Data freshness

Counts returned by a data lookup may be up to 15 minutes old. That applies to post metrics (views, likes, comments, shares and saves) and to creator profiles, including follower and post counts.

Asking for the same post or profile again within 15 minutes can return the same numbers. To track a post over time, read it at most about once every 15 minutes, and store each result on your side with the time you read it, instead of requesting the same resource repeatedly.

A reduced-detail read of a post (source: "fallback") can be older: the same result can come back for up to 6 hours.

Answers that a post cannot be read are held too. A post that comes back after POST_NOT_FOUND or POST_AGE_RESTRICTED can keep returning that code for up to a day.

A successful lookup is billed like any other, even when the numbers have not changed since your last one. A lookup answered with an error is not billed.

Image and media URLs in a response (thumbnailUrl, mediaUrls, profilePictureUrl) are signed platform links that expire. Download the file when you receive it if you need to keep it.