What Is Apify? How It Works and What It Really Costs
Apify is a cloud platform that runs programs called Actors, which scrape websites and automate browser tasks. Ready-made Actors are sold in Apify Store, and you pay either for each event an Actor produces (a result, a start) or for the compute it burns, measured in compute units.
This guide explains what Apify is, how its pricing actually works, and what 1,000 places cost today with the most-used Google Maps Actor. Every number was taken from Apify's own pages on September 29, 2026.
A disclosure first: basedonb also sells Google Maps data, so we are not neutral here. That is why every figure below links to its source, and why the cases where Apify is the better choice get their own section.
What Apify is used for
Apify takes over the servers, browsers, proxies and storage behind "pull data from this site on a schedule". According to Apify, Jan Čurn and Jakub Balada founded it in 2015, and the company is based in Prague. Typical uses:
- Running a ready-made scraper. Apify Store lists more than 77,000 tools: Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, Google Search results, e-commerce sites, LinkedIn.
- Turning websites into text for AI. Actors like Website Content Crawler convert pages into clean text for RAG pipelines and chatbots.
- Hosting your own scraper. Code written in JavaScript or Python is deployed as an Actor, with scheduling, proxies and storage built in.
- Giving AI agents tools. Through the MCP server, an assistant can find and run Store Actors on its own.
- Sending results elsewhere. The API, webhooks and ready-made integrations push data into a CRM or a spreadsheet.
What an Actor is
An Actor is a single program on Apify: it takes an input, does the work in the cloud and writes the output to a dataset. For Google Maps, the input is a search such as "dentist, Austin" and the output is a table with one business per row.
Apify's documentation lists the dataset export formats as JSON, JSONL, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML and RSS, so getting the result into Excel needs no extra tool.
Some Actors are written by Apify's team, most by independent developers. Each Store page shows the author, the user count, the rating and the last update. Example: the most widespread Google Maps Actor, compass/crawler-google-places, showed 625K total users, 39K monthly active users and a 4.7 rating from 1,816 reviews on September 29, 2026, and it is maintained by Apify.
Check three things before you pick an Actor: the last update date, how fast issues get answered, and monthly active users. On a site that changes as often as Google Maps, an Actor that has not been updated for months can return broken data.
Apify pricing plans (September 2026)
Apify has four self-serve plans, and each one includes platform credit equal to its monthly fee. On paid plans, usage beyond the credit is added to the next invoice. On the free plan, the account stops until the next cycle.
| Plan | Monthly fee | Included credit | Compute unit price | Store discount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $5 | $0.20 | None |
| Starter | $19 | $19 | $0.20 | Bronze |
| Scale | $199 | $199 | $0.16 | Silver |
| Business | $999 | $999 | $0.13 | Gold |
Source: apify.com/pricing, September 29, 2026. Three details matter for the bill:
- Annual billing takes 10% off.
- Unused credit expires at the end of the billing cycle. It does not roll over.
- Proxies are billed separately. On the free plan, residential proxies cost $8 per GB.
Reviews of Apify around the web quote different numbers for the Starter plan. Check the official page before you decide; the table above is that page as of September 29, 2026.
Compute units vs pay per event
Every Actor in Apify Store is priced under one of two models: pay per event or pay per usage. The Actor's pricing tab says which one applies.
- Pay per event: the developer defines the events, such as an Actor start, a result or an enrichment, and prices them per 1,000. Most of these Actors include platform usage in the event price, but not all of them.
- Pay per usage: the developer charges nothing on top. You pay for the compute units, data transfer, storage and proxies the Actor consumes.
One compute unit is 1 GB of memory used for 1 hour. A run with 4 GB of memory that lasts 30 minutes burns 2 CUs, which is $0.40 on Starter.
The second model is the hard one to budget. The same job burns a different number of CUs depending on how slow the site is, how many requests are retried and how much proxy traffic it needs. Apify's own advice is to do a small test run and read the usage in your billing settings.
What Google Maps scraping costs on Apify
Scraping 1,000 businesses with compass/crawler-google-places, including emails and social profiles from their websites, costs $6.00 on the free plan and $5.00 on Starter. The Actor is pay per event, with platform usage included. The events and their price per 1,000:
| Event (per 1,000) | Free | Starter | Scale | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scraped place | $4.00 | $3.00 | $2.00 | $1.50 |
| Filter add-on (per filter) | $1.00 | $1.00 | $0.75 | $0.53 |
| Additional place details | $2.00 | $2.00 | $1.50 | $1.05 |
| Company contacts enrichment | $2.00 | $2.00 | $1.50 | $1.05 |
| Business leads enrichment (name, work email) | $100.00 | $5.00 | $5.00 | $4.00 |
| Email verification | $100.00 | $4.00 | $3.00 | $2.00 |
| Review | $0.50 | $0.50 | $0.37 | $0.26 |
Source: the Actor's pricing page, September 29, 2026. There is also an Actor start fee, but at $0.00005 per GB it does not move the total.
Now a typical lead list: 1,000 dental practices in one city, with emails and social profiles from their websites.
| Plan | 1,000 places | Places the monthly credit covers |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $6.00 | about 830 |
| Starter | $5.00 | 3,800 |
| Scale | $3.50 | about 56,800 |
| Business | $2.55 | about 391,700 |
Two things push that number up. Each filter is charged again for every scraped place: a "only places with a website" filter takes 1,000 places on Starter to $6.00. If you want a person's name and work email, Starter adds $5.00 per 1,000 leads found; on the free plan that add-on is $100 per 1,000, which in practice switches it off.
The same job on basedonb: the Solo plan is $19 a month for 10,000 records, so $1.90 per 1,000, with emails, social profiles and technology data from the website included. A one-time pack of 1,000 credits is $9 for people who do not want a subscription, and the free plan gives 30 credits every month.
Two notes to keep that comparison fair. The $19 on Apify can be spent on any Actor in the Store, not only on Google Maps. And this Apify Actor also returns review text, photos and opening hours, which basedonb's CSV and Excel export does not include. The full picture across tools is in our Google Maps scraper pricing comparison, and where the emails really come from is in how to get emails from Google Maps.
How to use Apify
- Create an account. The free plan on apify.com needs no card.
- Find an Actor in the Store. Look at the pricing model, the last update and the user count.
- Fill in the input. Search terms, location and, most important, a maximum number of results. On pay-per-event Actors the bill grows with every result, so always set that cap.
- Run it and download. When the run finishes, export the dataset as CSV, Excel or JSON.
- Automate repeat jobs. Save the settings as a task and schedule it, or call it through the API.
From code, the same Actor can be called with the JavaScript or Python client or the REST API. What breaks when you scrape Google Maps yourself is covered in scraping Google Maps with Python.
Apify MCP: running Actors from an AI assistant
Apify's MCP server (mcp.apify.com) lets an AI assistant find and run Store Actors as tools. Per the documentation, it connects to clients such as Claude, Cursor and VS Code with OAuth or an API token. Rental Actors and Actors that request full permissions are excluded.
If all you need is Google Maps data, a dedicated MCP server is the shorter path. What it looks like when you ask an assistant to "find hair salons in Brooklyn" and get real records back is in AI lead generation with Google Maps data.
When Apify is the right tool, and when it is not
Apify is the better choice when:
- You need data from several sources. Instagram, Google Maps and an online shop from one account.
- You need special fields such as review text or photos.
- You have a team that will write and maintain its own scrapers.
- You want to give an AI agent a large set of ready-made tools.
Be careful when:
- The monthly budget has to be fixed. On pay-per-usage Actors, the bill depends on run time.
- You plan a large job on the free plan. $5 covers about 1,250 places without enrichment, then the account stops.
- An independent developer maintains the Actor. An Actor that falls behind can quietly return incomplete data.
- All you need is a lead list from Google Maps. A dedicated tool where one credit is one record needs far less setup. The difference between the two approaches is in BasedOnBusiness vs Apify.
Is Apify legal?
Apify is a legal infrastructure service, and the responsibility sits with the user. Scraping a business's name and phone number is not the same as scraping a person's name and work email: the second is personal data under the GDPR and similar laws. Google Maps' terms and the rules in the US and the EU are covered in is scraping Google Maps legal. This is general information, not legal advice.
FAQ
Is Apify free?
Apify has a free plan: $5 of platform usage every month, no credit card required. When the credit runs out, the account is blocked until the next monthly cycle, and unused credit does not roll over. With the most-used Google Maps Actor, $5 covers roughly 830 places with contact enrichment.
What is a compute unit (CU) on Apify?
One compute unit is 1 GB of memory used for 1 hour. It costs $0.20 on the Free and Starter plans, $0.16 on Scale and $0.13 on Business. You pay CUs directly on pay-per-usage Actors; most pay-per-event Actors fold platform usage into the event price.
Do I need to code to use Apify?
Not to run a ready-made Actor from Apify Store: you fill in a form, start the run and download the result as CSV or Excel. Writing your own Actor or automating runs through the API needs JavaScript or Python.
Is Apify legal?
Apify is a legal infrastructure service. The legal responsibility sits with what you collect, from which site, and how you use it: data protection law, the target site's terms and marketing consent rules all apply to the user. This is general information, not legal advice.
What is the Apify MCP server?
The Apify MCP server at mcp.apify.com lets AI clients such as Claude, Cursor or VS Code discover and run Actors from Apify Store as tools. It connects with OAuth or an Apify API token. Rental Actors and Actors that request full permissions are excluded.
Can you make money on Apify?
Developers can publish paid Actors on Apify Store, charging either per event or letting users pay only the platform usage. Revenue depends on how many people run the Actor. Apify's own documentation says promotion is what separates Actors with many paying users from those with none.
Getting started
Pick Apify if you will pull data from several sites or write your own scrapers. If all you need is a list of businesses from Google Maps, entering a category and a city and downloading the result to Excel, with emails, phones and social profiles, is the shorter path.
Create an account and pull your first list with 30 free credits every month, no card required.