Apify

Apify is a web scraping and browser automation platform built around "Actors" — serverless programs that extract data from websites, automate browser-based workflows, or run AI agents at scale. It pairs a marketplace of pre-built scraping tools with the infrastructure needed to run custom extraction jobs, which makes it a common pick for data teams, growth marketers, and developers who need structured web data without maintaining their own scraping stack.

Features

At the core of Apify are Actors — containerized programs for web scraping and data extraction that you can build from scratch or pull from the Apify Store, a marketplace of pre-built Actors covering common scraping targets. Around this Actor execution engine, the platform adds several supporting pieces:

• Web scraping and data extraction tooling built around the Actor model
• Apify Store, a library of ready-made Actors for common data sources
• A proxy layer covering datacenter, residential, and SERP proxies, plus an unblocking service for sites with anti-bot protections
• Built-in storage primitives — Dataset, Key-value store, and Request queue — for persisting scraped data and managing crawl state
• A general-purpose Actor and AI agent execution platform, so the same infrastructure can run custom automation or agent workloads beyond scraping

Put together, this lets teams pull data from existing community Actors, build their own extraction logic, and store or route the results without stitching together separate services for compute, storage, and proxying.

Pricing

Apify runs a hybrid pricing model across five named tiers, starting with a Free plan at $0/mo and topping out at a Business plan for $999/mo, with an Enterprise tier above that priced on custom, usage-based terms. Each paid tier bundles a prepaid usage allowance along with fixed limits on Actor RAM and maximum concurrent runs, but usage-based pricing kicks in on top of these tiers once consumption exceeds the prepaid allotment — covering things like concurrent run capacity, Actor RAM consumption, and datacenter proxy usage. Since the model is hybrid rather than flat, actual monthly cost depends on usage volume as much as the base tier price, so teams running heavier scraping workloads or proxy usage should expect their bill to move with consumption once it passes the plan's included allowance.

API and Compliance

Apify exposes an API that lets you trigger and manage Actors, datasets, and storage resources programmatically rather than relying solely on the web console. That makes it straightforward to embed Apify-run scraping jobs into external pipelines, schedule Actor runs, or pull extracted data directly into downstream systems.

On compliance, Apify holds SOC 2 certification — relevant for organizations that need to vet data-processing vendors during procurement or security review, especially when Apify is handling third-party or customer-adjacent data extracted from the web.

Target User

Apify fits developers, data engineers, and technical teams that need programmatic, scalable access to web data rather than a point-and-click scraper for occasional use. The free entry tier, API-first design, and granular usage-based components (concurrent runs, RAM, proxy IPs) point to a product built for teams that want to start small and scale usage predictably as extraction volume grows, rather than commit to a large flat-fee contract upfront. An Enterprise tier with custom, usage-based terms also signals Apify can support larger organizations running high-volume or bespoke scraping and agent workloads, while the Apify Store lowers the barrier for teams that would rather reuse existing Actors than build extraction logic from scratch. A paid "Personal training" line item further suggests Apify offers direct onboarding support for teams that want hands-on help getting Actors and workflows running in production.