Social API cost calculator
Put your monthly call volume in and get the bill, by endpoint group — then compare it with the proxies, servers and engineering hours a scraper of your own would need.
| Endpoint group | Calls / month | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Hashtag stats$0.05 per call · /v1/hashtags and the per-platform variants | $150 | |
| Video digests$0.25 per call · Most-viewed videos of the last 48 hours | $225 | |
| Trends$0.25 per call · /v1/trends and /v1/trends/digest | $225 | |
| Sounds (trending, breakout)$0.25 per call · Single-sound lookups are $0.05 | $0.00 | |
| Hooks search$0.25 per call · The hook library is $0.10 | $0.00 | |
| Content Research Agent runs$0.50 per run · Recurring agents pay per scheduled run | $0.00 | |
| Creator lookups$0.50 per lookup · Up to $1.75 with trend analysis, AI read and audience data | $0.00 | |
| Tracking checks$0.25 per check · Reading tracked results is free | $0.00 |
Virlo API, per month
$600
Compare against collecting it yourself
- Engineering time
- $1,440
- Build it yourself, per month
- $1,790
- The API saves
- $1,190
The four numbers above are yours to change — they are assumptions, not measurements. The comparison leaves out the cost of building the collector in the first place, and the cost of the data being wrong while it is broken.
List prices, matching /pricing. Lookups with add-ons cost more: a creator lookup reaches $1.75 with trend analysis, an AI read and audience data, and a hashtag lookup reaches $2.50 at full depth. Reading saved results is free.
Why per-call pricing is hard to estimate
Seat-based tools are easy to budget and hard to scale. Per-call APIs are the opposite: the price list is simple, but nobody knows their own call volume until the integration is written. The usual outcome is a pilot that under-estimates by an order of magnitude, because one user action turned out to be six calls.
Counting calls per unit of work rather than per user fixes that. One tracked creator is one lookup plus one check per interval. One niche dashboard is one hashtag call per hashtag plus one trends call per refresh. Multiply by how often the job runs and the monthly figure stops moving.
The build-versus-buy line
A scraper is cheap to start and expensive to keep. The proxies and the servers are the visible cost and usually the smaller one; the real line item is an engineer on call for a collection layer that breaks whenever a platform changes its markup, its payloads or its bot defences. The comparison in the tool asks you for that number directly rather than assuming it, because it is the one that decides the answer.
There is a volume at which running your own collection is correct. The point of putting both columns on one screen is to find out whether you are at it. The quickstart takes about five minutes if you would rather measure than estimate.
FAQ
- How is the Virlo API priced?
- Per call, from a prepaid balance, with no monthly minimum and no seat fee. A hashtag call is $0.05, a trends or digest call is $0.25, a creator lookup is $0.50, and a Content Research Agent run is $0.50. Reading results you already paid for is free.
- Are the numbers in the calculator the real prices?
- They are the published list prices and match the pricing page. Two things can push an individual call above the base: add-ons such as trend analysis, an AI read or audience data on a creator lookup, which reach $1.75, and a hashtag lookup at full depth, which reaches $2.50.
- Is it cheaper to build my own scraper?
- At very low volume, sometimes. The calculator makes the comparison explicit because the recurring cost is rarely the proxies — it is the engineering time spent repairing collection every time a platform ships a change, which continues for as long as the scraper exists.
- What is not in the build-it-yourself column?
- The build itself, and the cost of being wrong. A broken collector usually fails quietly, and the decisions made on stale or partial data during that window do not show up on an infrastructure invoice.
- Do unused credits expire?
- Your balance is prepaid and spent per call. Auto top-up keeps it funded so a job does not stop halfway. See the pricing page for the current minimum deposit.
- Can I get volume pricing?
- Yes, above a certain monthly spend. The contact form on the pricing page reaches the team directly; include your endpoint mix and monthly volume and the reply will quote against it.
Get the data behind the tool
The Virlo API returns TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts data by the call — hashtags, videos, sounds, creators and trends. Pay per call, no scrapers to maintain.
Create your API key