How do I find Xiaohongshu KOLs in a niche and get their follower counts?

A new outdoor brand wants 20 mid-sized Xiaohongshu creators who post about camping gear, with real engagement, before talking to an agency. Agencies send lists built on their own relationships. A list you build yourself, with follower counts and prices, gives you a baseline to compare against within a day.

Route 1: creators who take brand deals

Xiaohongshu PGY creator search searches PGY, the marketplace where brands book Xiaohongshu creators, by what creators' notes are about. Pass the niche as query (露营装备), a follower band with followers_min and followers_max, and sort=most_followers or most_engagements. Every result already has the follower count, median reads and engagements of everyday notes, content categories and the image and video note rates in yuan. Five pages give you about 100 candidates.

For finalists, Xiaohongshu PGY creator detail adds likes and saves, content and feature tags, and whether each note type is open for orders.

Route 2: everyone who writes about the niche

Not every good creator is on PGY. Run note search for five niche keywords (露营装备, 帐篷 推荐, 露营 新手) with sort=popular and deduplicate the authors; those who show up for several keywords are the ones the niche associates with the topic. Search results carry no follower counts, so look each author up with account profile for followers, likes and saves, note count and bio. Account notes shows their last 20 notes if you want to check recent form.

The PGY creator ID is the Xiaohongshu user ID, so merging the two lists by ID tells you at once who among the authors takes brand deals.

Cost

Step	Calls	Cost
PGY, 5 pages, about 100 creators with followers and rates	5	$0.20
Note search, 5 keywords	5	$0.10
Profiles for 40 authors not on the PGY list	40	$0.80
Total	50	{{cost:xiaohongshu.pgy.creators.search5+xiaohongshu.notes.search5+xiaohongshu.users.get*40}}
Optional: recent notes for those 40	40	$0.80

Code

import os, requests

API = "https://api.okdata.online"
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OKDATA_API_KEY']}"}

def get(path, **params):
    body = requests.get(API + path, headers=H, params=params, timeout=60).json()
    if body["code"] != "ok":
        raise RuntimeError(f"{body['code']}: {body['message']}")
    return body["data"]

pgy = {c["id"]: c for c in get("/v1/xiaohongshu/pgy/creators/search", query="露营装备",
                                followers_min=10000, followers_max=200000, sort="most_engagements")["items"]}

authors = {}
for kw in ["露营装备", "帐篷 推荐", "露营 新手"]:
    for n in get("/v1/xiaohongshu/notes/search", query=kw, sort="popular")["items"]:
        authors[n["author"]["id"]] = n["author"]["name"]

for uid in [u for u in authors if u not in pgy][:40]:
    p = get("/v1/xiaohongshu/users/get", id=uid)["item"]
    print(p["name"], p["followers"], "not on PGY")
for c in pgy.values():
    print(c["name"], c["followers"], c["median_views"], [(r["name"], r["price"]) for r in c["rates"] or []])

What this does not give you

• Audience age, gender and city split, and past sponsored deals. Those stay in the PGY console and need a brand account.
• Fake-follower checks. Low likes or reads relative to followers is a hint, not proof.
• Contact details. Reach out through PGY or the channels on the creator's profile.
• Final prices. PGY rates are what creators list; fees and discounts are settled when you order.

Alternatives

PGY's own console filters by category, price and audience and is where you book. Agencies add negotiation and relationships. Tools such as 千瓜 rank creators by category without code. To filter by follower band and budget on Xiaohongshu and Douyin together, see shortlisting creators by follower range and price. More on this workflow on creator discovery.