Instagram highlights viewer: read a profile's pinned stories before outreach
By Steven Van ·
Unif API's highlights viewer lists a public account's pinned reels by title and cover for 10 credits minimum, to vet creators and brands before outreach.
The Unif API team has published a guide to its Instagram highlights viewer, which lists every highlight reel a public account has pinned under its bio, with each reel's title and cover. It reads them through the Instagram highlights endpoint and is meant to sit beside the Instagram story viewer (what is live today) and the Instagram profile analyzer (the numbers).
What a highlight tray can show
The guide treats the tray as one evidence point, not a verdict. Its examples:
- Highlights named after products or launches suggest the account sells, so the tray works as a storefront. Check which items are current.
- "Press", "Reviews" or "Testimonials" suggest social proof matters to the account.
- "FAQ", "How to order" or "Shipping" suggest a support surface for repeat DM questions.
- Only travel, events or behind-the-scenes suggests a personal or creator account.
- No highlights could mean a new account, a dormant one, or one that never curates, so verify.
Suggested review workflow
The guide lists five steps:
- Resolve the username and confirm the public profile: name, verification and follower count.
- List the highlights and note the titles in profile order. The first three are what visitors see without scrolling.
- Compare the titles with recent posts, to see whether the pinned themes match what the account publishes now.
- Check active stories to see what is being promoted today.
- Record the tray and recheck it next month. Added, renamed or dropped reels can signal a campaign starting or ending.
Limits and cost
The viewer returns each highlight's title and cover image, plus the account's current profile. The individual story frames inside a highlight are not served by the public API yet, and the tool says so instead of guessing. Private accounts return nothing.
Live checks cost 3 credits for the profile plus one credit per highlight reel, with a 10-credit minimum for the highlight tray.
Agent prompt
For a shortlist of handles, the guide gives a read-only prompt. It asks the agent to fetch each public profile, list its pinned highlights with titles, and compare the themes against the ten most recent posts. The agent then returns the account's apparent purpose (store, creator, community or support), whether the highlights match current content, and anything to verify before contact. The operator still decides whether to reach out.
