# WeChat Official Account data APIs: how to choose (2026)

Scraping WeChat yourself means keeping WeChat accounts signed in, getting past captchas and bans, and fixing parsers when pages change; a data API is called with a key. RedFox gives 20 articles with reads for ¥0.04 but a day late, DataXAPI fetches at call time and charges reads per article, and WeChat's own API covers only accounts you run. DataXAPI's endpoints here are from $0.0200 a call, and a failed call is not charged; what others charge and do was checked on 2026-10-29, each with its source below.

## Five questions and four routes

Before choosing, ask five things: can it read accounts you do not run; does it give reads; is a failed lookup charged; what is the least top-up and in what currency; and is there a contract and an invoice. The table goes through them.

| Route | Accounts you do not run | Reads | Failed lookup charged? | Least top-up and currency | Contract and invoice |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WeChat's official API | No: only with your own or an authorised account's credentials | Yes, article read data up to yesterday | Free | Free | Not applicable |
| Your own scraper (Sogou WeChat search, packet capture) | Yes | By packet capture, signed in to your own WeChat | Not applicable; the cost is accounts and time | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| RedFox (红狐) | Yes | Yes, with the article list and article details | Failed requests (not 200) are not charged | ¥100 at least, ¥1 = 10 credits | A contract SLA for enterprise users: a ¥3,000 top-up or ¥10,000 spent |
| DataXAPI | Yes | Yes, one call of the stats endpoint per article | Failed calls, timeouts and articles that do not exist are not charged; an article list, search or comments call with no results is an empty result and is charged | $10 at least, a US-dollar balance; Alipay paying in yuan, or a card; $0.10 of trial credit on sign-up | No company transfer or invoice for now |

## Prices and freshness

One common job makes the prices comparable: an account's last 20 articles with their reads. Some APIs put reads in the article list, others charge them article by article, so the unit price and the cost of the job can differ a lot.

| Route | Article list | Reads of one article | 20 articles with reads | Freshness |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WeChat's official API | Free, 1–20 a call, your own account only | Free | Free | Article read data: `end_date` no later than yesterday |
| Your own scraper (packet capture) | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Its parameters expire in about 4 hours; the project says it cannot be real time |
| RedFox (红狐) | ¥0.04 a call, 20 articles a page with reads, wows and likes; down to ¥0.02 at volume | Not sold apart: it comes with the list | ¥0.04 (one call) | Marked T+1, updated once a day with the day before; the article list goes back to 2026-04-01 at the earliest |
| DataXAPI | $0.0200 a page, up to 20 articles, without reads | $0.0200 an article | 1–2 list pages, plus 20 × $0.0200 | Fetched at call time; every response carries `meta.fetched_at` |

## Where the others are better

**RedFox**: one call gives 20 articles with reads, wows and likes, at ¥0.04 before discounts. The same 20 articles with reads cost DataXAPI a list plus one call per article, far more. Its data is a day old; if that is fine, it is the cheaper way.

**WeChat's official API**: for your own account the data is first-hand and free. If your own account is all you need, no third party is needed.

DataXAPI has no company transfer or invoice for now. A company that needs a contract finds one on RedFox's enterprise plan.

## How DataXAPI differs

Calls by link, ID or keyword are fetched at call time, and every response carries `meta.fetched_at`, the moment it was fetched. Above 100,000 reads WeChat shows only “10万+”; the count then comes as 100001, marked a lower bound in `approximate`.

No WeChat account or cookie of yours is used. The key goes in the `Authorization: Bearer` header.

Official Accounts, Channels and WeChat Search share one key and one JSON shape with Douyin, Xiaohongshu and the rest. The remote MCP server is `https://api.dataxapi.com/mcp`; ChatGPT and Claude connectors sign in with OAuth, with no key typed. `llms.txt`, `openapi.json`, `prices.json` and a `.md` version of each page are public.

## Who should pick which

Only your own accounts: WeChat's official API. Reads for many articles at once, data a day old is fine, a tight budget: RedFox.

The figures as of the call, more than Official Accounts (Douyin, Xiaohongshu or platforms outside China), MCP in an AI client, a small top-up in dollars or by Alipay: DataXAPI. A few articles now and then, and time to keep accounts and parameters alive: your own scraper.

## How to switch to DataXAPI

**An account's article list**: wechat_mp.accounts.articles.list, with the original ID starting `gh_` as `id`. Knowing only the name, search its articles with wechat.posts.search and take `author.id`. For the next page pass `page.next_cursor` back as `cursor`, within the hour.

**Reads, likes, wows**: wechat_mp.articles.metrics, with the long link (`__biz`, `mid`, `idx`, `sn`) as `url`; the article list gives long links. `metrics.views` is reads, `metrics.likes` is likes, and with `view=full`, `ext.recommends` is recommends (once 在看, “wow”).

**Text, comments, search**: the text from wechat_mp.articles.get, which takes the long link or the short `/s/` one; featured comments from wechat_mp.articles.comments.list; WeChat Search from wechat.posts.search, with the terms as `query` and optionally `sort` and `published_within`.

## Questions

**Can I get the reads of an account I do not run?** Not through the official API, which takes only your own or an authorised account's credentials. Third-party APIs can: RedFox and DataXAPI both do.

**Is a lookup of a deleted article charged?** It depends. RedFox does not charge requests that are not 200; DataXAPI does not charge an article that does not exist.

**Which needs my own WeChat account?** Only packet capture. The official API needs the Official Account's AppID and AppSecret; the third-party APIs need only their own key.

## Endpoints

- [WeChat Official Account articles](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/articles/list/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a page of the articles a WeChat Official Account published, newest first: title, digest, link, time published.
- [WeChat Official Account article stats](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/articles/metrics/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get the current counts of a WeChat Official Account article by its long link: reads, likes, recommends, shares, saves, comments.
- [WeChat Official Account article detail](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/articles/get/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get one WeChat Official Account article by its link: title, text, time published, the account's name and IDs.
- [WeChat Search articles and videos](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat/posts/search/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a page of WeChat Search results for search terms: Official Account articles and Channels videos mixed, each saying in type whether it is an article or a video; by relevance, newest or hottest, filtered by time posted: title or description, the source account's name, time published, an article's link, a video's likes and saves. WeChat Search gives no account ID.
- [WeChat Official Account article comments](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/articles/comments/list/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a page of the featured comments on a WeChat Official Account article by its link: text, commenter, likes, reply count, time posted, IP location.
- [WeChat Official Account profile](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/get/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a WeChat Official Account by its original ID: name, IP location, number of original articles, the linked Channels account.

## How-to guides

- [How to list a WeChat Official Account's past articles](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-official-account-articles/)
- [How to get WeChat Official Account article reads and likes](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-article-reads-and-likes/)

## Sources

What this page says of other services is from their own pages and documents, read on 2026-10-29. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide.

- [WeChat docs: getting the access token](https://developers.weixin.qq.com/doc/service/api/base/api_getaccesstoken.html)
- [WeChat docs: the list of published articles](https://developers.weixin.qq.com/doc/service/api/public/api_freepublish_batchget.html)
- [WeChat docs: article read data](https://developers.weixin.qq.com/doc/service/api/wedata/news/api_getarticlesummary.html)
- [WechatSogou on GitHub (Sogou WeChat search)](https://github.com/chyroc/WechatSogou)
- [wechat_articles_spider on GitHub (packet capture)](https://github.com/wnma3mz/wechat_articles_spider)
- [RedFox pricing](https://redfox.hk/pricing)
- [RedFox enterprise](https://redfox.hk/enterprise)
- [RedFox Official Account endpoints](https://redfox.hk/story/web/api/doc/platform/gongzhonghao/interfaces)
- [RedFox Official Account article list endpoint](https://redfox.hk/story/web/api/doc/detail/no/XNV30XZ3)

## More about WeChat Official Accounts

- [WeChat Official Accounts API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/)
- [WeChat Search API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat/)
- [Is there an API for WeChat Official Account articles?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/is-there-an-api-for-wechat-official-account-articles/)
- [How do I get WeChat Channels data?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/how-to-get-wechat-channels-data/)
- [What is __biz in a WeChat article link?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/wechat-official-account-biz/)
- [What do mid, idx and sn mean in a WeChat article link?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/wechat-article-link-mid-idx-sn/)
- [What is a WeChat Official Account's original ID (gh_)?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/wechat-official-account-original-id/)
- [What is a WeChat Channels account ID (…@finder), and what is an export ID?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/wechat-channels-finder-id/)
- [How to get WeChat Channels video comments](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-channels-video-comments/)
- [How to list a WeChat Channels account's videos](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-channels-user-videos/)
- [How to get WeChat Search results by keyword](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-search-posts/)

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Catalog revision 5c3194deef3264cc. [HTML version](https://dataxapi.com/compare/wechat-official-account-data-apis/)