Creators vs Profiles

Understand when to use creator IDs and when to use platform usernames

Creators vs Profiles

The API separates the person from their social accounts. Understanding this split helps you pick the right endpoint and avoid redundant lookups.

• A creator is the person or brand.
• A profile is one social account on one platform.

One creator can have multiple known profiles. The public creator and profile endpoints expose Instagram profiles.

Which Endpoint to Use

You know…	Use…	Why
A search idea	POST /v1/search	Find Instagram creators by natural-language criteria
One exact social account	GET /v1/profiles/{platform}/{username}	Resolve a known profile
Many exact social accounts	POST /v1/profiles/lookup	Batch known platform + username pairs
A creator ID	GET /v1/creators/{id}	Fetch the creator record
A creator ID and want linked profiles too	GET /v1/creators/{id}?include=profiles	Expand a creator into linked accounts

Typical Workflow

If you start from a known username:

1. Call GET /v1/profiles/{platform}/{username} or POST /v1/profiles/lookup.
2. Read the returned creator_id.
3. Call GET /v1/creators/{id}?include=profiles to see the creator and all their linked accounts together.

If you start from discovery:

1. Call POST /v1/search.
2. Pick a creator from the response.
3. Call GET /v1/creators/{id}?include=profiles to get the full picture.

Why the Split Exists

Creators and profiles answer different questions.

Question	Object
”Who is this person or brand?”	Creator
”What is their Instagram username?”	Profile
”What social profiles are linked to this creator?”	Creator with profiles
”Does this exact account exist?”	Profile

Keeping them separate means you can look up a single social account without pulling in everything about the creator, and you can fetch a creator without needing to know which platform they’re on.

Common Patterns

Search and then expand

Use POST /v1/search to find relevant creators, then open one by ID when you want more detail. This keeps the search response lightweight while still giving you a path to full creator data.

Verify a single account

Use GET /v1/profiles/{platform}/{username} when you already know the platform and username. This is the fastest way to check whether an account exists in the system and grab its creator_id.

Batch known accounts

Use POST /v1/profiles/lookup when you have a list of accounts to resolve. This saves you from making individual profile requests and returns all the creator_id mappings in one call.