An account's best performing posts: GET /insights/instagram/{handle}/top-posts

What this endpoint answers

The posts the crawl holds for one account, ranked by likes, with per-post comment and view counts, the format Instagram assigned and the caption. Instagram is one of the few catalogs where post-level numbers are read rather than modelled, so these are measurements and not estimates.

This is a catalog read: it is served from the CRM Solid database in milliseconds, costs one budget unit, and reports how old the reading is in meta.cache_age_s. It needs the insights:read scope (Insights): Engagement rates, top posts, viral patterns, cohort benchmarks.

Good to know

followers is null for any account whose follower count the crawl has not captured, which is about two thirds of the Instagram catalog. Null means unknown; it never means an account with no followers. Use GET /accounts/instagram/{handle} when you need the count itself.
posts_held is how many posts the crawl actually retains for this account. It averages about 12 across the catalog but varies widely by account, so read the number rather than assuming one. Ranking is within that sample, not across the account's whole history.
views is null on image posts. That is an absent measurement, not a view count of zero.
Ranked by likes because it is the field Instagram populates on every post type. Comments and views are returned so a caller can rank differently.

Parameters

Every value the call accepts, with the example the spec ships so the request runs as written.

Name	In	Required	Example	What it does
`handle`	path	required	`nasa`	Instagram handle, without the @.
`limit`	query	optional	`10`	Posts to return, 1 to 50.

Call it

Authenticate with a bearer token or the x-api-key header. Keys are server-to-server credentials. Never embed one in front-end code - call the API from your own backend and forward the result.

curl

curl "https://crmsolid.com/data-api/v2/insights/instagram/nasa/top-posts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer psk_live_..."

JavaScript

const res = await fetch("https://crmsolid.com/data-api/v2/insights/instagram/nasa/top-posts", {
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.CRM_SOLID_DATA_API_KEY}`,
  },
});

if (!res.ok) {
  const { error } = await res.json();
  throw new Error(`${error.code}: ${error.message} (${error.request_id})`);
}

const { data, meta } = await res.json();

Python

import os

import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://crmsolid.com/data-api/v2/insights/instagram/nasa/top-posts",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['CRM_SOLID_DATA_API_KEY']}"},
    timeout=30,
)
res.raise_for_status()

payload = res.json()
data, meta = payload["data"], payload["meta"]

Keys look like psk_live_... for production keys, psk_test_... for test keys and are minted in the panel.

What comes back

Success is { data, meta }. Failure is { error: { code, message, request_id } }. The body below is the spec's own example: the values in it are illustrative readings, not live numbers.

Handle: nasa
User id: 528817151
Followers: 98,412,330
Posts held: 12
Posts: 1 items

200 GET /insights/instagram/{handle}/top-posts

{
  "data": {
    "handle": "nasa",
    "user_id": "528817151",
    "followers": 98412330,
    "posts_held": 12,
    "posts": [
      {
        "shortcode": "C8xYz1AbcDe",
        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/p/C8xYz1AbcDe/",
        "posted_at": "2026-08-14T16:02:11.000Z",
        "format": "reel",
        "product_type": "clips",
        "likes": 1204882,
        "comments": 8431,
        "views": 24118007,
        "caption": "A new view of the Pillars of Creation.",
        "location": null,
        "thumbnail_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/..."
      }
    ]
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_9f2c41a8b3d5",
    "generated_at": "2026-08-23T09:14:02.317Z",
    "took_ms": 42,
    "page": {
      "limit": 50,
      "next_cursor": "eyJrIjoiMTczNDU2IiwiZCI6ImEifQ",
      "count": 50
    }
  }
}

The meta block

request_idstringrequired
Unique id for this request. Quote it in a support ticket.
generated_atstringrequired
Server time the response was produced.
took_msintegerrequired
Milliseconds spent server-side.
pagePageoptional
sourcestringoptional
Which backend served the payload, for endpoints with more than one.
cache_age_sintegeroptional
Age of the underlying data in seconds. 0 for live reads.

meta.page

limitintegerrequired
Rows requested. Default 50, maximum 500.
next_cursorstringrequired
Pass as ?cursor= to fetch the next page. null means the result set is exhausted, and it is the only reliable stop condition.
countintegerrequired
Rows in this page.
totalintegeroptional
Total matching rows. Present only when counting is cheap; never assume it is there.

List endpoints take ?limit= (max 500) and ?cursor=. Follow meta.page.next_cursor until it is null; cursors are opaque and signed.

When it fails

GET /insights/instagram/{handle}/top-posts documents 8 failure statuses. Branch on error.code, which is stable and enumerated; message is prose and may change.

401Unauthorizedunauthorized | invalid_key
No key was presented, or the key is unknown, revoked or expired.
402PaymentRequiredpayment_required | subscription_inactive
The key is valid but the plan behind it cannot serve the call: the included requests are spent and overage is switched off, capped or unfunded (payment_required), or the billing period lapsed and was not renewed (subscription_inactive). Retrying does not help; paying does. The X-Plan-* headers on this response say how far past the line you are.
Carries X-Plan, X-Plan-Limit, X-Plan-Overage, X-Plan-Period-End, X-Plan-Remaining.
403Forbiddenforbidden_scope | forbidden_ip
The key is valid but not allowed to make this call: it lacks the scope, or the request came from an address outside the key's allowlist.
404NotFoundnot_found
The addressed resource does not exist.
422InvalidRequestinvalid_request
A parameter is malformed, out of range or mutually exclusive with another. `details` names the offending fields.
429RateLimitedrate_limited | quota_exceeded
Either the burst ceiling for the current minute or the daily quota is spent. Distinguish with the code: rate_limited clears within the minute, quota_exceeded does not clear until 00:00 UTC.
Carries Retry-After, X-Quota-Limit, X-Quota-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-Request-Id.
500InternalErrorinternal_error
Something failed on our side. Internals are never leaked; quote the request id.
503Unavailableupstream_timeout | upstream_error | not_configured
The request could not be served right now. BRANCH ON error.code, not on the status: 'upstream_timeout' means a source was too slow (this is what a catalog query hitting its 15-second statement timeout returns, so it is reachable from any endpoint that reads the corpus, not only the live-scrape ones) and the same call is worth retrying with backoff - narrowing it with a smaller limit, a filtered scope or a less popular account makes it far less likely; 'upstream_error' means a source was unreachable, so back off further; 'not_configured' means the capability has no backing service in this deployment, and retrying will never help.

Every response carries X-Request-Id and meta.request_id. Quote it in support requests.

Coverage and limits

This endpoint covers Instagram. Rate limits come from the tier on your key.

Instagram

Tier	Requests a minute	Requests a day	Live reads a minute
free	30	1,000	5
standard	120	25,000	20
pro	600	250,000	60
unlimited	6,000	10,000,000	600

This call only draws on the ordinary per-minute and per-day columns. Every response reports where you stand in X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset and the X-Plan headers.

The rest of the Insights group

Derived engagement intelligence: engagement rates, top and viral posts, posting patterns and cohort benchmarks computed over the post layer.

Other groups

Accounts Directory X People Live scrape Trends Identity Graph Watch Research Tools Leads

Start calling it

A key takes a minute to mint in the panel, no card. The reference covers authentication, the envelope, scopes, rate limits and every error code in one page.

Get a key All 127 endpoints Full reference What the Data API is

Reference path: /data-api/reference/insights-instagram-top-posts