vs
Account history vs breadth of data typesSocial Blade Alternative: More Platforms, More Than Follower Counts
Social Blade sells a self-serve credit API as well as the website, and for daily follower history on YouTube or TikTok it is genuinely hard to beat. The gap is everything either side of that: the platforms it does not cover and the data types it does not carry.
Social Blade's Business API publishes ten endpoints across five platforms: account statistics and a top list for YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, Facebook and Instagram, with daily history going back up to ten years. 1Lookup covers ten platforms for profile lookups and adds data types that have no equivalent there: single-post engagement, video transcripts, keyword search and public ad-library results.
Where the two APIs actually differ
Each row pairs what their published endpoints return with the 1Lookup endpoint covering the same ground, or the gap where they have no equivalent.
Account statistics on five platforms
Social Profile Check API
The same class of profile data on ten networks instead of five, including X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest and Truth Social, through one endpoint and one response shape.
10 credits per matched profile
No equivalent: their endpoints are account-level only
Social Post Lookup API
Send a post URL and get the caption, author, likes, comments, shares, views and posted date. Their published API returns channel aggregates, with post identifiers carrying no engagement metrics.
5 credits per matched post
Finding creators in a niche to look up
Social Search API
Start from a keyword instead of a username and get back a page of matching public profiles and content to feed into the profile endpoint.
5 credits per search with results
Judging whether an audience is in the right country
TikTok Audience Demographics API
The follower-country split for a TikTok handle, each country with its ISO code and percentage share of the audience.
40 credits per matched handle
1Lookup vs Social Blade: the same criteria, side by side
Both products measured on identical criteria, with Social Blade’s numbers taken from its own published pricing.
| Criteria | 1Lookup | Social Blade |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more | Two separate products: prepaid credit packs for a self-serve Business API (18 published tiers, $0.50 down to $0.06 per credit, 1 credit = 1 profile lookup), and website subscriptions billed annually that bundle a small monthly credit allowance |
| Starting price | $99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise) | $50.00 for 100 Business API credits ($0.50/credit), the smallest pack and the only package total printed on the public page. The cheapest website subscription is Bronze at $59.99/yr, which includes zero API credits |
| Free option | Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required | Website: a free logged-in account with 5 favourites per platform, top-100 lists and 30 days of table data. API: no free allowance for arbitrary profiles, but zero-credit calls against Social Blade's own accounts work with no client ID or token, so the response shape can be inspected before buying |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise (card required, nothing charged up front) | None. The refund policy states verbatim: "We do not offer a trial period for subscriptions." Subscription payments are refundable prorated only within 24 hours; Business API credit purchases are final |
| Do credits expire? | Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year | Yes, on inactivity. After 6 months without spending credits, 10% of the unused balance expires at the start of each of the next 5 months, and the remainder expires at the one-year inactivity anniversary. Subscription-bundled credits are spent first each month and do not roll over |
1Lookup
Social Blade
Cost per 1,000: Social Blade and 1Lookup
Published rates only, drawn on one shared scale that starts at $0.
- 1Lookup rate card
- Social Blade published tiers
Social Blade, per published tier
100 credits (100 profile lookups), smallest pack
$500.0010,000 credits
$200.00100,000 credits
$100.0010,000,000 credits, largest pack published
$60.00
1Lookup, reference band (a range, not a bar from $0)
All 4 plans, 20,000 lookups/mo to 1,000,000 lookups/mo
Cost per 1,000
| Product | Volume tier | Price | Cost per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Blade | 100 credits (100 profile lookups), smallest pack | $50.00 at $0.50/credit (the only total printed publicly) | $500.00 |
| Social Blade | 10,000 credits | $0.20/credit published; $2,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $200.00 |
| Social Blade | 100,000 credits | $0.10/credit published; $10,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $100.00 |
| Social Blade | 10,000,000 credits, largest pack published | $0.06/credit published; $600,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $60.00 |
| 1Lookup | 20,000 lookups/mo | $99/mo (Starter) | $4.95 |
| 1Lookup | 85,000 lookups/mo | $299/mo (Growth) | $3.52 |
| 1Lookup | 250,000 lookups/mo | $799/mo (Professional) | $3.20 |
| 1Lookup | 1,000,000 lookups/mo | $1,999/mo (Enterprise) | $2.00 |
What Social Blade costs at volume
| Volume | Social Blade price | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 100 credits (100 profile lookups), smallest pack | $50.00 at $0.50/credit (the only total printed publicly) | $500.00 |
| 10,000 credits | $0.20/credit published; $2,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $200.00 |
| 100,000 credits | $0.10/credit published; $10,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $100.00 |
| 10,000,000 credits, largest pack published | $0.06/credit published; $600,000 total is arithmetic, not printed | $60.00 |
The two ladders are not measuring the same thing. Theirs prices account statistics and history depth; ours prices a finished answer per lookup across more platforms and more data types. Price the job you actually run.
Where Social Blade wins
- A genuinely self-serve developer API with a fully public 18-tier price ladder: no demo, no sales call, no contract, and docs, base URL, auth scheme and an npm client all readable without an account
- A free, no-signup sandbox that is rare at this price point: calls against Social Blade's own accounts cost 0 credits and need no client ID or token, so the exact response shape can be inspected before spending anything
- Deep daily history at low unit cost on a four-step ladder: 1 credit for 30 days, 2 for 1 year, 3 for 3 years and 5 for up to 10 years, so a decade of daily follower history costs about $0.30 at the cheapest tier
- A 30-day re-lookup window that is unusual value for monitoring: after one credit is spent on a profile it can be looked up daily for 30 days at no further cost, so tracking one creator continuously costs roughly 12 credits a year
- A very large tracked universe compiled since 2008, advertised as over 165 million users across 5 platforms, with an explicit stance that only public statistical data is sold
Where 1Lookup wins
- Ten networks for profile lookups rather than five, including X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest and Truth Social
- Data types with no equivalent there: single-post engagement, video transcripts, keyword search and public ad-library results
- Monthly plans with no prepaid credit minimum and no expiry on inactivity
- Handles that no longer resolve are not charged, so auditing an old list costs only for the live accounts
- The same credits also buy phone, email and IP validation, so there is one balance rather than a separate purchase
Social Blade pricing and product facts verified against socialblade.com as of August 2026. Prices change; always confirm on the vendor’s site. 1Lookup numbers come from the live rate card.
Who this is for
A quick, honest read on which tool fits your use case.
Choose 1Lookup if: you need public creator statistics as JSON your code can call, in bulk, across ten networks with one response shape.
Consider Social Blade instead if: you want to read one creator's numbers on a page, or you need the long daily history of follower growth that Social Blade has built up over years.
Frequently asked questions
Does Social Blade have an API?
Yes, and it is properly self-serve: a published credit ladder, docs and base URL readable without an account, and a free sandbox that returns real responses for Social Blade's own accounts at zero credits. The verified table on this page records the rates and the minimum purchase. The question worth asking is not whether it exists but whether five platforms and account-level statistics are the shape of data you need.
Is there a free Social Blade alternative?
1Lookup runs free web tools that answer the same one-off questions with no account: a profile viewer for follower and post counts, a username checker across ten networks, and an engagement rate calculator. They are rate limited, which is the trade for being free and login-free. Bulk and programmatic use is what the paid API is for.
Which is cheaper per lookup?
It depends entirely on volume and on which product you are pricing. Their credit ladder starts high per credit at the smallest pack and falls a long way at scale, and their thirty-day free re-lookup window makes repeat monitoring of the same creator very cheap. Our per-lookup cost is flat on a monthly plan with no prepaid minimum. Both sets of published numbers are in the table above.
Which platforms does 1Lookup cover?
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Truth Social, Pinterest and LinkedIn for profile lookups, through one endpoint and one response shape. The transcript and search endpoints cover different subsets, which the product pages list rather than glossing over.
Do you show historical follower growth charts?
No, and this is the clearest reason to choose them instead. Their API sells daily history in tiers going back up to ten years, built from tracking that started in 2008, and nothing can reconstruct that after the fact. 1Lookup returns current values, which suits vetting and enrichment and does not suit trend lines.
What data types does their API not carry?
Their published endpoint list is statistics and top lists per platform. There is no single-post engagement endpoint, no video transcript, no keyword search and no ad-library search, and the audience field on a profile is the creator's own country rather than a breakdown of where their followers are.