name links to its endpoint reference.

The samples are the payload, not the whole response. A tools/call result carries one text block, and that text is itself JSON holding url, status, text and json, with the scraped data under json. From a raw JSON-RPC response the path is result.content[0].text, parsed, then .json. A chat client unwraps that for you and code talking to the endpoint directly does not.

Get an Instagram profile

hasdata_instagram_profile_getInstagramProfile

One public profile by handle.

Returns id, username, fullName, biography, businessCategory, verified, isBusinessAccount and isProfessionalAccount, the counters followersCount, followsCount, postsCount, highlightsCount and igtvVideoCount, both profilePicUrl and profilePicUrlHD, and the arrays latestPosts, latestIgtvVideos and relatedProfiles.

The core identity fields and the follower and following counts come back for every public account. The fields beyond that depend on what the account itself exposes, so read the optional ones with a default.

Links live in two fields that are not the same thing. bioLinks is the array of every link in the bio. externalUrls is a single string despite the plural name, and it holds the primary link, sometimes with a trailing slash the array version lacks. Read bioLinks when you want them all.

latestPosts and latestIgtvVideos do not carry identical fields. Video entries add taggedUsers, and the post objects here omit the productType that the posts tool includes. Code that walks both arrays through one parser has to treat the extra keys as optional.

{
  "id": "528817151",
  "username": "nasa",
  "fullName": "NASA",
  "biography": "Making the seemingly impossible, possible. ✨",
  "businessCategory": "Government Agencies",
  "bioLinks": [
    "https://www.nasa.gov",
    "https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/",
    "http://intern.nasa.gov"
  ],
  "externalUrls": "https://www.nasa.gov/",
  "followersCount": 104397669,
  "followsCount": 92,
  "postsCount": 4887,
  "verified": true,
  "isBusinessAccount": true,
  "latestPosts": [ "…twelve most recent posts, same shape as the posts tool…" ],
  "relatedProfiles": [
    { "id": "…", "username": "…", "fullName": "…", "profilePicUrl": "…" }
  ]
}

relatedProfiles is Instagram's own suggestion list for the account and runs to a few dozen entries. It is a cheap way to widen a competitor set without guessing handles.

Get Instagram posts

hasdata_instagram_posts_getInstagramPosts

The public post feed for one handle, page by page.

Read the full README on GitHub →