[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":86},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fGIv3dZpR9W2hjBS-QhIPg0Pe4orxhvGWsywB6fi6LNU":3},{"title":4,"date":5,"dateModified":6,"datePublished":7,"dateModifiedISO":8,"image":9,"content":10,"faq":11,"metaTitle":31,"metaDescription":32,"author":33,"authorBio":34,"authorLinkedin":34,"authorTitle":34,"authorPhoto":35,"lastReviewed":34,"researchBasis":34,"category":36,"readingTime":37,"related":38,"prev":56,"next":59,"toc":62,"takeaways":85},"Apify Pricing 2026: Compute Units, the Free Tier, and What It Really Costs","25 Jun 2026","21 SEP 2026","2026-06-25","2026-09-21","/img/news/apify-pricing-compute-units-cost-2026.png","\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\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Quick answer:\u003C/strong> Apify's Free plan costs $0 and includes $5 of platform credit every month. Usage is billed at $0.20 per compute unit on Free and Starter, so the free credit covers about 25 compute units before any proxy or rented Actor costs. Paid plans are Starter at $19, Scale at $199 and Business at $999 a month, and each includes the same amount as usage credit. (Checked on apify.com/pricing on 21 September 2026.) To run your own catalogue size and refresh rate through this model, use the free \u003Ca href=\"/tools/apify-pricing-calculator\">Apify pricing calculator\u003C/a>.\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>$19\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$17\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$19\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 $19 on Starter buys $19 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. (Prices checked on Apify's pricing page in September 2026. Plans change, so confirm current numbers there.)\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 16 GB max RAM and 5 concurrent runs; Starter 64 GB / 32 runs; Scale 256 GB / 128 runs; Business 512 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, 30 on Starter, 200 on Scale, 500 on Business). Extra IPs cost $1 each on Starter, $0.80 on Scale and $0.60 on Business.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>SERP proxy:\u003C/strong> ~$2.5 per 1,000 queries on Free/Starter, ~$1.7 on Business.\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\u003Cp>For price-monitoring workloads, residential proxy GB is frequently the single largest cost — and it's the one the plan sticker price hides completely.\u003C/p>\n\u003Caside class=\"article__inline-cta\">\u003Cp class=\"article__inline-cta-text\">Try ScrapeWise on your own URL. \u003Cstrong>Your first 5 requests are free.\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>\u003Ca class=\"article__inline-cta-btn\" href=\"https://portal.scrapewise.ai/login\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Start Free →\u003C/a>\u003C/aside>\u003Ch2 id=\"rented-actors\">Rented Actors\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>Much of Apify's appeal is its \u003Cstrong>Actor marketplace\u003C/strong> — pre-built scrapers you rent instead of build. On paid plans, rented-Actor usage is \u003Cstrong>deducted from your prepaid plan credit\u003C/strong>, with the draw depending on the Actor and how long it runs. Convenient, but it means a third meter (CU + proxy + Actor rental) is running against the same budget. A popular Amazon or Google Maps Actor at scale can consume your plan credit on its own.\u003C/p>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"estimating-your-real-monthly-cost\">Estimating Your Real Monthly Cost\u003C/h2>\n\u003Cp>To sanity-check Apify for an ongoing job, add three things, not one:\u003C/p>\n\u003Ctable>\n\u003Cthead>\n\u003Ctr>\n\u003Cth>Cost driver\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Billed as\u003C/th>\n\u003Cth>Scales with\u003C/th>\n\u003C/tr>\n\u003C/thead>\n\u003Ctbody>\u003Ctr>\n\u003Ctd>Compute\u003C/td>\n\u003Ctd>$/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 the Scale plan's $7.50/GB that's roughly \u003Cstrong>$340/month\u003C/strong>.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Running total:\u003C/strong> ~$480 + ~$340 ≈ \u003Cstrong>$820/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>~$1,640/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, and 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> Both of those swings are two clicks apart in the \u003Ca href=\"/tools/apify-pricing-calculator\">Apify pricing calculator\u003C/a>, which runs the arithmetic above against your own SKU count.\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 one predictable meter instead of three running against a credit. Pricing is pay-as-you-go: you top up a balance in euros and are charged per page delivered — €0.15 per 1,000 plain pages, €0.75 with rendering, €1.50 through a residential proxy — with no plan, no compute units and no monthly quota, and every new account starts with 5 free requests. If you're tired of estimating compute units, \u003Ca href=\"https://scrapewise.ai/pricing\">see the per-page pricing\u003C/a> — you're paying for 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":12,"description":13,"badge":14,"benefits":15},"Frequently asked questions","Apify pricing, compute units, and real cost in 2026","FAQ",[16,19,22,25,28],{"title":17,"description":18},"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":20,"description":21},"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":23,"description":24},"What does the Apify free tier include?","The free plan includes about $5 of platform credit per month, capped at 16 GB max RAM and 5 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":26,"description":27},"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":29,"description":30},"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 one predictable meter. ScrapeWise runs the compute, proxies, and anti-bot handling, so you budget for the data rather than the infrastructure. Billing is pay-as-you-go: top up a balance and pay per delivered page — €0.15 per 1,000 plain pages, €0.75 with rendering, €1.50 through a residential proxy — with no plan and no monthly quota, and 5 free requests on every new account.","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 raise the bill.","Siim Brazier",null,"/img/team/siim.jpg","Pricing",6,[39,45,50],{"slug":40,"title":41,"image":42,"date":43,"category":36,"excerpt":44},"competitor-price-monitoring-case-study-2026","Competitor Price Monitoring Case Study: 100,000 SKUs, 88% Fewer Requests","/img/news/competitor-price-monitoring-case-study-2026.png","30 Sep 2026","How we set up daily competitor price monitoring for a retailer in two EU markets: API first, HTML last, and 88% fewer requests per day.",{"slug":46,"title":47,"image":48,"date":43,"category":36,"excerpt":49},"price-per-unit-comparison-pack-sizes-2026","Price per Unit: How to Compare Competitor Prices Across Pack Sizes","/img/news/price-per-unit-comparison-pack-sizes-2026.png","A yarn retailer's competitors sell 25 g, 50 g, 100 g and 226 g balls. How we turned their competitor links into one comparable price per 50 g.",{"slug":51,"title":52,"image":53,"date":54,"category":36,"excerpt":55},"price2spy-vs-wiser-price-monitoring-2026","Price2Spy vs Wiser: Which Price Monitoring Tool Should You Choose in 2026?","/img/news/price2spy-vs-wiser-price-monitoring-2026.png","24 Sep 2026","Price2Spy vs Wiser in 2026: which has the more comprehensive feature set, why refresh speed is worthless without match accuracy, and the 50-SKU test to run.",{"slug":57,"title":58},"apify-vs-bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraping-platform-2026","Apify vs Bright Data vs Oxylabs: Which Web Scraping Platform Should You Choose?",{"slug":60,"title":61},"amazon-repricing-map-violation-software-2026","Amazon Repricing & MAP Violation Software: A 2026 Buyer's Guide",[63,67,70,73,76,79,82],{"level":64,"text":65,"id":66},2,"The Plans at a Glance","the-plans-at-a-glance",{"level":64,"text":68,"id":69},"What Is a Compute Unit?","what-is-a-compute-unit",{"level":64,"text":71,"id":72},"Proxies: The Cost Most People Forget","proxies-the-cost-most-people-forget",{"level":64,"text":74,"id":75},"Rented Actors","rented-actors",{"level":64,"text":77,"id":78},"Estimating Your Real Monthly Cost","estimating-your-real-monthly-cost",{"level":64,"text":80,"id":81},"A Worked Example: From $199 Sticker to Real Bill","a-worked-example-from-199-sticker-to-real-bill",{"level":64,"text":83,"id":84},"When Apify's Model Works — and When It Doesn't","when-apify39s-model-works-and-when-it-doesn39t",[],1790842416377]