Apify

Apify is a marketplace of ready-to-run tools for AI agents and apps—called “Actors”—that help you get real-time web data fast. Instead of building scraping pipelines from scratch, you can browse pre-built Actors for tasks like collecting content, extracting leads, monitoring social and competitor signals, and powering LLM/RAG workflows.

Core features include access to thousands of specialized Actors for common web data jobs, plus the ability to build and run serverless programs. You can connect your agent or app to Apify using MCP, CLI, or Skills, and run Actors through APIs. For web crawling and scraping, Apify also provides open-source support through tools like Crawlee and compatibility with popular automation libraries such as Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and BeautifulSoup.

If you want scraped content ready for AI, there are Actors designed to crawl websites and extract text content, including cleaning HTML and supporting rich formatting. Many Actors can also schedule and monitor runs, and export scraped data for downstream use in your workflows.

For developers and teams publishing their own Actors, Apify is designed to make monetization easier: publishing is free, customers pay for computing resources, and new creators get $500 free platform credits. Apify also provides infrastructure that scales automatically and handles billing, payments, taxes, and invoicing (with net payouts sent monthly).

What is Apify used for?

Apify helps you run ready-to-use web data tools (Actors) for tasks like scraping, crawling, lead generation, content extraction, and feeding data into AI/LLM workflows.

How can I connect Apify to my AI agent?

You can connect via MCP, CLI, or Skills, and configure an MCP server endpoint for seamless integration with MCP clients.

Can I run Actors programmatically?

Yes. Actors can be run via API, and many can be scheduled and monitored to fit ongoing data collection needs.

What scraping options are available beyond pre-built Actors?

You can build your own Actors using code templates and use Crawlee, plus support for common web automation tools such as Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and others.

How does publishing an Actor work on Apify?

Publishing your Actor is free of charge, and customers pay for the computing resources. New creators receive $500 free platform credits.

Does Apify handle billing and payouts for Actor creators?

Apify handles payments, taxes, and invoicing and sends net payout every month.