Social Media Finder — Username Search & Profile Lookup

Social Media Profile Finder

Find social media profile links from a name, username, email address, or phone number using direct HTTPS probes and a search-engine fallback. Pay-per-event pricing is $0.05 per profile-found event on the Free plan.

• Find profile links on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, GitHub, and other supported platforms.
• Use a candidate’s name to collect LinkedIn, GitHub, and social profiles for recruiting.
• Cross-check an email address or username across platforms for fraud detection.
• Enrich sales prospects with LinkedIn and social profile links from one query.
• Run with your Apify account; no external API key is required, and a RESIDENTIAL proxy is recommended.

What you get

The Actor returns one dataset item per discovered social profile. All nine output fields are strings, and the Actor does not return null. display_name and username are empty strings when unavailable.

Username and email queries use the username or the part before @ for direct HTTPS probes of canonical profile URLs. Name queries probe a FirstLast slug only on GitHub, Twitter/X, and Instagram; a hit requires both name words in the page title. A probe hit has high confidence when the page is not an error, block, or not-found page and its URL matches the platform’s profile pattern.

For name and phone queries, and for every selected platform without a probe hit, the fallback runs while results are below maxResults. It tries Brave, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, then Bing and stops at the first engine returning profile URLs. source is serp_brave, serp_yahoo, serp_duckduckgo, serp_bing, or direct_probe; probes use high/probe_200, searches medium/serp_result.

Field	Type	Description
platform	string	Display name of the social platform.
platform_id	string	Platform identifier such as twitter or github.
profile_url	string	Discovered social profile URL.
display_name	string	Name parsed from the profile or search result; empty when unavailable.
username	string	Username or handle; empty when unavailable.
match_confidence	string	Confidence label for the match.
source	string	Discovery source: serp_brave, serp_yahoo, serp_duckduckgo, serp_bing, or direct_probe.
parse_confidence	string	Confidence or result type from profile parsing.
query	string	Query submitted for the run.

Sample output

The sample below is shortened to one real record; its field values are unchanged.

Search rows (medium, serp_result) are search-engine hits that the Actor does not open or check against your query; they can point to a different person or to a LinkedIn company page. Direct-probe rows (high, probe_200) show that a profile exists under that handle.

{
  "platform": "Twitter / X",
  "platform_id": "twitter",
  "profile_url": "https://x.com/elonmusk",
  "display_name": "Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on X",
  "username": "elonmusk",
  "match_confidence": "medium",
  "source": "serp_brave",
  "parse_confidence": "serp_result",
  "query": "Elon Musk CEO Tesla"
}

Pricing

The billing model is pay-per-event. One profile-found event represents one matched social-media profile containing its platform, URL, username, and confidence data.

Plan	profile-found price
Free	$0.05 per event on the Free plan
Bronze	$0.0495 per event on the Bronze plan
Silver	$0.049 per event on the Silver plan
Gold	$0.0485 per event on the Gold plan
Platinum	$0.048 per event on the Platinum plan
Diamond	$0.0475 per event on the Diamond plan

The Actor does not use the Pay per event + usage option, so compute, proxy traffic, and storage are not billed separately.

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly platform usage credit; the $5 credit covers 33 full Free-plan runs (99 profile-found events), while the exact credit-equivalent result count is 100 profile-found events.

At the Free-plan rate, 1,000 profile-found events cost $50.00 on Free, and 10,000 cost $500.00 on Free.

How to use

1. Enter a query containing a person’s name, username, email address, or phone number.
2. Select platform IDs such as twitter, linkedin, or github, or leave platforms empty.
3. Set maxResults between 1 and 50.
4. Keep useSerpFallback enabled for name, email, or phone searches and use the default RESIDENTIAL proxy configuration.
5. Run the Actor and inspect the dataset records, profile URLs, confidence labels, and discovery sources.
6. Repeat the run through Apify Schedules; use a weekly schedule as a starting point for recurring profile discovery.

{
  "query": "Elon Musk CEO Tesla",
  "platforms": ["twitter", "linkedin"],
  "maxResults": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  },
  "useSerpFallback": true,
  "disableUsageStats": false
}

Export the dataset as JSON or CSV, or read it through the Apify dataset API.

Input parameters

Parameter	What it does	Default
query	Required name, username, email address, or phone number to search.	Required
platforms	IDs to search: twitter, linkedin, instagram, tiktok, github, reddit, youtube, facebook, pinterest, telegram, medium, substack, quora, twitch, and snapchat. Empty selects all 15 platforms on a paid plan and five platforms on the Free plan. Listed platforms are all searched.	Empty
maxResults	Maximum profile URLs to return; accepts 1–50.	10
proxyConfiguration	Apify proxy configuration.	Apify proxy with RESIDENTIAL
useSerpFallback	Runs the fallback for platforms without a direct-probe hit.	true
disableUsageStats	Turns off the run summary described in Usage statistics when true.	false

Limits and edge cases

Condition	What you see	What to do
query is empty	The run fails with an input-needed message, OUTPUT.stopReason is no_query, and nothing is charged.	Provide a name, username, email address, or phone number.
The Free plan is used	maxResults is capped at 3. Empty platforms searches only twitter, linkedin, instagram, tiktok, and github; listed platforms are all searched. Paid plans allow up to 50 results and all 15 platforms when empty. Username and email queries probe every selected platform; name queries probe GitHub, Twitter/X, and Instagram; phone queries are not probed.	Choose platforms or use a paid Apify plan.
maxResults is outside 1–50	Values above 50 become 50; 0 uses the default 10.	Submit a whole number from 1 to 50.
An unknown platform ID is supplied	The ID is ignored and a warning is logged.	Use an ID from the input table.
More than 8 platforms are selected	Site filters are added only for the first 8 selected platforms without a probe hit, in your listed order. With empty platforms, these are Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, GitHub, Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook. Pinterest, Medium, Substack, Quora, Twitch, Telegram, and Snapchat get fallback rows only when within those first 8.	List needed platforms first, or search by username or email.
A name or phone query uses useSerpFallback: false	Phone queries return no profiles. Name queries return a profile only when the FirstLast probe on GitHub, Twitter/X, or Instagram finds a page whose title contains both name words. Otherwise the run succeeds with an empty dataset and records emptyReason and message in OUTPUT; nothing is charged.	Set useSerpFallback to true, or search by username.
The query has no matching profile	The run succeeds with an empty dataset. OUTPUT records emptyReason NO_MATCH_FOR_INPUT and the status message; nothing is charged.	Try another spelling, a handle, more platforms, or company context.
A platform or fallback refuses requests or times out	With no delivered profiles, the run fails with Access blocked:; this is not proof that the profile does not exist, and nothing is charged. OUTPUT records emptyReason BLOCKED, the message, probe counts, and search state.	Retry later or add a RESIDENTIAL proxy.
The search raises an internal error	The run fails with an internal-error message; nothing is charged.	Retry the run.
Profiles are delivered before a source is refused or times out	The run succeeds with a partial result beginning Partial result; you are charged only for delivered profiles. OUTPUT holds totalItems, stoppedEarly BLOCK_PARTIAL, message, probes, and serp.	Run the Actor again later.
The search is still running before saving starts	The whole search finishes before any row is saved. A timeout, abort, or crash leaves an empty dataset and no charge.	Run the Actor again.
Rows are being saved	Rows are pushed one at a time; one event is charged after each successful push. An abort leaves saved rows charged.	Check the dataset and run again if needed.
A profile cannot be saved	Some saved rows produce a partial result with stoppedEarly PUSH_FAILED; if every save fails, the run fails with nothing charged.	Run the Actor again.

FAQ

How much does it cost to scrape social media profiles?

The plan-labelled rates are Free $0.05, Bronze $0.0495, Silver $0.049, Gold $0.0485, Platinum $0.048, and Diamond $0.0475 per event. For example, 20 returned profiles cost $1.00 on the Free plan.

Why did my run return an empty result?

It may have found no matching profile, used a name or phone query with the fallback disabled, or encountered a refused platform or search engine. Check the run message, then try another spelling, add context, enable the fallback, or retry with a RESIDENTIAL proxy when access was refused.

What should I do if the Actor is not working?

Check that query is present and platform IDs are supported. Leave useSerpFallback enabled for name, email, and phone searches. Retry later when a source was blocked or timed out. Runs that deliver no profiles because a source could not be read are not charged.

Do I need an external API key?

No. The Actor uses direct HTTPS profile probes and a search-engine fallback through Brave, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Bing.

Is it legal or allowed to use these profile links?

The Actor obtains profile links from public data through HTTPS profile probes and search results. Whether a use is legal or allowed depends on the relevant source terms and applicable law for your use case; review them before using the data.

Related actors

• Maigret Username OSINT — related username-based OSINT discovery.
• Truth Social Scraper — extracts Truth Social posts, profiles, and engagement data.
• TikTok Influencer Discovery — discovers TikTok creators and ranks them by engagement.

Usage statistics

This Actor creates a small, content-free summary at the end of each run, used only to monitor reliability and improve this Actor. No input values, credentials or scraped data are sent.

A copy of the exact record for your run is saved as USAGE_STATS in your own Apify key-value store.

To opt out, set disableUsageStats to true in the input. Nothing is sent then.

Full list of collected fields