POST/v1/instagram/user-highlights

Instagram User Highlights API

Get an Instagram user's story highlights. Curated content research from $0.01/call.

Fetch story highlights from any Instagram user's profile. Returns highlight metadata, cover images, and item counts.

Full Docs Get API Key — Free $5 Credit $0.01 / call

Try it live

Fill in the fields and hit Run to see a real response.

POST/v1/instagram/user-highlightsig-user-highlights$0.01/call

Response

Example response — hit "Send Request" to see a live result

{
  "ok": true,
  "data": {
    "highlights": [
      {
        "id": "hl123",
        "title": "Travel",
        "cover_media": {
          "url": "https://..."
        },
        "item_count": 15
      }
    ]
  }
}

Features

✓

Story highlights list

Returns the highlights array from a profile — the permanent story collections pinned below the bio — each as its own entry.

✓

Cover images

Each highlight includes its cover_media URL, the thumbnail the creator chose, so you can render the highlight reel visually.

✓

Item counts

Every highlight reports item_count, telling you how many stories it bundles without opening it.

✓

Highlight titles

The creator's chosen title (for example "Travel") is returned per highlight, revealing how they categorize and theme their content.

Use cases

Content Strategy

Analyze how creators organize their highlight content.

Profile Research

Research a user's curated highlight categories and themes.

Quick start

Copy this snippet and start making calls.

const res = await fetch('https://api.yepapi.com/v1/instagram/user-highlights', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "username": "instagram"
  }),
});
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

List an Instagram user's pinned story highlights

The YepAPI Instagram Highlights API returns a profile's permanent story-highlight reels — each with title, cover_media image, and item_count — from a single username. A POST to /v1/instagram/user-highlights reveals how a creator curates and themes the content they choose to keep pinned below their bio.

Unlike the Stories API, which captures fleeting 24-hour content, Highlights returns the durable collections creators deliberately preserve. Pair it with the User Profile API for context or drill into highlighted posts via the Post API. One key also covers TikTok, YouTube, SEO, and AI, so curation research spans platforms in a single integration.

What is an Instagram highlights API?

An Instagram highlights API returns the permanent story collections an account pins to its profile, as structured JSON. Highlights are the stories a creator deliberately saved past their 24-hour expiry and grouped under titled covers, so the response gives you each highlight's title, its cover_media thumbnail, and its item_count. You send {"username": "instagram"} and get the highlights array back. It reveals how an account curates and organizes its identity — distinct from the Stories API, which returns only the transient content currently live, and from the Posts API, which returns the main grid.

Build your own Instagram curation-research tool

Use the Highlights endpoint to study how creators organize their brand: which themes they pin, how many stories each highlight bundles, and what cover imagery they choose. Because each entry carries a title and item_count, you can profile an account's content strategy at a glance or compare curation patterns across competitors. Combine it with the YepAPI User Profile API to tie curation choices to audience size, building a fuller picture of how successful creators present themselves.

Instagram User Highlights API pricing — $0.01 per call

Each highlights lookup is a flat $0.01 with no minimums or tiers. Profiling the curation of a thousand creators costs $10, and the spend draws from the same balance as every other YepAPI endpoint. You are billed per call only, so curation research scales cleanly alongside your profile and posts pipelines.

Curation data the official API does not return

Instagram's official Graph API offers no endpoint for reading another account's story highlights, and even for owned accounts it does not expose highlight organization the way the app shows it. The YepAPI Highlights API returns the public highlight reels of any account by username, with titles, covers, and item counts, so curation research is possible at all — a capability outside the official API's scope.

Try the Instagram Highlights API free

Sign up for $5 in free credit, no card required. That covers 500 highlights lookups — enough to study curation patterns across many creators before spending anything.

Start making API calls in 30 seconds

$5 free credit on signup. No credit card required. Pay per call.

Get API Key — Free $5 Credit

What developers say

“Switched from SerpAPI and cut our SERP costs by 80%. Same data quality, way simpler billing.”
Marcus T.
SEO Platform Founder

“One API key for AI models, SERP data, and web scraping. Saved us from managing 4 separate providers.”
Priya S.
Full-Stack Developer

“The $5 free credit let us prototype our entire rank tracking feature before committing. No other API does that.”
Jake R.
Indie Hacker

Frequently asked questions

Fetch story highlights from any Instagram user's profile. Returns highlight metadata, cover images, and item counts.

Each API call costs $0.01. No monthly minimums or subscriptions — you only pay for what you use.

Sign up for a free API key, then send a POST request to /v1/instagram/user-highlights. Check the code example above for a ready-to-use snippet in JavaScript, cURL, or Python.

YepAPI bundles SEO, AI, and web scraping APIs under one key with no monthly minimums. You get lower per-call pricing, a unified dashboard, and one billing account instead of managing multiple providers.