We unified YouTube + Instagram data under one API key (no platform credentials needed) — here's the use case that drove us to build it

We kept getting the same support request from developers:

"I'm building [influencer research tool / social audit SaaS / creator dashboard] and I need YouTube subscriber counts + Instagram engagement rates in the same response. What's the fastest way?"

The honest answer: there wasn't a clean one. You needed a Google Cloud project for YouTube, a Facebook developer account with app review approval for Instagram, separate OAuth flows for both, and you'd still hit YouTube's quota wall.

So we built Serpent's Social Media API to cover both under one key.

What's available:

YouTube:

• /api/social/youtube/search — search with filters (type, duration, country, date, order)
• /api/social/youtube/video — views, likes, comments, tags, description, thumbnails
• /api/social/youtube/channel — subscribers, total views, video count
• /api/social/youtube/playlist — list videos in a playlist

Instagram:

• /api/social/instagram/profile — followers, following, engagement rate, recent posts, bio

No Google API key. No Facebook developer account. No OAuth. No quota limits.

Pricing comparison at 100K requests/month:

Platform Official API Serpent (Scale):

• YouTube search Quota system (need approval) $1.00
• YouTube video Quota system $1.00
• Instagram profile Restricted (Graph API only for your accounts) $5.80

Quick code (YouTube + Instagram in same script):

import requests

BASE = "https://apiserpent.com/api/social"
HEADERS = {"X-API-Key": "YOUR_KEY"}

# Research a YouTube creator
channel = requests.get(f"{BASE}/youtube/channel", params={"id": "@mkbhd"}, headers=HEADERS).json()

# Research their Instagram
insta = requests.get(f"{BASE}/instagram/profile", params={"username": "mkbhd"}, headers=HEADERS).json()

print(f"YouTube: {channel['subscribers']:,} subscribers")
print(f"Instagram: {insta['followers']:,} followers")
print(f"Instagram Engagement: {insta['engagementRate']}%")