For Weibo posts and user data inside an app, a social-listening tool or an AI agent, start with Scavio's Weibo API. It reads any public account's profile and timeline, a post with its comments, reposts and likes, eight kinds of search and the live hot-search board, all behind one key and with no Weibo account or login. Every one of its 30 endpoints costs 1 credit, and Scavio starts from $2 per 1,000 requests on the Growth plan billed yearly.
You need a third-party API because Weibo's own Open Platform API is built for apps acting on behalf of a logged-in user. Each call needs an OAuth access token that a Weibo user grants your app. The user_timeline documentation says that after an interface upgrade the uid can only be the currently authorized user, and that the endpoint returns at most the latest 5 posts (10 through the official mobile SDK). The public API list has no search or hot-search endpoint. Weibo's Commercial Data API is aimed at enterprise customers, is partly paid and is arranged through Weibo's business team.
We build Scavio, so read this with that bias in mind. Every Scavio number below comes from live calls we made on October 27, 2026. Every competitor detail was read off the vendor's own page or documentation that day, and where a price was not published we say so. The screenshots are each vendor's own Weibo page, captured the same day.
Which Weibo API fits your job?
| Tool | Choose it for | Hot search | Posts, users and comments | Price (checked Oct 27, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scavio | Apps and agents that need any account, post or trend on demand | Live board plus 4 ranking boards | Profile, timeline, post, comments, replies, likes, reposts, fans, 8 search types | From $2 per 1,000 requests (Growth, yearly); 50 free credits |
| Apify actors | Scheduled no-code exports to a dataset | Yes (most-used actor) | Search, posts, comments, profiles; creator timelines need your cookie | $35 per 1,000 items (zhorex); smaller actors from $0.90 per 1,000 posts |
| ProLevelMax | Agents that want an MCP server with per-call billing | Board, summary and index | Post detail, comments, reposts, likes, user info, search | From $3 per 1,000 requests; $1 sign-up credit |
| Just One API | Teams also pulling Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Taobao | Yes | 11 Weibo endpoints incl. fans, followers, user posts | Shown only after login; free trial |
| Bright Data MCP | General web access that can also open Weibo pages | Not documented as an endpoint | Page content, no published Weibo schema | $1.50 per 1,000 requests; 5,000 free a month |
One story can take over the hot-search board in a day
Weibo's hot-search board (热搜) is where China's news cycle shows up first, and it is the one Weibo data source a keyword list cannot replace: you do not know the keyword until it trends. We pulled the board once with Scavio on October 27, 2026.
10 of the board's 52 entries named Kylian Mbappé (姆巴佩) after his remarks about China drew a response from the Foreign Ministry. Together they carried 40.2% of the board's heat, 15,645,914 of 38,885,626. The top entry, 外交部回应姆巴佩涉华不当言论 ("Foreign Ministry responds to Mbappé's remarks about China"), had a hot value of 10,511,404, more than five times the next entry on the board. Five of the ten were about brands: Dior taking down Mbappé content, Dongpeng Beverage and Mengniu ending their deals, Xiaohongshu issuing a statement, and users asking whether On, which had just signed him, could seek redress. A topic search put #姆巴佩# at 2.42 billion reads and 876,000 discussions. If you manage a brand, an ambassador or a China launch, the board is the early warning, and it is in Chinese.
1. Scavio: any account, post, comment thread or trend
Scavio's Weibo API is 30 POST endpoints, each 1 credit. Measured on October 27:
- Hot search and rankings: the live board returned 52 entries in 1.3 s, each with its term, hot value, rank and label such as 爆 ("explosive"), 沸 ("boiling") or 新 ("new"). The social, entertainment and life ranking boards return 50 entries each with a category, for example 国内时政,体育 (domestic politics, sports).
- Search: advanced search for 姆巴佩 in "hot" mode returned 10 posts with id, text, time, post URL, source device, author and media. Realtime search returned the 8 newest posts, the latest 3 seconds old. Topic, user, video and image search are separate endpoints.
- Post and comments: The Paper's post that CCTV had halted Mbappé matches and ads came back with 290 reposts, 374 comments and 2,358 likes. Its first comment page held 19 comments with like count, reply count, floor number and the commenter's profile; the top one had 218 likes and 21 replies. Sub-comments, likes and reposts each have their own endpoint.
- User and timeline: The Paper (澎湃新闻) returned 32,732,059 followers, 193,610 posts and its verification reason, and its timeline pages 20 posts at a time. Searching one user's posts by date window reached back to March 1, 2016.
What it does not do: search rows carry no usable engagement counts, so you call /post for the reposts, comments and likes of the results you keep. A timeline pages back about 100 pages, roughly 2,000 posts, before you switch to date-window search, and text comes back in Chinese with no translation. The benefit is one key and one JSON format for Weibo alongside Douyin, Kuaishou, TikTok and X, plus an MCP server for agents. How to get Weibo posts and user data walks through each call with captured responses.
2. Apify actors: scheduled no-code runs
The most active Weibo actor on the Apify Store, zhorex/weibo-scraper, had 1,992 users, 744 of them in the last 30 days, on October 27. It covers keyword search, trending posts, the hot-search board, comments, user profiles and post details in nine modes, and charges $0.035 per item, $35 per 1,000, where a post, a trend, a comment or a profile each count as an item. Its page says creator timelines need your own Weibo cookie. Smaller actors charge less per post: maximedupre/weibo-scraper, with 6 users, charges $0.90 per 1,000 posts but $31.50 per 1,000 comments, so price each data type you need. Actors run as jobs that write to a dataset, which suits scheduled exports. Because they bill per item, one 52-entry hot-search snapshot is 52 charges. Each actor is maintained by its author, so pin the one you test.
3. ProLevelMax: an MCP server with per-call prices
ProLevelMax sells Weibo data to AI agents through an MCP server, a skill and a REST API. Its page lists 56 Weibo sources, including the hot-search board, its summary and index, post detail, comments, reposts, likes, user info and several kinds of search. Most sources cost $0.003 a call ($3 per 1,000), the hot-search summary $0.0045 and advanced post search $0.015 for about 100 results. Billing is pay per use with a $1 sign-up credit and top-ups by card or Alipay. Choose it if your agent is MCP-first and you prefer no subscription.
4. Just One API: Weibo next to other Chinese platforms
Just One API documents 11 Weibo GET endpoints: keyword search (which requires a day-and-hour time range), post details, user profile, fans, followers, published posts, video list, TV video details, hot search, post comments and a search within one user's posts. The same account covers Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Taobao, JD.com, WeChat Official Accounts and Bilibili. Its site says prices are shown in the dashboard after login and that new accounts get free trial access, so we could not compare its per-call price. Choose it if your project spans several Chinese platforms it covers.
5. Bright Data: general web access with a Weibo page
Bright Data's Weibo MCP server page lists public posts, user profiles, follower counts, trending topics and comments among what it can extract. The plans on the page are those of its general Web MCP: 5,000 free requests a month, then $1.50 per 1,000 requests pay-as-you-go or $499 a month on Scale. The structured-data domains it names are Amazon, LinkedIn, X and Instagram, not Weibo, so expect page content to parse rather than Weibo-shaped records. Choose it if you already use Bright Data and want an agent that can open any page.
AgentKey also documents a Weibo user-posts method at 0.2 credits a call, without a credit price on that page. Open-source crawlers on GitHub work for one-off research but break when Weibo's pages change, and most need a logged-in cookie.
Pick by the number you need
If your users act on what China is saying about a brand, a product or a person, keeping the board, the search results and the engagement on key posts current is the ongoing work, and it is what Scavio's Weibo API handles. Polling the hot-search board every 15 minutes (96 calls), running 20 brand keywords through search every hour (480 calls) and fetching the 50 posts worth tracking (50 calls) is 626 calls a day, about 18,780 credits a month. That is about $38 at the Growth-yearly rate of $2 per 1,000 credits. Billed per item, the hot-search polling alone is about 150,000 rows a month. Try the Weibo API free, 50 credits, no card, or try the endpoints in the playground.
Reference: all 30 Weibo endpoints · hot-search docs · how to get Weibo posts and user data · how to scrape an entire Weibo account
Frequently asked questions
Does Weibo have a public API?
Weibo's Open Platform API serves apps acting for a logged-in user. Every call needs an OAuth access token the user grants your app, the user_timeline documentation says it can only read the currently authorized user and returns at most the latest 5 posts, and the public API list has no search or hot-search endpoint. Weibo's Commercial Data API is for enterprise customers and is partly paid. Reading other public accounts, comments and trends takes a third-party API.
What is trending on Weibo right now, and can I get it by API?
The hot-search board (热搜) is Weibo's live trending list, and it changes by the minute. Scavio's /api/v1/weibo/hot-search returns every entry with its hot value and label in one call: on October 27, 2026 it returned 52 entries, and 10 of them, carrying 40.2% of the board's heat, were about Kylian Mbappé's remarks about China.
What is the cheapest Weibo API?
Per call, Scavio is $2 per 1,000 requests on its Growth plan billed yearly and ProLevelMax is $3 per 1,000. Bright Data's MCP is $1.50 per 1,000 requests but returns page content rather than Weibo-shaped records. Apify actors bill per item, from $0.90 per 1,000 posts on a little-used actor to $35 per 1,000 items on the most active one, so a 52-entry hot-search board costs 52 items. Just One API shows its prices only after login.
Can I get Weibo data from outside China?
Yes. Third-party APIs read public Weibo pages, so you need no Weibo account, Chinese phone number or registered app. Expect the text in Chinese: post text, nicknames and hot-search terms come back as UTF-8, and timestamps carry Beijing time (+0800). Translate after you receive the data.
Can I download Weibo videos through an API?
Yes for public posts. Scavio's post and timeline responses include a video block with title, cover, duration and a 720p MP4 URL, and its user-videos endpoint lists an account's published videos. Video URLs are signed and expire, so download them soon after the call.