BBB Scraper - Business Ratings, Accreditation & Contact Data

Extract Better Business Bureau (BBB) business records from public search results: business names, BBB letter ratings, rating scores, accreditation status, phone numbers, addresses, categories and service areas. Built for US local lead generation, vendor vetting and B2B prospecting - with no BBB account, login or browser.

Main Use Cases

• Local lead generation - build lists of plumbers, roofers, dentists, contractors and other businesses by trade and market
• Vendor vetting - compare BBB ratings and accreditation before adding a supplier to your pipeline
• B2B prospecting - identify businesses with low ratings or no accreditation that may need reputation or compliance services
• Competitor benchmarking - compare ratings and accreditation across businesses in the same category and city
• CRM enrichment - append BBB ratings, phone numbers and service areas to existing company records
• Market coverage research - measure how many rated and accredited businesses operate in a trade or region

How It Works

The Actor converts BBB search URLs or keyword/location pairs into requests to BBB's public /api/search endpoint, the same JSON feed the site's React frontend uses. Results are paginated 15 businesses at a time, with an optional residential proxy to avoid rate limits; there is no browser, login or profile-page crawl.

Each row is one business with 21 fields: name, profile URL, street/city/state/ZIP, country, full address, phone, categories, primary category, accreditation flag, letter rating, rating score, BBB ID, BBB office, out-of-business status, coordinates and service area. Runs return up to 1,000 businesses; free accounts receive a 10-row preview.

Build Business Lead Lists Without a Licensed Business Database

BBB publishes ratings and accreditation data across the US business directory, but it does not offer a public bulk-data API. This Actor turns its public search feed into a reusable dataset that can be filtered, deduplicated and joined to your CRM. It is a search-results extractor: it does not open individual profiles, so fields that only appear on profile pages - such as complaint counts, review text, website and accreditation date - are not part of the output.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
startUrls	array	No	-	BBB search URLs or profile URLs. Profile URLs are converted into a category/state search, not scraped as profiles.
searchTerms	string[]	No	-	Business types to search, e.g. plumber, dentist, roofer
searchLocations	string[]	No	[""]	Cities, states or ZIPs, e.g. Dallas, TX. Leave empty for nationwide
maxItems	integer	No	100	Max businesses to output; paid runs cap at 1,000
maxPagesPerSearch	integer	No	15	Search-result pages per term + location; capped at 20
maxConcurrency	integer	No	3	Parallel requests
maxRequestsPerCrawl	integer	No	300	Hard request cap per run
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Apify Residential	Residential proxy recommended for larger runs

Output

Each dataset item is one business from the BBB search feed:

Field	Type	Description
businessName	string	Business name with search highlighting removed
url	string	Full BBB profile URL
street	string	Street address
city	string	City
state	string	State code
zip	string	ZIP or postal code
country	string	USA or Canada, derived from the profile URL
fullAddress	string	Combined mailing address
phone	string	First public phone number
categories	array	All BBB category names
primaryCategory	string	Primary trade or category
accredited	boolean	BBB accreditation flag
bbbRating	string	Letter grade, e.g. A+
ratingScore	number	Numeric BBB rating score
bbbId	string	Numeric BBB business ID parsed from the profile URL
bbbOffice	string	BBB office that owns the record
outOfBusiness	string	Out-of-business status when present
latitude	string	Latitude, as returned by BBB
longitude	string	Longitude, as returned by BBB
serviceArea	string	Service-area summary

Example Input

{
  "searchTerms": ["plumber"],
  "searchLocations": ["Dallas, TX"],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Example Output

{
  "businessName": "ABC Plumbing Co.",
  "url": "https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/dallas/profile/plumber/abc-plumbing-0875-123456",
  "street": "123 Main St",
  "city": "Dallas",
  "state": "TX",
  "zip": "75201",
  "country": "USA",
  "fullAddress": "123 Main St, Dallas, TX 75201",
  "phone": "(214) 555-0123",
  "categories": ["Plumbers", "Water Heaters"],
  "primaryCategory": "Plumbers",
  "accredited": true,
  "bbbRating": "A+",
  "ratingScore": 94,
  "bbbId": "123456",
  "bbbOffice": "BBB Serving North Central Texas",
  "outOfBusiness": null,
  "latitude": "32.7812",
  "longitude": "-96.7970",
  "serviceArea": "Dallas, TX"
}

Integrations & Automation

This Actor runs on the Apify platform, so results can be pulled through the Apify API, exported to JSON/CSV/Excel, or pushed to Google Sheets, a CRM, Airtable or a webhook. Schedule a recurring run and compare rating and accreditation changes over time; the output is one clean row per business, ready for deduplication by bbbId or url.

Related Actors

• Trustpilot Reviews Scraper
• GoodFirms Scraper
• Google Maps Reviews Scraper
• LinkedIn Profile Scraper

FAQ

Why use this Actor instead of the official BBB data?

BBB does not provide a public bulk-data API. This Actor reads the same public search endpoint that powers bbb.org and normalizes the response into one record per business, with no login or browser automation.

Does it include complaints or customer reviews?

No. The public search endpoint used here returns ratings and accreditation, but not complaint counts, review counts or review text. This Actor does not open individual BBB profiles.

Does it include the business website or accreditation date?

No. Those fields are not present in the search payload. They are intentionally omitted from the output rather than returned as misleading nulls.

Can I filter by business type and location?

Yes. Use searchTerms with searchLocations, e.g. plumber plus Dallas, TX. startUrls can also carry an existing BBB search URL with its filters.

How many businesses can I get per run?

Paid accounts can collect up to 1,000 businesses per run. BBB returns 15 results per page, and maxPagesPerSearch is capped at 20 pages per term/location pair. Free accounts receive a 10-row preview.

Do I need a proxy?

A residential proxy is recommended for larger or repeated runs. Small runs often work without one, but BBB may rate-limit datacenter IPs.

How much does it cost?

Pay-per-result: $3.50 per 1,000 businesses ($0.0035 each) plus Apify platform usage. Only rows written to the dataset are billed.

SEO Keywords

bbb scraper, better business bureau data, bbb ratings, bbb accreditation, bbb business leads, bbb search scraper, bbb api alternative, business rating data, us business leads, local business data, contractor lead generation, vendor vetting data, b2b prospecting data, business contact data, bbb business directory

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: return structured BBB business records - rating, accreditation and contact data - from BBB search terms, locations or search URLs.

Minimal working input:

{
  "searchTerms": ["plumber"],
  "searchLocations": ["Dallas, TX"],
  "maxItems": 20
}

Output fields: businessName, url, street, city, state, zip, country, fullAddress, phone, categories, primaryCategory, accredited, bbbRating, ratingScore, bbbId, bbbOffice, outOfBusiness, latitude, longitude, serviceArea.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• Use either startUrls or searchTerms + searchLocations; do not combine them unless you intentionally want multiple seed searches.
• Profile URLs in startUrls are converted into category/state searches, not scraped as individual profiles.
• maxItems is capped at 1,000 for paid users and 10 for free users.
• Request output as JSON from the default dataset; bbbId is the stable deduplication key.

Billing: pay-per-result - $3.50 per 1,000 business rows ($0.0035 each), plus platform usage.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or bbb.org. It accesses only publicly available BBB search results - no login bypass, no CAPTCHA solving and no private data. You are responsible for compliance with BBB's Terms of Service and applicable data-protection law. The output can include business contact details; do not use them for unsolicited outreach in violation of applicable law.