[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":85},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fGIv3dZpR9W2hjBS-QhIPg0Pe4orxhvGWsywB6fi6LNU":3},{"title":4,"date":5,"dateModified":6,"datePublished":7,"dateModifiedISO":7,"image":8,"content":9,"faq":10,"metaTitle":30,"metaDescription":31,"author":32,"authorBio":6,"authorLinkedin":6,"authorTitle":6,"authorPhoto":33,"lastReviewed":6,"researchBasis":6,"category":34,"readingTime":35,"related":36,"prev":55,"next":58,"toc":61,"takeaways":84},"Apify Pricing 2026: Compute Units, the Free Tier, and What It Really Costs","25 Jun 2026",null,"2026-06-25","/img/news/apify-pricing-compute-units-cost-2026.png","\u003Ch1>Apify Pricing 2026: Compute Units, the Free Tier, and What It Really Costs\u003C/h1>\n\u003Cp>Apify's pricing looks simple on the plan page — a free tier and three paid plans — and then the first real invoice arrives larger than expected. The reason is that the sticker price isn't the price. Apify bills on \u003Cstrong>consumption\u003C/strong>: compute units, proxy traffic, and rented Actors all draw down on top of (or against) your plan credit. If you're evaluating Apify for ongoing e-commerce or competitor data, you need to understand the consumption model, not just the monthly tiers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This guide breaks down how Apify charges in 2026, what a compute unit actually is, where the free tier runs out, and the costs most comparisons skip — so you can estimate your real monthly bill before you commit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"the-plans-at-a-glance\">The Plans at a Glance\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>As of mid-2026, Apify's published subscription tiers are:\u003C/p>\n\u003Ctable>\n\u003Cthead>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Cth>Plan\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Monthly\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Annual (per mo)\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Included platform credit\u003C/th>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003C/thead>\n\u003Ctbody>\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Free\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$0\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$0\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$5\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Starter\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$29\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$26\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$29\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Scale\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$199\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$179\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$199\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Business\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$999\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$899\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$999\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003C/tbody>\u003C/table>\n\u003Cp>The key thing to understand: the "included credit" is \u003Cstrong>usage budget\u003C/strong>, not a flat allowance of results. Your $29 on Starter buys $29 of consumption — and consumption is metered in compute units and proxy traffic. Run heavy jobs and you exhaust the credit early, then pay overages at your plan's rate. (Always confirm current numbers on Apify's pricing page — plans change.)\u003C/p>\n\u003Caside class=\"article__usecase-card\">\u003Cdiv class=\"article__usecase-label\">Related use case\u003C/div>\u003Ch3 class=\"article__usecase-title\">Competitor price tracking\u003C/h3>\u003Cp class=\"article__usecase-blurb\">Automated price monitoring across marketplaces. 97% accuracy, no per-SKU fees.\u003C/p>\u003Ca class=\"article__usecase-link\" href=\"/use-cases/competitor-price-tracking\">See how it works →\u003C/a>\u003C/aside>\u003Ch2 id=\"what-is-a-compute-unit\">What Is a Compute Unit?\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>A \u003Cstrong>compute unit (CU)\u003C/strong> is Apify's core billing metric: \u003Cstrong>1 CU = 1 GB of RAM running for 1 hour.\u003C/strong> A job using 4 GB of memory for 30 minutes consumes 2 CU. The per-CU rate falls as you move up tiers:\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Free / Starter:\u003C/strong> $0.20 / CU\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Scale:\u003C/strong> $0.16 / CU\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Business:\u003C/strong> $0.13 / CU\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>Plans also cap concurrency and memory: Free allows 8 GB max RAM and 25 concurrent runs; Starter 32 GB / 32 runs; Scale 128 GB / 128 runs; Business 256 GB / 256 runs. For a single light scraper this is invisible. For continuous monitoring across thousands of SKUs — where you're running many memory-hungry browser instances in parallel — CU consumption is the line item that defines your bill.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The catch with the CU model is that \u003Cstrong>cost scales with how hard the target fights back\u003C/strong>, not with how much data you want. A site that needs a full headless browser, retries, and long waits burns far more CU per record than a clean API-like endpoint — so two jobs returning the same 10,000 rows can cost wildly different amounts.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"proxies-the-cost-most-people-forget\">Proxies: The Cost Most People Forget\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Scraping real e-commerce sites means proxies, and proxies are billed separately from CU:\u003C/p>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Residential proxies:\u003C/strong> ~$8/GB on Free/Starter, dropping to ~$7/GB on Business. Residential traffic is what you need for tough anti-bot targets — and a few GB a day adds up fast.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Datacenter proxies:\u003C/strong> a pool of IPs is included (5 on Free, scaling to 500 on Business), then ~$0.6/IP beyond.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>SERP proxy:\u003C/strong> ~$2.5 per 1,000 queries on Free/Starter, ~$1.7 on Business.\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>For price-monitoring workloads, residential proxy GB is frequently the single largest cost — and it's the one the plan sticker price hides completely.\u003C/p>\n\u003Caside class=\"article__inline-cta\">\u003Cp class=\"article__inline-cta-text\">Try ScrapeWise on your own URL — \u003Cstrong>extract in 24s\u003C/strong>, no credit card.\u003C/p>\u003Ca class=\"article__inline-cta-btn\" href=\"https://portal.scrapewise.ai/login\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Start Free →\u003C/a>\u003C/aside>\u003Ch2 id=\"rented-actors\">Rented Actors\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Much of Apify's appeal is its \u003Cstrong>Actor marketplace\u003C/strong> — pre-built scrapers you rent instead of build. On paid plans, rented-Actor usage is \u003Cstrong>deducted from your prepaid plan credit\u003C/strong>, with the draw depending on the Actor and how long it runs. Convenient, but it means a third meter (CU + proxy + Actor rental) is running against the same budget. A popular Amazon or Google Maps Actor at scale can consume your plan credit on its own.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"estimating-your-real-monthly-cost\">Estimating Your Real Monthly Cost\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>To sanity-check Apify for an ongoing job, add three things, not one:\u003C/p>\n\u003Ctable>\n\u003Cthead>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Cth>Cost driver\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Billed as\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Scales with\u003C/th>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003C/thead>\n\u003Ctbody>\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Compute\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$/CU (GB-RAM-hour)\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>Job difficulty, browser use, retries, frequency\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Proxies\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$/GB residential, $/IP datacenter\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>Anti-bot toughness, volume, geo coverage\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Rented Actors\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>Drawn from plan credit\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>Which Actors, run duration, run count\u003C/td>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003C/tbody>\u003C/table>\n\u003Cp>A useful rule: \u003Cstrong>the sticker plan is a floor, not a ceiling.\u003C/strong> If your use case is "scrape competitor prices across five marketplaces every few hours, forever," model the CU + residential GB for that cadence — the monthly total usually lands well above the plan tier you started from. For a deeper build-vs-buy breakdown, see our \u003Ca href=\"https://scrapewise.ai/blogs/web-scraping-vs-api-retail-data-2026-guide\">web scraping vs API guide for retail data\u003C/a>, and for how Apify compares to other platforms on pure scraping-API rates, our \u003Ca href=\"https://scrapewise.ai/blogs/scraping-api-pricing-comparison-2026\">scraping API pricing comparison\u003C/a>.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"a-worked-example-from-199-sticker-to-real-bill\">A Worked Example: From $199 Sticker to Real Bill\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Numbers make the model concrete. Take a realistic e-commerce monitoring job and price it out (these are \u003Cstrong>illustrative estimates\u003C/strong> — your real figures swing with target difficulty, but the \u003Cem>shape\u003C/em> holds):\u003C/p>\n\u003Cblockquote>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Scenario:\u003C/strong> 5,000 competitor SKUs across a few marketplaces, refreshed \u003Cstrong>once daily\u003C/strong>, on tough anti-bot targets that need a headless browser.\u003C/p>\n\u003C/blockquote>\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Compute.\u003C/strong> Browser-based scraping of protected pages is memory-heavy. Assume your runs average roughly \u003Cstrong>50 pages per compute unit\u003C/strong> (a clean target does better; a hostile one far worse). 5,000 pages/day ÷ 50 ≈ \u003Cstrong>100 CU/day\u003C/strong>, so ~\u003Cstrong>3,000 CU/month\u003C/strong>. On the Scale plan at $0.16/CU that's about \u003Cstrong>$480/month in compute alone\u003C/strong> — already more than double the $199 plan sticker.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Residential proxies.\u003C/strong> Tough targets need residential traffic. At even \u003Cdel>0.3 MB billable per page, 5,000 pages/day is ~1.5 GB/day, or **\u003C/del>45 GB/month**. At ~$7/GB that's roughly \u003Cstrong>$315/month\u003C/strong>.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Running total:\u003C/strong> ~$480 + ~$315 ≈ \u003Cstrong>$795/month\u003C/strong> — against a $199 sticker, before you've written or maintained a single line of scraper code.\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>Now change one variable to see the volatility: \u003Cstrong>double the refresh to twice daily\u003C/strong> and both compute and proxy roughly double to \u003Cstrong>~$1,600/month\u003C/strong>. Or keep the cadence but hit a target that escalates its anti-bot, pushing you from 50 to 20 pages per CU — compute alone jumps from ~$480 to ~$1,200. \u003Cstrong>This is the core risk of consumption pricing: the number you control (how much data you want) isn't the number that drives the bill (how hard the sites fight back).\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"when-apify39s-model-works-and-when-it-doesn39t\">When Apify's Model Works — and When It Doesn't\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Apify is a strong fit when\u003C/strong> you have engineering capacity, want to build or rent scrapers yourself, and your volumes are predictable enough to budget CU and proxy spend. The platform is genuinely powerful and the marketplace saves build time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>It works against you when\u003C/strong> you want a fixed, predictable data bill and don't want to operate scrapers. Consumption pricing means your cost moves with site difficulty and anti-bot escalation — exactly the variables you don't control. Teams that just want clean competitor data delivered often find the metering, proxy management, and Actor maintenance is the real "price."\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's the gap a managed service fills. \u003Cstrong>ScrapeWise\u003C/strong> delivers the data as a fully managed feed — we run the compute, proxies, and anti-bot handling, and you get structured records on a scoped, predictable basis instead of three meters running against a credit. It's not self-serve and there's no free tier; coverage is scoped to your needs, so pricing starts with a conversation. If you're tired of estimating compute units, \u003Ca href=\"https://scrapewise.ai/pricing\">book a call\u003C/a> and we'll quote the data, not the infrastructure. For the DIY-platform route, our \u003Ca href=\"https://scrapewise.ai/blogs/apify-alternative-ecommerce-data-extraction-2026\">Apify alternative breakdown\u003C/a> compares the options in more detail.\u003C/p>\n",{"title":11,"description":12,"badge":13,"benefits":14},"Frequently asked questions","Apify pricing, compute units, and real cost in 2026","FAQ",[15,18,21,24,27],{"title":16,"description":17},"How does Apify pricing actually work?","Apify bills on consumption, not a flat per-result fee. You pick a subscription plan (Free, Starter, Scale, or Business) that comes with a platform credit, then usage draws that credit down across three meters: compute units (CPU/RAM time), proxy traffic, and rented Actors. When the credit runs out you pay overages at your plan's rate. The monthly plan price is effectively a usage budget, so your real bill depends on how much and how hard you scrape.",{"title":19,"description":20},"What is a compute unit (CU) in Apify?","A compute unit is Apify's core billing metric: 1 CU equals 1 GB of RAM running for 1 hour. A job using 4 GB for 30 minutes uses 2 CU. The rate is about $0.20/CU on Free and Starter, $0.16 on Scale, and $0.13 on Business as of mid-2026. Because memory-heavy headless-browser jobs with retries consume far more CU than light requests, two jobs returning the same number of rows can cost very different amounts.",{"title":22,"description":23},"What does the Apify free tier include?","The free plan includes about $5 of platform credit per month, capped at 8 GB max RAM and 25 concurrent runs, plus a small pool of datacenter proxy IPs. It's enough to test Actors and run light, occasional jobs. For continuous monitoring across many SKUs or tough anti-bot targets, the $5 credit and concurrency limits are exhausted quickly, which is when most teams move to a paid plan. Always confirm current limits on Apify's pricing page.",{"title":25,"description":26},"Why is my Apify bill higher than the plan price?","Because the plan price is a floor, not a ceiling. On top of compute units you pay separately for proxies — residential proxies run roughly $7-8/GB and are often the single largest cost for e-commerce scraping — plus SERP proxy queries and any rented Actors, which also draw from your credit. Costs scale with how aggressively a target blocks you, a variable you don't control, so heavy or anti-bot-protected jobs push the total well above the sticker tier.",{"title":28,"description":29},"Is there a more predictable alternative to Apify's usage pricing?","Yes — a managed data service like ScrapeWise removes the metering entirely. Instead of paying for compute units, proxy GB, and Actor rental, you get the structured data delivered as a managed feed on a scoped, predictable basis. ScrapeWise runs the compute, proxies, and anti-bot handling, so you budget for the data rather than the infrastructure. There's no self-serve free tier; pricing is scoped to your coverage and starts with a call.","Apify Pricing 2026: Compute Units & Real Cost","How Apify pricing works in 2026 — compute units explained, free tier limits, plan costs, proxy fees, and the hidden costs that make the bill larger than the sticker price.","Siim Brazier","/img/team/siim.jpg","Pricing",6,[37,43,49],{"slug":38,"title":39,"image":40,"date":41,"category":34,"excerpt":42},"electronics-price-tracking-tools-2026","Electronics Price Tracking in 2026: How Retailers Monitor Competitor Prices Across Marketplaces","/img/news/electronics-price-tracking-tools-2026.png","05 Jun 2026","Best price comparison and tracking tools for electronics in 2026 — compare competitor prices and price history across Amazon, MediaMarkt, Idealo & marketplaces, plus what breaks at scale.",{"slug":44,"title":45,"image":46,"date":47,"category":34,"excerpt":48},"competitor-price-tracking-tools-2026","Competitor Price Tracking Tools 2026: Buyer's Guide for Distribution and B2B Teams","/img/news/competitor-price-tracking-tools-2026.png","20 May 2026","Compare top competitor price tracking tools for 2026. Workflow guide for B2B and distribution teams — contract enforcement, channel conflict, and promotions.",{"slug":50,"title":51,"image":52,"date":53,"category":34,"excerpt":54},"scraping-api-pricing-comparison-2026","Scraping API Pricing Comparison 2026: What $500/Month Gets You From Each Provider","/img/news/scraping-api-pricing-comparison-2026.png","04 May 2026","Real per-1K request costs for Bright Data, Oxylabs, Scrapeless & Apify in 2026 — hidden fees, free tiers, and what $500/month actually buys. Side-by-side.",{"slug":56,"title":57},"apify-vs-bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraping-platform-2026","Apify vs Bright Data vs Oxylabs: Which Web Scraping Platform Should You Choose?",{"slug":59,"title":60},"amazon-repricing-map-violation-software-2026","Amazon Repricing & MAP Violation Software: A 2026 Buyer's Guide",[62,66,69,72,75,78,81],{"level":63,"text":64,"id":65},2,"The Plans at a Glance","the-plans-at-a-glance",{"level":63,"text":67,"id":68},"What Is a Compute Unit?","what-is-a-compute-unit",{"level":63,"text":70,"id":71},"Proxies: The Cost Most People Forget","proxies-the-cost-most-people-forget",{"level":63,"text":73,"id":74},"Rented Actors","rented-actors",{"level":63,"text":76,"id":77},"Estimating Your Real Monthly Cost","estimating-your-real-monthly-cost",{"level":63,"text":79,"id":80},"A Worked Example: From $199 Sticker to Real Bill","a-worked-example-from-199-sticker-to-real-bill",{"level":63,"text":82,"id":83},"When Apify's Model Works — and When It Doesn't","when-apify39s-model-works-and-when-it-doesn39t",[],1782383337666]