# Apify review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Scraping platform with a store of ready-made Actors, Google included Checked Oct 23, 2026 ยท graded Oct 24, 2026 by ToolGPA. Apify is a cloud platform for running web scrapers and automations, called Actors. Its store lists nearly 97,000 of them built by Apify and outside developers, including a Google Search Results Scraper, and you can build and host your own with the open-source Crawlee library. Plans are a monthly amount of prepaid usage, with anything beyond it billed as you go. - **Category:** SERP & SEO Data APIs - **Made by:** Apify Technologies s.r.o. (since 2015) - **Website:** https://apify.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Watch out: each store Actor sets its own price, usually per result or per event, so two jobs that look alike can cost different amounts. - **Facts last checked:** Oct 23, 2026 ## Pricing As of Oct 23, 2026, Apify has a free plan, and paid plans start at $19 per month, billed monthly, with $19 of usage included. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** $5 of platform usage each month for Store Actors or your own, 16 GB of Actor memory, 5 concurrent runs and community support. No card needed. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | $5 of usage a month at $0.20 per compute unit, 16 GB of Actor memory and 5 concurrent runs. Stops when the $5 is spent. | | Starter | $19 per month, billed monthly, with $19 of usage included | $0.20 per compute unit, 64 GB of Actor memory, 32 concurrent runs, chat support and the Bronze Store discount. Extra usage is billed. | | Scale | $199 per month, billed monthly, with $199 of usage included | $0.16 per compute unit, 256 GB of memory, 128 concurrent runs, priority chat support, the Silver Store discount and lower proxy rates. | | Business | $999 per month, billed monthly, with $999 of usage included | $0.13 per compute unit, 512 GB of memory, 256 concurrent runs, an account manager and the Gold Store discount. | | Enterprise | Custom | Custom scraping solutions, pricing and limits, with SLAs on data and a dedicated team. Through sales. | Read from https://apify.com/pricing on Oct 23, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Apify before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Save 10% with annual billing** (Annual discount): Apify's pricing page shows a 10% discount for billing annually instead of monthly. Source: https://apify.com/pricing - **30% off Starter and Scale for students** (Education): Apify's pricing FAQ says students are eligible for 30% off the Starter and Scale plans. Source: https://apify.com/pricing - **Personalized discount for nonprofits** (Nonprofit): Apify's pricing FAQ says nonprofit organizations can get a personalized discount on paid plans. Source: https://apify.com/pricing - **30% off the Scale plan for startups** (Startups): Apify's pricing FAQ offers startups a 30% discount on the Scale plan. Source: https://apify.com/pricing ## Key features - **Apify Store:** Nearly 97,000 ready-made Actors for sites such as Google, Google Maps, TikTok and Instagram. Each sets its own price, usually per result or per event. - **Google Search Results Scraper:** Apify's own Actor returns organic and paid results, People Also Ask, related queries, AI Overviews and AI Mode by country and language, from $1.80 per 1,000 pages. - **Build and host your own Actors:** Start from Python, JavaScript or TypeScript templates, use the open-source Crawlee library, and run, schedule and monitor the Actors on Apify. - **Proxies and unblocking:** Datacenter and residential proxies, Google SERP proxies priced per 1,000 searches, and an unblocker billed per 1,000 requests. - **API, CLI, webhooks and MCP:** Run Actors and fetch results over a REST API or CLI, get webhooks when runs finish, chain Actors together, or call them from AI agents through an MCP server. - **Automation integrations:** Connectors for Make, n8n, Zapier and other automation tools, and setups for coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and OpenAI Codex. ## Good for - Teams that want a ready-made scraper instead of writing one - Developers hosting their own scrapers without running servers - Collecting Google results alongside social, maps and shop data - Feeding web data to AI agents through MCP ## Worth knowing - Store Actors set their own prices, so the cost of a job depends on which Actor runs it and how many results it returns. - Use beyond a paid plan's prepaid amount is added to the next invoice; on the free plan, Actors stop until the next month. - Prepaid usage that is not spent expires at the end of each billing cycle. - Residential proxies cost $7 to $8 per GB and Google SERP proxies $1.70 to $2.50 per 1,000 searches, depending on plan. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.8 out of 4**, graded Oct 24, 2026. Apify runs scrapers called Actors in the cloud: nearly 97,000 in its store, its own Google Search Results Scraper among them, or your own built with Crawlee. Each Actor sets its own price, so a job's cost depends on which one runs it, and prepaid usage you don't spend expires at the end of each billing cycle. - **Value for money: B.** Starter is $19 a month, on the line of this category's cheaper quarter, and the $19 is all usage you can spend. Apify's own Google scraper is from $1.80 per 1,000 result pages, inside the $1 to $4 most rivals here charge. Paying yearly takes 10% off. - **Free plan and trial: B.** A free plan for good with no card: $5 of usage every month, 5 concurrent runs and 16 GB of memory. At the Google scraper's rate from $1.80 per 1,000 pages that covers a small side project, and Actors stop once the $5 is spent. - **Features: B.** Nearly 97,000 store Actors for sites such as Google, Google Maps, TikTok and Instagram; Apify's own Google scraper returns organic and paid results, People Also Ask, AI Overviews and AI Mode by country and language. You can build and host your own too. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core job. - **Ease of use: C.** Judged on how fast a developer gets a first result: ready-made Actors, Python, JavaScript and TypeScript templates, and a CLI. No rating on record, and costs come as compute units, proxy traffic and each Actor's own price, which takes reading. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, with a REST API, a CLI, webhooks and an MCP server, plus Make, n8n, Zapier, Workato, Zoho Flow and coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and OpenAI Codex. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Apify's own pages on 23 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among SERP and SEO data APIs - Apify's GPA of 2.8 is higher than 35 of the 38 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade, and level with 3. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 35 of 38) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $19 a month, against a middle price of $29.49 for the category: 3 of the 25 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/seo-data-apis ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Apify you would be making search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.8 is higher than 35 of the 38 other SERP and SEO data APIs we grade. It costs $228 a year. - You could not: Search results fetched at scale from many countries without being blocked. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Make, n8n and Zapier among them, and has an API. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Make, n8n, Zapier, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Workato, Zoho Flow **Tags:** SERP API, Public API ## Alternatives - [Outscraper](https://toolgpa.com/tools/outscraper): Pay-as-you-go Google Maps, Search and review scraping with a free tier. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-outscraper) - [ScrapingBee](https://toolgpa.com/tools/scrapingbee): Web scraping API with a Google search endpoint, priced by credits. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-scrapingbee) - [Zyte](https://toolgpa.com/tools/zyte): Web scraping API with ban handling, AI extraction and a SERP endpoint. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-zyte) - [Bright Data SERP API](https://toolgpa.com/tools/bright-data-serp-api): Search results API on Bright Data's proxy network, with AI engines. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-bright-data-serp-api) - [SerpApi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/serpapi): Real-time search results API for Google and dozens of other engines. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/apify-vs-serpapi) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 23, 2026: - https://apify.com/pricing - https://apify.com/ - https://apify.com/apify/google-search-scraper - https://apify.com/integrations - https://apify.com/about - https://docs.apify.com/legal Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/apify Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).