SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram data scraping service.
Competitive intelligence pipelines for agencies managing brand accounts. Public profile data only, delivered on your schedule.
The problem.
WHY THIS IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS
Social media agencies that manage brand accounts all hit the same wall. The Instagram Graph API exposes data for accounts you own. It does not expose the data you actually need most: how your client's brand is performing against competitors, which hashtags drive engagement for their category, and what content formats are working this month for the brands you're positioning against.
The workarounds are limited. Influencer-focused SaaS platforms sell large creator databases but are not built for competitive analysis on specific brand rosters. Generic analytics tools show you your own accounts and stop there. Manual tracking across 50 to 300 competitor profiles is unsustainable for any team. Someone ends up checking profiles by hand every Monday morning, copying numbers into a spreadsheet, and burning out within two months. The numbers go stale, the comparisons become meaningless, and the agency loses the intelligence edge that should be informing every content decision.
This service fills the competitive intelligence gap. I run ongoing data pipelines that track competitor profiles and branded hashtags for your agency. The pipeline calculates engagement rates, posting cadence, content format performance (reel vs carousel vs static), and hashtag effectiveness against configurable benchmarks. Reports land in your inbox or Google Sheet every week. Your team does not touch another dashboard, log into another tool, or check competitor profiles by hand.
For one running agency client this pipeline tracks 300+ competitor profiles across 45 brand accounts. Over the engagement, the agency attributed a 22% average engagement lift across their managed accounts to the competitive intelligence informing their content strategy. When Instagram changes its data patterns, the pipeline updates on my end within 24 hours. When new competitors join a roster, adding them takes a message, not a procurement cycle.
Across 200+ projects through sidb.work, competitive intelligence for social media agencies is one of the recurring engagement types that clients renew the most. The reason is simple: the data compounds. The longer the pipeline runs, the richer the historical benchmarks become and the more useful each weekly report is.
You pick the brand accounts and their competitive rosters. I build the pipeline. Your team uses the reports.
Is this right for you?
GOOD FIT IF ANY OF THESE SOUND LIKE YOU
You manage brand Instagram accounts and need real competitive intelligence, not just your own analytics
You run a social media agency with multiple clients and want per-brand competitive reports without building it yourself
You need hashtag and content-format analytics that inform content strategy, not just post-mortem reports
You have tried an influencer-focused SaaS tool and discovered it does not do competitor-brand tracking well
What you receive.
EXACT FIELDS, DELIVERED IN YOUR FORMAT
Sample record.
{
"username":"natgeo",
"followers": 284200000,
"posts_analyzed_30d": 42,
"avg_engagement_rate": 2.8,
"top_content_format":"reel",
"avg_reel_views": 1420000,
"posting_cadence":"3.8/week",
"optimal_posting_window":"18:00-21:00 local",
"top_hashtags": ["#nature","#wildlife","#photography"],
"competitor_rank": 2,
"engagement_delta_vs_benchmark": 0.6,
"reported_at":"2026-04-13T09:28:04Z"
}PREFER TO SELF-SERVE?
Or access our Instagram API yourself
5 ready-to-use endpoints. Pay per successful request. Built for developers.
Straightforward pricing.
SCALE DETERMINES PRICE · NO HIDDEN FEES
Competitor audit
One-time competitive audit of up to 20 profiles. Delivered in 3 to 5 days.
- Up to 20 competitor profiles
- 30-day historical analysis
- Engagement benchmarking
- PDF report + Google Sheet
Ongoing tracking
Continuous tracking with weekly reporting into your system.
- Up to 100 profiles tracked
- Weekly PDF + Sheet delivery
- Hashtag performance analytics
- Trend alerts when patterns shift
Agency intelligence
Multi-brand rollups for agencies managing many client accounts.
- 300+ profiles supported
- Per-brand branded reports
- Custom benchmarking
- Scoping call required
Frequently asked questions.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
The Graph API exposes data for accounts you own. It does not expose data for competitor profiles, which is the core use case for competitive intelligence. This service fills that exact gap by working from public profile data, the same kind of data anyone can see on Instagram's web and mobile clients.
Feed posts, reels, carousels, and story highlights from public profiles. All tracking is based on publicly visible content. I do not track private profiles, direct messages, or anything that requires a viewer to be logged in or following the account. If a competitor profile is set to private, I flag that during scoping so the roster reflects what is actually trackable.
The Competitor Audit tier handles up to 20 profiles. Ongoing Tracking handles up to 100 per brand. The Agency Intelligence tier has supported 300 profiles across 45 brand accounts in parallel in one ongoing engagement, with weekly reporting to each brand's account manager. Larger rosters are scoped case by case.
Most clients take a weekly PDF report per brand with engagement rankings, content format performance, hashtag effectiveness, and trend observations, plus a raw Google Sheet or CSV for teams that want to run their own analysis. The PDF is built for account managers and strategists. The Sheet is built for analysts.
Yes. Hashtag tracking covers post volume, top-performing posts, reach distribution, and engagement trends over time. For branded hashtags the report includes who is using them and how the branded content performs against organic. This is included in the Ongoing Tracking tier.
Every pipeline I run includes monitoring. When a change affects a tracked profile or breaks a workflow, I fix it and backfill the missed run within 24 hours in most cases. For recurring clients this ongoing maintenance is included in the monthly fee, so you do not see gaps and you do not need to manage the infrastructure.
Yes. Six formats cover most clients: CSV or JSON to S3 or Google Cloud Storage, Google Sheets updated in place, direct writes to PostgreSQL or BigQuery, and webhook pushes to reporting tools. For agencies the most common setup is a shared Google Sheet per brand plus PDF reports delivered to specific account managers via email.
Yes. You supply the competitor roster for each brand account you manage. Benchmarks are calculated within each competitive set so the numbers are relevant to that brand's category, not a generic industry average. You can add or remove competitors from a roster at any time and the benchmarks recalculate from the next reporting cycle.
Yes. Reels, carousels, and static feed posts are tracked as separate content formats with independent engagement rates, average views, and performance trends. This breakdown is critical for agencies advising clients on content format strategy. The weekly report surfaces which format is outperforming for each competitor in the roster.
Private profiles are not trackable from public data. If a competitor on your roster sets their profile to private, I flag it immediately in the report and suggest alternatives if available (such as the brand's secondary accounts or regional pages). For rosters where a significant portion of competitors are private accounts, I will tell you the effective tracking coverage during scoping so expectations are set before the engagement starts. In practice, brand and business accounts on Instagram are overwhelmingly public because visibility is their core function, so this is rarely a limiting factor for competitive intelligence work.
For existing clients with an active pipeline, adding a new brand account and its competitor roster typically takes 1 to 2 business days. I configure the tracking parameters, run an initial historical pull for the last 30 days so the first report has context, and then fold it into the regular weekly reporting cycle. No new contract or setup fee for additional brands under the Agency Intelligence tier.
For a one-time Competitor Audit, the typical turnaround is 3 to 5 business days from when I receive the competitor roster. For Ongoing Tracking, the initial setup takes about 3 to 5 business days for roster configuration and historical backfill of the last 30 days, so the first weekly report already has context. After that, reports land on the same day every week. If you are onboarding a new client and need the first competitive audit on a tight timeline, let me know and I will scope accordingly.
Competitor Audit starts at $199 for up to 20 profiles, depending on depth. Ongoing Tracking starts at $499 per month for up to 100 profiles with weekly reporting. Agency Intelligence scopes to the brand portfolio. No per-profile fees, no platform subscriptions.