What types of social media datasets does SocialIntel offer?

SocialIntel offers datasets from 100+ social media platforms including Reddit, GitHub, YouTube, Medium, Discord, Telegram, and more. Each dataset is enriched with 250+ fields covering sentiment analysis, topic detection, financial signals, engagement metrics, and content classification.

How much does SocialIntel cost?

Catalog datasets up to 10K rows are always free to download. Individual datasets start at $18. Pro plans range from $78 to $504 per month, with annual pricing from $780 to $5,040 per year.

Can I request a custom dataset?

Yes! You can submit a custom dataset request specifying the platform, fields, date range, and format. Custom datasets are priced based on row count, starting at $18.

What formats are datasets available in?

Datasets are available in CSV, JSON, JSONL, and Parquet formats. You can download them directly or access them via our REST API.

Is the data ethically sourced and legal?

Yes. We collect only publicly accessible data from social media platforms using official APIs and permissive robots.txt directives. We comply with each platform's terms of service and applicable laws. See our Legality & Compliance page for a full platform-by-platform breakdown.

Navigating Data Privacy Compliance When Collecting Social Media Data

Collecting public social media data at scale requires careful attention to privacy regulations. Here is how we approach GDPR, CCPA, and platform-specific compliance in our pipeline.

As data privacy regulations tighten globally, collecting and processing social media data demands more than just technical capability. It requires a systematic compliance framework that respects user rights while enabling legitimate research and analysis.

The Regulatory Landscape

Several regulations directly impact social media data collection:

**GDPR (EU)** — Requires lawful basis for processing personal data, including public social media posts. Consent, legitimate interest, and public task are the primary legal bases.
**CCPA/CPRA (California)** — Grants consumers rights over their personal information, including the right to know, delete, and opt out.
**PIPEDA (Canada)** — Requires meaningful consent for collection, use, and disclosure of personal information.
**Platform Terms of Service** — Each platform imposes its own rules on data collection, often stricter than legal minimums.

Our Compliance Framework

At Social Intel, we built compliance into the pipeline from day one:

Data Minimization

We collect only the fields necessary for our stated purposes. Personal identifiers beyond what is publicly posted are stripped during normalization. We do not collect private messages, deleted posts, or restricted content.

Purpose Limitation

Every dataset we offer has a clearly defined purpose: market research, academic study, or AI training. We do not use collected data for surveillance, individual profiling, or purposes incompatible with the original collection intent.

User Rights Handling

We maintain processes for handling data subject requests:

**Right to access** — Users can request a copy of their data in our system
**Right to erasure** — We honor deletion requests within 30 days
**Right to object** — Users can opt out of future collection

Platform Compliance

Each platform collector is configured to respect:

API rate limits and usage terms
robots.txt directives
opt-out mechanisms (e.g., Mastodon crawl directive)
Content licensing and attribution requirements

Best Practices for Data Teams

The Business Case

Compliance is not just a legal obligation — it is a competitive advantage. Customers increasingly demand proof of ethical data sourcing. Our compliance framework has been a key factor in enterprise adoption, where procurement teams require detailed data governance documentation before approving vendor relationships.

— Heshan Sanjuka, Founder