Can you trust the numbers in Facebook?
A business on Facebook has a Page, whose settings, content, comments and insights apps can access through Meta's Pages API. Its own help pages give 3 reasons its numbers can look different from what you expect. The first to rule out: Some Page reach style counts are estimates, so, as Meta's developer docs explain, they may not match a count you make by hand.
Is it broken, or just counted differently?
A number can look wrong because the business changed, or because of how Facebook counts it. Below is what Facebook keeps, where its help pages say the numbers can differ, and how to check them yourself.
What does Facebook keep track of?
A business's Facebook Page keeps its own posts, comments and a set of insight figures that apps can read.
In Facebook's own words:
create and get Posts, get Comments on Page owned content, get Page insights
Facebook Pages API, read 2026-11-12.Facebook keeps figures both for the Page as a whole and for each post on it.
In Facebook's own words:
Represents insights for Facebook Pages and Page posts.
Graph API Reference v26.0: Page Insights - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.
What can make Facebook's numbers look wrong?
Some Page reach style counts are estimates, so, as Meta's developer docs explain, they may not match a count you make by hand.
In Facebook's own words:
Metrics generated with the `_unique` suffix are approximate and may not be 100% accurate.
Page/insights - Graph API - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.A Page number can be up to a day behind what happened, as Meta's developer docs say, so today's figure may look low.
In Facebook's own words:
Most metrics will update once every 24 hours.
Page/insights - Graph API - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.A small Page may show no insight figures at all, because Meta's docs say insights need at least 100 likes.
In Facebook's own words:
Page Insights data is only available on Pages with 100 or more likes.
Graph API Reference v26.0: Page Insights - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.
How do I check Facebook's numbers myself?
When comparing a long stretch, read it in windows of 90 days or less so each window can be matched against the next.
In Facebook's own words:
Only 90 days of insights can be viewed at one time when using the `since` and `until` parameters.
Page/insights - Graph API - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.Older figures cannot be looked up again, so an owner who needs a long history should save exports while the data is still there.
In Facebook's own words:
Only the last two years of insights data is available.
Page/insights - Graph API - Documentation - Meta for Developers, read 2026-11-12.
How does Facebook work with Feder?
Connect Facebook to Feder and it joins your Reach apps. Feder only reads. It never changes anything in Facebook.
When you connect Facebook, Feder checks the connection straight away and shows Connected only when that check passes. If a reading cannot be taken later, Feder shows it as not read, never as zero.
Other apps that feed Reach
- Google Search Consoleclicks and impressions in Google Search
- YouTubechannel views
- Mailchimpcampaign emails sent
- ActiveCampaignactive contacts
- Brevocampaign emails sent
- Intercomcontacts
Where do these answers come from?
Everything this page says about Facebook comes from Facebook's own pages, quoted above with the date we read them. Last reviewed 2026-11-12. We read them again by 2027-11-12. If one changes, this page changes or comes down.
Know the day a number breaks, not the month after.
Some numbers are too quiet to judge daily, such as a form filled in a few times a week. Until there is enough of your own history to judge a change, Feder says it is still learning and scores nothing, rather than guessing.