Carsales Scraper — Australian Car Listings Data Extraction

Scrape carsales.com.au — Australia's #1 car marketplace with 200,000+ live used and new car listings — and get clean structured data on price, make, model, year, odometer, transmission, fuel, body style, seller and state for every vehicle. Built for used car price monitoring, dealer stock tracking and Australian used car market research, this Actor automatically breaks through carsales' ~440-result single-search cap using price-band and sort-order partitioning — no manual pagination hacks needed.

Main Use Cases

• Used car price monitoring — track asking prices, odometer readings and stock levels for any make/model over time.
• Australian used car market research — build price and inventory trend datasets, segmented by state, body style, fuel type and seller channel.
• Dealer stock and competitor pricing tracking — monitor dealer inventories and competitor pricing across makes and models.
• Car price comparison & listings databases — feed a clean, structured feed of live listings into comparison tools, dashboards or BI systems.
• Private vs dealer seller analysis — compare private-seller and dealer-listed stock using the seller type field on every row.

How It Works

This Actor is a plain-HTTP crawler (CheerioCrawler) that reads carsales.com.au's embedded Next.js state (__NEXT_DATA__) and its internal search API — no browser rendering, roughly 10x faster and cheaper than browser-based scrapers. Give it one or more carsales search URLs, and it:

1. Paginates each search in parallel until Max Listings is reached.
2. Detects carsales' "live feed" pagination behaviour (repeated listings across ?page=N pages) and automatically re-partitions the search by sort order (~Price, ~Year, ~Kilometers, ~StockNumber) and price bands (/between-{min}-{max}/ path facets) to break through the ~440-result per-search cap and surface genuinely distinct listings.
3. Deduplicates every listing by its network ID across all pages, sorts and price bands.
4. Returns one clean JSON row per listing, exportable as CSV, JSON, HTML or Excel from the Apify dataset.

Scrape Carsales Listings For Used Car Price Monitoring

Asking prices on carsales.com.au change weekly (and faster in a soft market — more than half of one-to-five-year-old used cars were discounted before sale in H1 2026). This Actor makes ongoing price monitoring easy:

• Point it at any search URL — https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/corolla/ for a model, or /cars/used/ford/ranger/ for another segment.
• Each row includes the numeric priceValue field, so you can compute price deltas between scheduled runs and spot price drops instantly.
• Schedule the Actor daily or weekly in Apify Console and get a time-series of asking prices, odometer levels and inventory counts.

Build An Australian Used Car Market Research Dataset

Every listing row carries a state field (VIC, NSW, QLD, WA and more), plus body style, engine, transmission, odometer, price and seller type. In one run you can collect a nationwide sample of the Australian used car market:

• Analyze price and odometer trends by state, make, model or body style.
• Segment dealer vs private supply, and compare price positioning across channels.
• Export the dataset via the Apify API (GET /v2/datasets/{datasetId}/items) into Python, R, Sheets or a BI tool for further analysis.
• Combine multiple search URLs (one per make/model/state) in a single run for a broader sample — results merge into one dataset.

Track Dealer Stock And Competitor Pricing Data

Dealers, remarketers and fleet managers use this Actor to keep an eye on the market:

• Monitor competitor stock: every row includes sellerTitle and sellerId, so you can track individual dealers or sellers across runs.
• Watch price changes on specific models and price bands (e.g. https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/bmw/x5/between-30000-80000/).
• Detect new listings and stock movements with scheduled runs — the totalResults field on each row reflects the search's total inventory at scrape time.

Input — Search URLs, Max Listings & Proxy Settings

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
startUrls	array of { url }	✅	https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/corolla/	carsales.com.au search result URLs to scrape. Multiple URLs are paginated in parallel and merged into one dataset.
maxItems	integer	—	50	Maximum number of listings to scrape across all search URLs (min 1, max 10,000).
proxyConfiguration	proxy object	—	AU residential (RESIDENTIAL group, AU country)	Anti-bot proxy settings. AU residential is required — carsales.com.au serves a DataDome challenge to datacenter IPs.
maxConcurrency	integer	—	8	Maximum concurrent requests (min 1, max 20).
debug	boolean	—	false	Dump raw internal structures to the dataset for debugging. Leave off for normal runs.

Output — Structured Car Listing Fields

Each dataset row contains the following fields (pulled from the live scraper code):

Field	Description
networkId	Unique listing ID (e.g. OAG-AD-26257099)
url	Direct link to the listing detail page
title	Listing title (year + make + model)
badge	Trim / variant badge (e.g. "Ascent Sport Hybrid Auto F")
year	Model year
make	Vehicle make (Toyota, Ford, BMW...)
model	Vehicle model
price	Displayed price (e.g. "$28,990")
priceValue	Numeric price as integer (e.g. 28990) — ideal for price-change calculations
priceType	Price type (e.g. "Excl. Govt. Charges", "Drive away")
priceInfo	Additional price info text
bodyStyle	Body style (Hatch, Sedan, SUV, Ute...)
engine	Engine spec (e.g. "4cyl 1.8L Petrol")
transmission	Transmission (Automatic / Manual)
odometer	Odometer reading (e.g. "98,680 km")
sellerType	Seller type (Dealer used / Private)
sellerTitle	Seller display name
sellerId	Seller network ID (e.g. AGC-SELLER-7493)
state	Australian state (VIC, NSW, QLD, WA...)
imageCount	Number of photos on the listing
images	Array of image URLs
adType	Raw ad type from the listing
searchUrl	The search URL this listing came from
totalResults	Total result count of the originating search
page	Page number the listing was found on

Example Input

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/corolla/" },
    { "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/ford/ranger/" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 200,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "AU"
  },
  "maxConcurrency": 8
}

Example Output

{
  "networkId": "OAG-AD-26257099",
  "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2020-toyota-corolla-ascent-sport-hybrid-auto/OAG-AD-26257099/",
  "title": "2020 Toyota Corolla",
  "badge": "Ascent Sport Hybrid Auto F",
  "year": "2020",
  "make": "Toyota",
  "model": "Corolla",
  "price": "$28,990",
  "priceValue": 28990,
  "priceType": "Excl. Govt. Charges",
  "priceInfo": "",
  "bodyStyle": "Sedan",
  "engine": "4cyl 1.8L Petrol",
  "transmission": "Automatic",
  "odometer": "98,680 km",
  "sellerType": "Dealer used",
  "sellerTitle": "Example Motors",
  "sellerId": "AGC-SELLER-7493",
  "state": "NSW",
  "imageCount": 22,
  "images": ["https://carsales.pxcrush.net/carsales/cars/dealer/example.jpg"],
  "adType": "Dealer used",
  "searchUrl": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/corolla/",
  "totalResults": "2036",
  "page": 1
}

Integrations & Automation

• Apify API — trigger runs programmatically and pull datasets with GET /v2/datasets/{datasetId}/items.
• Scheduling — recommend a daily schedule for new-listing feeds and a weekly schedule for price monitoring; scheduled runs also feed Apify's recommendation signals.
• Webhooks — notify your app or Slack when a run finishes.
• Zapier / Make — connect the dataset to Sheets, Slack, Notion or your internal tools via Apify's native integrations.
• MCP / AI agents — this Actor is callable from any Apify MCP client or LLM app (see the agent reference below).

Related Actors

• Carsales.com.au $0.6+ Bypass 440 Limit (memo23/carsales-cheerio) — the largest carsales actor on Apify, with filter-based search modes.
• Carsales AU Scraper 💰 $1/1K (azzouzana/carsales-au-scraper) — another popular carsales.com.au scraper.
• All Car Data Scraper Australia (mrdoe/all-car-data-scraper-australia) — normalized listings across six Australian car sites.
• Drive.com.au Car Listings Scraper (crawlerbros/drive-au-scraper) — Australian car data from the Drive.com.au marketplace.
• Pickles.com.au Car Auction Scraper (mrdoe/pickles-com-au-scraper) — used car auction listings from Australia's leading auction marketplace.

FAQ

Why use this actor instead of the official Carsales API? carsales.com.au does not publish a public developer API for listing data. The only official API is the dealer-facing Lead Service (Autogate), which requires an approved dealer account and is for submitting leads — not extracting listings. This Actor is the practical way to get structured carsales listing data programmatically.

What are alternatives to scraping carsales.com.au? Other Australian car marketplaces include CarsGuide, Autotrader Australia, Gumtree Cars and Pickles. If you need multi-site data in one run, see the related actors above.

How do I scrape carsales.com.au without getting blocked? carsales.com.au is protected by DataDome. This Actor requires AU residential proxies — datacenter IPs get blocked (HTTP 200 challenge pages with no data). Each request automatically uses a fresh residential IP and fresh tokens; blocked pages are retried up to 3 times. Do not switch the proxy to AUTO or datacenter groups.

How many results can one carsales search return? A single carsales.com.au search is effectively capped at ~440 results (~20 pages) — the site repeats the same "live feed" listings across ?page=N URLs. This Actor detects that repetition and automatically re-partitions the search by sort order and price bands to extract a far deeper result set, deduplicated by network ID.

Can I track used car prices over time? Yes. Schedule the Actor (daily or weekly) and use the numeric priceValue field to compute price deltas between runs. Each row also includes odometer and totalResults, so you can track price-per-km and inventory changes too.

What does it cost to scrape carsales? Pay-per-result: $0.0008 per dataset item on the FREE tier, $0.0004 (BRONZE), $0.00035 (SILVER), $0.0003 (GOLD+) — i.e. roughly $0.80 per 1,000 listings on the free tier and $0.40 per 1,000 on Bronze — plus a negligible per-run start fee (1 event per GB, minimum one event). Free accounts are capped at 10 listings per run; paid runs can go up to your maxItems (max 10,000).

What is the best way to monitor car price drops in Australia? Set up a scheduled run against the search URL of the car you follow (e.g. https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/hilux/), with a recurring schedule, and compare priceValue across runs — drops of $1,000+ on popular models show up immediately in the dataset.

Does carsales.com.au have an official API? No public one. There is no official third-party developer API for carsales.com.au listing data (see the first FAQ item).

How can I get used car market data for Australia? Run this Actor against one or more carsales search URLs and export the dataset (JSON/CSV/Excel). The state, priceValue, odometer, year and sellerType fields give you the core dimensions used in Australian used car market analysis.

Competitive Positioning

Verified from public Apify Store listings (August 2026), for comparable carsales.com.au actors that also break the 440-listing cap:

Capability	memo23/carsales-cheerio	azzouzana/carsales-au-scraper	abotapi/carsales-au-scraper	This Actor
Per-result list price (BRONZE)	$0.0008	$0.001	$0.0012	$0.0004
Per-run start fee	$0.01	$0.005	$0.03667	~$0.00005
Detail-enrichment surcharge	$0.0011	—	$0.0006	None
440-cap deep collection	manual mode	advertised	advertised	automatic (price bands + sort probes)
Search input style	filter/URL modes	single URL	filter/URL modes	one or more URLs, parallel

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: Given carsales.com.au search URLs, returns one structured JSON row per car listing — price, specs, seller, state and images — as an Apify dataset.

Minimal working input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/corolla/" }
  ]
}

Defaults: maxItems 50, AU residential proxy, concurrency 8.

Variant input — multiple searches with a higher cap:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/toyota/hilux/" },
    { "url": "https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/used/ford/ranger/" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 200
}

Output fields (per row): networkId, url, title, badge, year, make, model, price, priceValue, priceType, priceInfo, bodyStyle, engine, transmission, odometer, sellerType, sellerTitle, sellerId, state, imageCount, images, adType, searchUrl, totalResults, page.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• startUrls is required; entries that are not carsales.com.au URLs are filtered out, and a run with zero valid URLs exits with an error.
• Free (non-paying) accounts are hard-capped at 10 results per run regardless of maxItems; paid accounts honor maxItems (default 50, max 10,000).
• Do not override proxyConfiguration away from AU residential — datacenter IPs are blocked by DataDome and return empty results. The default (RESIDENTIAL + AU) is already set when the field is omitted.
• Pagination on numbered ?page=N pages often repeats the same listings; the Actor auto-probes sort orders and /between-{min}-{max}/ price bands to reach deeper result sets. This is automatic, may add extra requests, and results are deduplicated by networkId.
• debug: true adds raw internal dump rows to the dataset — keep it off for production runs.
• The site's markup can change; an empty result set usually means carsales updated its frontend — retry on a later date.

Billing: pay-per-result — $0.0008 per dataset item (FREE tier; $0.0004 BRONZE, $0.00035 SILVER, $0.0003 GOLD+) plus a per-run start fee (1 event per GB, minimum one event). A 1,000-listing run costs ≈ $0.40–$0.80.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by carsales.com.au Pty Ltd or CAR Group Limited. "carsales" is a trademark of its respective owner.

The Actor accesses only publicly visible carsales.com.au listing and search pages (including the public __NEXT_DATA__ state embedded in those pages). It does not log in, bypass authentication, solve CAPTCHAs, or access private-account data.

carsales.com.au is protected by DataDome, and its Terms of Service and robots.txt apply to all access. Users are responsible for their own compliance with the source site's Terms of Service and with applicable laws — including the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and, where EU or California personal data is processed, the GDPR or CCPA. Listing rows include seller display names and identifiers: do not use them for unsolicited commercial outreach in breach of the Australian Spam Act 2003 (Cth), CAN-SPAM, GDPR or similar laws. This section is a factual disclosure, not legal advice.

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