# How can I find out how many followers a WeChat Official Account has?

> WeChat never shows another account's follower count. What you can get instead for a WeChat Official Account: an estimate, headline reads and posting rate, by API.

Canonical page: https://okdata.online/answers/wechat-official-account-follower-count/

**Short answer: **WeChat shows the exact follower count only to the account owner. Official Account search returns an estimated follower number from a third-party database, plus average headline reads and likes and articles per week with view=full; it is charged per account returned, $0.058 each. Treat the follower figure as a rough size and headline reads as the stronger signal.

A media buyer is quoted a price for a placement on an account that says it has 300,000 followers. There is no page in WeChat where you can check that: the follower count lives in the account's own backend and nobody else can see it. What you can check is how the account performs in public. [Official Account search](/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/search/) returns, for each matching account, an estimated follower count and, with `view=full`, the average reads and likes of its headline articles and how many articles it publishes a week.

## What you get, and how much to trust it

| Field | What it is | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| `followers` | Estimate from a third-party database, not WeChat's number; `ext.followers_note` says so | Size band only: 10k, 100k, 1M |
| `ext.avg_top_read` | Average reads of recent headline articles | The best public signal of reach |
| `ext.avg_top_likes` | Average likes of those headlines | Engagement, compared with reads |
| `ext.articles_per_week` | Publishing rate | Is the account active? |
| `ext.last_published_at` | Last publish time | Has it gone quiet? |
| `ext.owner` | The registered owner, when listed | Who you are really dealing with |

Headline reads are what an advertiser buys, so they matter more than the follower figure. An account that claims 300,000 followers and averages 2,000 headline reads has either inflated its count or lost its audience.

## Check one account

```bash
curl -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/wechat_mp/accounts/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=the exact account name" \
  --data-urlencode "view=full" \
  --data-urlencode "fields=id,name,followers,ext.avg_top_read,ext.avg_top_likes,ext.articles_per_week,ext.owner"
```

## Cost

Search is charged per account returned: $0.058 each, at most $0.58 per call. An exact name usually returns one or two accounts. To verify the averages against real articles, one [article history](/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/articles/list/) call adds the last 10 articles with their reads, for $0.04.

| Check | Calls | Cost, at most |
|---|---|---|
| 1 account, estimate and averages | 1 search | $0.58 |
| Same, plus last 30 articles' reads | 1 search + 3 history | $0.70 |

## Caveats

- The estimate is approximate and can be null when there is no figure for an account. Never quote it to a client as the real number.
- Bio, verification and post count are not part of the search result; those fields are null and `meta.unavailable` lists them.
- Some accounts publish rarely but get high reads per piece. Look at reads per article, not volume.

## Better sources when you can get them

The account owner can export the real follower count and its trend from the backend; asking for a screenshot before a deal is normal and free. WeChat's official advertising marketplace for Official Account placements shows backend-verified data for the accounts listed there. Ranking platforms like 新榜 publish their own estimates across many accounts. Use the API for a fast first pass over a long list; see [creator discovery](/solutions/creator-discovery/).

## Endpoints used

- [Official Account search](https://okdata.online/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/search/) `wechat_mp.accounts.search`: $0.058 per account · at most $0.58 per call
- [Official Account article history](https://okdata.online/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/articles/list/) `wechat_mp.accounts.articles.list`: $0.04 per call · about 10 articles per page

Updated 2026-11-12