The Best Social Media API for 2025

Social media APIs power nearly every app you use to publish posts, analyze metrics, or manage community engagement. 

Whether you’re building a dashboard, scheduling platform, or influencer discovery tool, choosing the right API is the most important thing you need to do.

In this guide, you’ll find the most important APIs available today – both official platform-native options like Instagram Graph API and third-party aggregators like Influencers Club’s API.

We’ll compare data access, pricing, use cases, and limitations so you can decide what fits your workflow, whether you’re managing your own social presence or building tools for others.

If you’re a developer, this guide covers the details you actually care about: rate limits, auth methods, credit systems, and how each API holds up when queried at scale. 

No vague summaries, just clear, actionable info to help you choose the right stack. Let’s dive in.

What is a Social Media API?

A Social Media API is a tool that lets developers access data or features from social platforms programmatically. 

It can allow apps to publish posts, retrieve profile metrics, manage messages, or search content, depending on the platform’s rules. 

Some APIs are platform-native (like Instagram Graph API), while others aggregate data across multiple networks, like influencers.club.

Types of Social Media APIs and the differences

Social media APIs generally fall into two main categories, depending on what you’re building:

1. Execution & Engagement APIs

These are focused on managing content and interactions across social platforms.

Platform-Native APIs – These are official APIs provided by platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn. They let you publish posts, retrieve analytics, manage comments, or run ads, but are limited to the specific platform and only for accounts you control.

Aggregator APIs – Tools like Sociality.io and Sprout Social offer unified APIs that let you schedule content, track performance, or moderate across multiple platforms.

2. Discovery & Intelligence APIs

These data-first APIs prioritize finding, profiling, and enriching creator data at scale.

Platforms like influencers.club are built for influencer discovery and enrichment. They let you search across multiple platforms, retrieve emails and audience stats, and feed your own outreach, CRM, or analytics tools, without needing OAuth from every user.

Official Social Media APIs for Each Network

Below, you can find the social media APIs offered directly by each platform. 

They give access to that platform’s features, like publishing posts, pulling metrics, or managing interactions, but only for the accounts you control or have explicit permissions for. 

Each API is designed around the platform’s own policies, use cases, and limitations.

1. Instagram Graph API

The Instagram Graph API is the only Meta-approved method to legally schedule content and retrieve analytics for Instagram business and creator accounts. It powers most professional tools you use for post scheduling, comment moderation, and engagement tracking on Instagram.

Pros:

• Official access to publish posts (photos, videos, and now reels)
• Reliable metrics on impressions, reach, likes, and comments
• Supports comment reading and replying across posts
• Stable and versioned under Meta’s Graph API framework

Cons:

• No support for personal profiles beyond basic data
• Requires a Facebook-linked Business or Creator account
• Rate limits apply, and advanced access needs an app review
• Doesn’t allow follower insights, follow/unfollow actions, or access to public content

Pricing & Plans:

Free to use under Meta’s Graph API. No paid tier, but heavy usage may trigger rate limits or require business app review.

Best Fit:

Ideal for social media tools and dashboards that focus on official publishing and performance insights for Instagram Business or Creator accounts.

2. X (Twitter) API

The X API is built for reading and posting tweets, streaming real-time content, and managing user interactions. 

It’s used for everything from bot automation to sentiment analysis, but after a major overhaul in 2023, most meaningful access now comes at a steep cost.

Pros:

• Full-featured publishing and data access via Enterprise plans
• Official source for tweet streams, profile data, and engagement metrics
• Enables customer support workflows, analytics, and real-time trend tracking

Cons:

• Free tier limited to 1,500 tweets/month with no read access
• Basic tier offers minimal reads (10,000 tweets/month) for $100/month
• Many endpoints are restricted or removed for non-enterprise users
• Frequent policy shifts and instability since the platform rebrand

Pricing & Plans:

Free tier allows posting only (1,500 tweets/month). Basic plan costs $100/month. Enterprise access starts in the tens of thousands monthly, with custom contracts for archive search and higher volumes.

Best Fit:

Best suited for large-scale enterprise platforms needing real-time data, tweet posting, or historical tweet search. Smaller developers face cost barriers that limit their usefulness for indie or hobby projects.

3. LinkedIn API

The LinkedIn API supports posting to company pages, retrieving analytics, and managing ad campaigns, but only for approved apps. 

Its core use cases revolve around B2B marketing, CRMs, and HR tools that need access to company content performance and professional identity features like “Sign in with LinkedIn.”

Pros:

• Access to company page posting and engagement insights
• Reliable for managing LinkedIn Ads and retrieving follower data
• Integration with LinkedIn Login for identity workflows

Cons:

• Limited access for non-partner apps
• No visibility into other users’ profiles or public data
• Requires partner approval to use advanced features or the Ads API
• The application process for elevated access is slow and selective

Pricing & Plans:

No public paid tiers. Full access is granted through LinkedIn’s Partner Program, which requires application and approval. Basic use for owned accounts is free but limited.

Best Fit:

Tailored for approved B2B tools and enterprise platforms focused on campaign analytics, page management, and identity integrations. Not practical for independent developers or apps needing broad access.

4. YouTube Data API

The YouTube Data API v3 powers nearly every app that interacts with YouTube. You can use it to get video details, search content, manage playlists, and upload videos. It’s built for tools that track channel performance, moderate comments, or aggregate media libraries.

Pros:

• Full access to public YouTube content (videos, channels, playlists)
• Upload videos and manage content with user consent
• Powerful search and metadata filtering across the platform
• Free to use within a generous daily quota

Cons:

• A 10K unit/day quota can be restrictive at scale
• Higher quota requests require approval
• Certain metrics (like who liked a video or full subscriber details) are not accessible
• Comment-heavy endpoints can be rate-intensive

Pricing & Plans:

Completely free under Google’s quota model. Developers can apply for more than the default 10,000 units/day, but approvals are required.

Best Fit:

Ideal for media tools, analytics dashboards, and content managers who need to work with video data or automate uploads to a YouTube channel.

5. TikTok for Developers API

TikTok’s API ecosystem enables third-party apps to post videos, authenticate users, and embed content. But most data access is restricted to approved partners or researchers. Tools like Later and Sprout Social use it to support TikTok scheduling and content workflows.

Pros:

• Official Content Posting API for scheduling videos directly from third-party platforms
• Login Kit and Share Kit simplify user onboarding and sharing from apps
• Stable integration with support for major platforms like Adobe

Cons:

• Data access is tightly restricted to approved research and commercial use
• No support for general comment retrieval or analytics
• Requires approval to use Content Posting or Research APIs
• APIs are region- and account-type-specific in some cases

Pricing & Plans:

Free to use, but access is gated. Basic features (Login, Share, Embed) are open to all developers. Content Posting API requires becoming a TikTok Content Marketing Partner.

Best Fit:

Best for approved content tools and platforms that need to support TikTok video publishing or authentication. Less useful for developers looking for analytics or user-level insights.

6. Pinterest API

Pinterest’s API gives you full control over creating Pins, managing boards, and tracking content performance. It’s widely used by e-commerce platforms and social media schedulers to automatically post product content or monitor Pinterest analytics for business accounts.

Pros:

• Supports creating and managing Pins, Boards, and catalogs
• Pull analytics for impressions, clicks, and saves on owned content
• Unified API (v5) with modern GraphQL backend for streamlined queries
• Free to use with higher limits upon approval

Cons:

• Requires app approval to move beyond trial access
• No real-time updates (no webhooks; must poll for changes)
• Cannot access or search other users’ Pins or perform broad social listening
• The approval process includes submitting a working demo

Pricing & Plans:

Free to use. New apps start with limited daily access; developers can request an upgrade to the Standard tier at no cost, subject to review.

Best Fit:

Great for e-commerce tools and visual schedulers looking to integrate Pinterest publishing or product-rich Pins. Less suitable for developers wanting public data access or real-time monitoring.

7. Reddit API

Reddit’s API allows you to read and interact with subreddit posts, comments, and user actions like voting or saving. 

While it was once a favorite among indie developers and researchers, 2023 brought sweeping changes that shifted the API toward a paid model for high-volume access.

Pros:

• Access to live subreddit content and user interactions
• Supports posting, voting, saving, and commenting via API
• Still free for moderation bots, low-volume research, and accessibility tools
• Simple, well-documented JSON-based REST structure

Cons:

• Strict rate limits (10–100 requests/min, depending on auth)
• Premium plan required for high-volume or commercial usage
• NSFW content and certain public endpoints removed
• Many third-party Reddit clients shut down post-2023 changes

Pricing & Plans:

Free for small-scale or exempt use cases. Enterprise access starts at $0.24 per 1,000 calls, which can be costly at scale.

Best Fit:

Best for moderation tools, academic projects, or small-scale content apps that need structured access to community discussions. Less viable for commercial data mining or large-scale social listening without a paid plan.

Third-Party Social Media API Aggregators & Tools

These APIs connect multiple social platforms through a single integration, saving you from managing each network’s API individually. 

Some focus on influencer discovery and contact enrichment, while others offer full social media management, publishing, analytics, or listening features. 

They’re built for companies that need scale, automation, and broader data coverage than platform-native APIs can offer.

1. Influencers.club API

Best for creator discovery and enrichment at scale, especially for those who need emails. 

We’ve built the Influencers Club API to help you find, understand, and connect with over 190M creators across all social media and creator platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, X, OnlyFans, and more). 

By integrating this API you’ll get powerful search and enrichment capabilities using just a username or email. You can pull profil metrics and stats, verified emails, and over 40 other profile-level data points.

So, if you’re building tools for influencer discovery, CRM enrichment, outreach automation, or market analysis, check the API documentation and see if this is the kind of dataset you need.

Pros:

• Access to 190M+ profiles across 47 platforms
• Enrichment via username or email with always up-to date data
• Cross-platform data 
• Access verified emails for 190M+ influencers
• Similarity search to find lookalike creators using our AI-based matching
• No OAuth or user consent needed, pull public data at scale with one API key
• Has a pay-per-export model, accessible to growing teams

Cons:

• Read-only: does not support publishing, commenting, or moderating content

Pricing & Plans:

Paid plans start at $249/month for a base credit quota and you can test it for free.

Best Fit for anyone that needs accurate creator data from any platform. 

Built for marketing platforms, agencies, e-commerce brands, and CRMs that need to discover, verify, and connect with influencers, especially when managing campaigns across multiple platforms and regions.

2. Sociality.io API

Best for enterprise social media management and integration.

Sociality.io’s API provides a single access point for enterprises to manage, publish, monitor, and analyze social media across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube. 

It’s used to feed data into BI tools, CRMs, or internal dashboards without needing to build direct integrations for each network.

Pros:

• Unified publishing, analytics, and engagement data 
• Includes competitor analysis and social listening features
• Bypasses the need for platform-specific API approvals
• Maintains consistency despite changes in native APIs

Cons:

• Requires a Sociality.io subscription (no standalone API use)
• No real-time push (no webhooks); polling is needed for updates
• Limited flexibility for smaller developers or non-enterprise use cases
• May not expose all niche capabilities of underlying platforms

Pricing & Plans:

API access is part of Sociality.io’s higher-tier plans or enterprise contracts. No public pricing; quotes are available upon request.

Best Fit:

Best for enterprises wanting a managed, all-in-one API layer for publishing, analytics, and monitoring across multiple social channels without the hassle of dealing with platform-by-platform restrictions.

3. Phyllo

Best for unified creator metrics across platforms. 

Phyllo offers a single API to fetch detailed creator data, like engagement metrics, audience stats, and even earnings, from platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Patreon. 

It’s built for apps that help creators verify income, manage multi-platform presence, or centralize stats for sponsorships.

Pros:

• Cross-platform data access
• Supports 20+ platforms, including social, music, gaming, and writing apps
• Returns trusted, private metrics like revenue and detailed audience info
• Simplifies OAuth management, one integration instead of many

Cons:

• Pricing is enterprise-level; no true free tier beyond sandbox testing
• Limited by what each source platform’s API allows
• Some users say it’s not useful for discovering new creators or pulling public data

Pricing & Plans:

Phyllo uses a custom pricing model. While sandbox access may be free, production use starts in the thousands per month. High-scale clients reportedly pay around $20,000/year.

Best Fit:

Perfect for creator economy startups needing verified multi-platform stats, whether for monetization checks, influencer CRM, or user identity across platforms.

4. Brandwatch API

Best for enterprise-scale social listening and analytics.

The Brandwatch API delivers aggregated insights from across social platforms, news, forums, and blogs, ideal for enterprises that need sentiment analysis, trending topic detection, or consumer behavior data. 

It also supports publishing via its Social Media Management suite, but its core strength lies in programmatic access to Brandwatch’s data-rich listening tools.

Pros:

• Access to full-firehose social data, including Reddit, Twitter, news, and more
• Built-in sentiment, demographic, and emotion analysis
• Powerful for BI dashboards, consumer research, and automated reporting
• High reliability with enterprise-grade SLAs

Cons:

• Only available to paying Brandwatch customers (no free tier)
• Complex query syntax requires familiarity with Brandwatch’s language
• High cost: typically five- to six-figure contracts annually
• Access is tied to Brandwatch’s platform ecosystem

Pricing & Plans:

Enterprise only, API access is bundled with Brandwatch Consumer Intelligence contracts. Pricing is not public and varies by usage and scale.

Best Fit:

Designed for Fortune 500 brands, agencies, and researchers needing large-scale monitoring and deep social analytics. Not suitable for small teams or independent developers.

5. Sprout Social API

Best for integrating social data with corporate workflows. 

Sprout Social’s API is tailored for enterprise customers who already use the platform to manage their social presence. It allows teams to export analytics, manage scheduling queues, and archive incoming messages. Ideal for syncing social data with CRMs, BI tools, or internal dashboards.

Pros:

• Export metrics, reports, and engagement data for owned accounts
• Integrate publishing workflows by injecting content into Sprout’s queue
• Pull comments and messages managed in Sprout for deeper processing
• Stable and high-uptime API available to premium users

Cons:

• Requires Sprout subscription with advanced plan; no standalone API access
• Limited to data from accounts you manage, no public data or discovery features
• Doesn’t support flexible posting like some standalone publishing APIs
• API access must be enabled by your Sprout account manager

Pricing & Plans:

Included with Sprout Social’s Advanced plan (no separate API fee). Plan pricing varies but typically runs in the high hundreds per month.

Best Fit:

Best for brands and agencies already using Sprout who need to embed its data into internal systems or automate content and analytics flows across departments.

6. Modash API

Best for influencer discovery at scale.

Modash offers API access to one of the largest influencer databases available, covering over 200 million creators across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. 

You can search by follower count, niche, engagement, and location, then retrieve profile stats and contact info to enrich your own marketing tools or research datasets.

Pros:

• Extensive influencer search across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
• Access to profile stats, bios, engagement metrics, and public contact emails
• Supports use cases like influencer vetting, CRM enrichment, and discovery tools
• Reliable and fast, built for developers and platforms

Cons:

• Expensive: pricing starts around $16k–$20k/year, no monthly or free plan
• Public data only, no access to private metrics or behavior insights
• Email quality depends on what creators list publicly
• Read-only: no way to post, message, or interact via the API

Pricing & Plans:

Starts at approximately $16k–$20k annually. Plans include fixed query volumes; pricing scales with usage and features.

Best Fit:

Ideal for influencer marketing platforms, CRM tools, or enterprise teams building discovery systems who need scalable access to creator data and are ready for a long-term investment.

To Sum Up

There’s no one-size-fits-all API for social media development. Platform-native APIs give you precise control over content and analytics, but only within each network’s boundaries. 

Aggregators like Sprout or Sociality simplify workflow automation across platforms but come with platform lock-in and limited flexibility. 

Meanwhile, data-first social media APIs like ours at influencers.club gives you breadth and scale. Hence, they are ideal for discovery, enrichment, and market intelligence at speed.

If you’re building tools that need to reach across platforms, enrich leads, or uncover creator insights without managing OAuth tokens or syncing five different APIs, start with data-first solutions.

Whatever your use case, understanding each API’s scope, pricing model, and technical constraints upfront will save you weeks of rework later. Choose your tools like a developer, not a marketer. Your product’s flexibility and reliability depend on it.