WeChat article APIs: official vs third-party vs open-source (2026)

People want four things from WeChat Official Account articles: what an account has published (its history), the article text, the reads, likes and "Wow" counts, and the comments. Whether the account is yours or someone else's decides which routes are open. First what okdata returns, then the four kinds of source side by side: WeChat's own API, third-party data APIs, open-source tools and subscription dashboards.

okdata's Official Account endpoints

One API key, no WeChat or WeChat Reading account, and any public Official Account:

• Account search finds accounts by name or keyword and returns the gh_ original ID, charged per account returned at $0.058, at most $0.58 a call. You search once per account.
• Article history returns about 10 articles a page for $0.02: title, link, summary, publish time and headline slot. Reads and likes are usually not included in the list. Page back for older articles.
• Article detail returns the body as plain text with the account and publish time, $0.02 an article, ready for a summariser or a search index.
• Article counts returns reads, likes, Wows, shares, saves and comments by link, $0.02 a call. This is where the numbers come from, one article at a time.
• Article comments returns the featured public comments, $0.02 a call.

Failed calls are free. The same key reads Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo and the rest of okdata's 17 platforms, and the MCP server gives it to an AI agent.

A worked bill: checking 30 accounts once a day is 900 history calls a month, $18.00. Pull text and counts only for the articles you want to look at closely.

The four kinds of source compared

The official facts come from WeChat's developer docs and platform agreement, read on 2026-11-12. The other rows describe what a kind of source has in common; for any one provider, read its own terms.

Option	Data	Cost	Login or credentials	Risk and upkeep	Suits
WeChat's own API (Official Account developer API)	Your account's published articles with text (1 to 20 a call), daily read and share statistics, comments	Not stated	AppID and AppSecret for an access token; most endpoints need a verified account, statistics a verified company account	Authoritative; cannot read other accounts; individual and unverified accounts lost access from July 2025	Running your own account
Third-party data APIs	Usually any public account's history, text, reads/likes/Wows and comments; account lookup differs	Per call, in yuan or dollars; some publish prices, some show them only after sign-up	A key, not your WeChat	Whether missing, deleted or empty results are charged differs; some set a minimum top-up	Reading other accounts from code
okdata	Account search (returns the gh_ ID), history, plain text, one article's reads, likes and other counts, featured comments and replies	History $0.02 a page, text $0.02, counts $0.02, search $0.058 per account; $0.10 trial	A key, no WeChat login	Read-only; failed calls free	WeChat next to other platforms, or in an AI agent
Open-source tools (RSS feeds, article export)	Articles from accounts you follow, as RSS or exported files	Free; you run the server	Most need a QR authorisation of an Official Account back office, or a WeChat Reading login	Logins expire and need new QR scans; when the interfaces they rely on change you wait for a fix, and several once-popular projects have stopped	Following a few dozen accounts yourself
Subscription dashboards	Account rankings, account and article data, web reports and exports	Monthly or yearly membership, prices mostly on request; APIs usually custom	A dashboard account	The platform decides coverage and refresh; no code needed	Choosing accounts for placements, industry rankings

WeChat's API reads only your own account

Every server-side endpoint takes an access token made from the account's own AppID and AppSecret, so it reads that account only:

• Published-articles list: 1 to 20 articles a call, with title, author, digest and HTML. From July 2025, individual accounts, unverified company accounts and accounts that cannot be verified lose access.
• Statistics: the old getarticlesummary and getarticletotal endpoints are no longer maintained. The new getarticleread covers one day per query with data stored from 2025-11-01, and getarticletotaldetail counts each article's first 30 days. Both are for verified company accounts, up to yesterday.
• Comments: listed by the msg_data_id of your own sends, also for verified accounts.

There is no endpoint for another account's articles or read counts. The platform's service agreement defines reading and obtaining data with spiders, crawlers or bots as "illegal acquisition".

Third-party data APIs read other accounts

These services turn public Official Account articles and counts into HTTP endpoints. You pay per call with a key and do not use your own WeChat. When you compare them, look at:

• Account lookup: some take an account name, WeChat ID or article link directly; others need a search first for the original ID.
• Price and currency: some price in yuan, some in dollars; some publish a price page, others show prices only after sign-up.
• Billing rules: whether failed calls, missing or deleted articles and empty results are charged is written differently by each provider, so read the pricing page and docs before you buy.
• Coverage: history, text, reads/likes/Wows, comments and replies are not offered everywhere, and WeChat-only services and multi-platform ones differ a lot in how many endpoints they have.

okdata is one of these; its endpoints and prices are in the first section above. Failed calls are free, and the rules are in the billing docs.

Open-source tools

Open-source Official Account tools mostly do one of two things: turn followed accounts into RSS feeds, or export an account's articles in bulk. They are free, but you host them, and nearly all of them need a login:

• Through the back office: you scan a QR code to authorise an Official Account back office and the tool reads followed accounts through its interfaces. The login expires, so you scan again from time to time.
• Through WeChat Reading: the tool logs into a WeChat Reading (微信读书) account to read accounts. Too many requests get the reading account blocked for a while, and the login also expires; some projects note that WeChat Reading's article-list interface has been retired, so this route now gets only each account's latest article.

All of these rely on WeChat's non-public interfaces, and when those change you wait for the project to catch up. Several once-popular projects have been archived or stopped maintenance, some saying the upstream interface was closed. Before you pick one for a new project, check that its repository is still updated. For the RSS route in detail, see ways to get WeChat Official Account data.

Subscription dashboards

These platforms sell monthly or yearly memberships: account rankings, account and article data on the web, and exports by plan. For choosing accounts before a placement or reading industry rankings they are the quickest route and need no code; to put the data into your own system or an AI agent, you still need an API.

How to choose

• Your own account: WeChat's API, which also has follower and sharing data nobody else sees, if the account is verified (statistics need a verified company account).
• Other accounts, in code or an agent: a third-party data API. Compare price, account lookup and how failed, deleted and empty results are billed. If WeChat sits next to Douyin, Xiaohongshu and others, a multi-platform service saves you juggling keys.
• Reading a few dozen accounts yourself: an open-source RSS tool, if periodic QR logins and self-hosting are fine.
• Choosing accounts for placements, no code: a subscription dashboard.

What okdata does not do

• It cannot publish, reply to comments or manage an account.
• It has no back-office data: followers, follower changes, read sources, audience. Only the owner sees those, in the back office or WeChat's API.
• The history list usually carries no counts: reads and likes come back null along with Wows, shares and comments. Use article counts, one call per article; for an account's last 50 articles that is 5 list calls and 50 count calls, $1.10, so many teams check only the headlines.
• Comments are the featured public ones, and replies return the first batch only.
• The account owner endpoint is paused.

Try it

Sign up for $0.10 of trial credit, no card needed. List an account's latest articles by its original ID, then get the numbers of one of them by its link:

curl -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/wechat_mp/accounts/articles/list" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode 'id=gh_363b924965e9' \
  --data-urlencode 'fields=title,url,published_at'

curl -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/wechat_mp/articles/metrics" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode 'url=https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5MjAxNDM4MA==&mid=2667044935&idx=1&sn=05212d520417484f4402bdad73f527ec' \
  --data-urlencode 'fields=metrics.views,metrics.likes'

The full workflow is in export an Official Account's articles; for AI clients see an MCP server that lets AI read WeChat articles.

Questions

Can WeChat's own API read another account's articles?

No. Every server-side endpoint uses your own account's access token and returns your own articles and data. For other accounts, use a third-party data API.

What does a read-count API cost?

okdata's article counts returns reads, likes, Wows, shares, saves and comments by link for $0.02 a call, and failed calls are free. Third-party data APIs usually charge per call, with prices and currencies that differ and some shown only after login; compare them together with whether deleted articles and empty results are charged. WeChat's statistics endpoints state no price, but they are open only to verified company accounts and read only your own account.

How do I get an account's whole history?

Page back through the history endpoint, about 10 articles a page. On okdata, an account's latest 100 articles are 10 calls, $0.20, for titles, links and dates; their reads and likes add 100 count calls, $2.00. See the pagination docs.

Are read counts live?

They are a snapshot at fetch time. Reads keep growing for days, so compare articles of similar age or record when you fetched.

Can I get articles without logging into WeChat?

Yes. A third-party data API needs only the provider's key. Open-source tools usually need a QR authorisation of a back office or a WeChat Reading login.

Is reading Official Accounts through a third-party API compliant?

Public articles are still covered by the platform's terms and China's Personal Information Protection Law. Take only the fields you need, do not keep commenters' identities and do not resell raw data, and the risk drops a lot. For the general picture see is scraping public social media data legal; for a specific project, ask a lawyer.