Silkline DataWeChat Official Account Data: Read Counts, 10万+ and What You Can Collect
How WeChat Official Account articles report reads, likes and 在看, why big numbers show as 10万+, and what article, account and company data you can collect.
Published 2026-11-10 by Silkline Data
Short answer: WeChat chats are private, but Official Account (公众号) articles are public. For each article you can get the title, text, publish time and, when WeChat shows them, reads, likes, 在看, shares, saves and comments. Reads above 100,000 show as 10万+, so treat 100000 as "at least 100,000". For each account you can also see the registered company behind it.
What is an Official Account?
It is how brands, media and public figures publish to WeChat's audience: long-form articles pushed to followers, usually several a day for big media. A WeChat article is the closest thing in China to a company blog or newsletter post, and it is where brands put their official statements.
What can you collect?
Real runs on 9 November 2026:
| Request | What you send | What came back |
|---|---|---|
| Search articles | a keyword, e.g. 咖啡 (coffee) | 10 articles, 9 fields each, 8 s |
| An account's articles | an account or article link | 10 recent articles, 12 fields, 58 s |
| Article text | an article link | full text, author, account details, 17 fields, 38 s |
| Article stats | an article link | reads, likes, 在看, shares, saves, comments, 8 s |
| Article comments | an article link | 10 comments with likes, replies and IP location, 27 s |
| Account owner | an account ID | registered company, verification type and dates, 7 s |
| Mini-program search | a keyword | 10 mini-programs with the company behind each, 6 s |
How do read counts work?
WeChat shows exact reads up to 100,000. Above that it shows 10万+. Our tool returns that as 100000, so the number is a lower bound. In our runs a 新华网 article on coffee came back at 100000 in search, and a 新周刊 article's stats came back at 100001: both mean "over 100,000", not a precise count.
The other counts are exact:
| Field | Chinese label | What it is |
|---|---|---|
likeCount |
赞 | Likes |
lookCount |
在看 | "Wow": readers recommending the article to their WeChat friends |
shareCount |
转发 | Shares to chats and Moments |
collectCount |
收藏 | Saves |
commentCount |
留言 | Comments shown under the article |
在看 is the number to watch for reach: each 在看 shows the article to that reader's friends.
Who is behind an account?
The account owner request returns the registered entity. For 新周刊 it returned 广东新周刊杂志社有限公司, a media verification (媒体认证), the date of the latest verification and the date the account was registered (2 July 2013). This is useful for checking whether an account that writes about your brand is a real media outlet, a company or an individual.
What does it cost?
Each article or comment costs $0.005 on the Bronze tier and each mini-program $0.014, plus a $0.015 start fee per run. 200 articles cost about $1. See the WeChat Official Account API for all 17 request types, and WeChat Index for keyword trends.
What are the limits?
- Private chats, Moments and groups are never visible, so they are never collected.
- 在看 counts come with account article lists and stats, not with search results.
- Large accounts publish a lot: plan for an account's article list to take about a minute per page.