# Instagram Media Screen Text API (https://www.socialcrawl.dev/platforms/instagram/media-screen-text)

> Reads the text shown on an Instagram post's images: the headlines, list items, captions and meme text creators design into a photo, a carousel slide or a reel cover, which the post caption never carries. What is read depends on the post. On a photo, the photo itself. On a carousel, every slide in order, up to the first 10 slides; a longer carousel is read to slide 10 and the response carries a warning giving its full slide count. On a reel or video, the cover frame only. This is AI OCR of the published images, so it does not read text that appears only later in a reel's video. `texts` is the deduplicated union of every image's text in slide order, `images` lists each image read with its own `texts` and its 0-based `index` in the post's media list (so a carousel caller knows which slide said what), `media_type` is image, video or carousel, and `source` is ocr when any text was found and none otherwise. A post with no text on it returns empty arrays (that is a real answer, not an error). If some slides cannot be read, those slides carry `texts: null` and the response carries a warning.

TL;DR: `GET /v1/instagram/media/screen-text` costs 5 credits a call, the same for a photo, a reel or a carousel. Refunded when the post cannot be found or when no image on it could be read. and returns SocialCrawl's unified JSON schema. Single x-api-key auth, 100 free credits on signup.

## Parameters

| Parameter | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `url` | yes | Full URL of the Instagram post, reel or video (a `/p/`, `/reel/`, `/reels/` or `/tv/` link) |

## Code example

```bash
curl "https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/instagram/media/screen-text?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fp%2FDdEqEl5Dl-S%2F" \
  -H "x-api-key: sc_YOUR_API_KEY"
```

See the full Instagram API: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/platforms/instagram

## Pricing

- Standard endpoints: 1 credit per call
- Advanced endpoints: 5 credits per call
- Premium endpoints: 10 credits per call
- 100 free credits on signup, no credit card required. Cached responses cost 0 credits. Credit packs never expire.
- Full pricing: https://www.socialcrawl.dev/pricing