eBay Auction Monitor

Take a clean, timestamped reading of any live eBay auction. For every listing you get the current bid, how many bids it has taken, whether a reserve is set, the exact time it ends and how much time is left — plus the seller, condition and item location. Feed it a fixed list of auctions, or let it find auctions by keyword, and run it on a schedule to build a bid-by-bid history over time.

Each run is a single snapshot. Run it once for a one-off look, or schedule it every few minutes near closing time to watch bids climb.

What you can do with it

• Watch specific auctions you care about and record how the bidding moves.
• Discover auctions by keyword — for example "pokemon card" or "vintage rolex" — ordered by which end first.
• Focus on auctions ending soon by keeping only listings that close within a chosen number of hours.
• Build a price-over-time history by scheduling repeat runs and comparing snapshots.
• Spot reserve and Buy It Now details so you know when a listing can be bought outright.
• Track seller reputation on each auction alongside the bidding data.

What you get

One record per auction. An abridged example:

{
  "itemId": "137607207259",
  "title": "Blaziken Emerald Reverse Holo Card 1/106",
  "marketplace": "US",
  "listingStatus": "ACTIVE",
  "buyingFormat": "auction",
  "currentBid": { "amount": 202.5, "currency": "USD" },
  "bidCount": 8,
  "hasReservePrice": false,
  "reserveMet": null,
  "buyItNowPrice": null,
  "startDate": "2026-08-11T00:47:28.000Z",
  "endDate": "2026-08-18T00:47:28.000Z",
  "timeRemainingSeconds": 2848,
  "watchers": 36,
  "condition": "Ungraded - Near mint or better",
  "seller": { "username": "shadowwizardtcg", "feedbackScore": 345, "feedbackPct": 100 },
  "itemLocation": "San Antonio, TX, United States",
  "imageUrl": "https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/VLEAAeSwTy5qYTXi/s-l1600.webp",
  "url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/137607207259",
  "source": "auctions",
  "capturedAt": "2026-08-18T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Input reference

Field	Type	Default	Description
Auction links or item numbers	list of text	—	Auctions you already want to watch. Full eBay links and bare item numbers both work, mixed together. Up to 5,000 per run.
Discover auctions by keyword	list of text	—	Keywords to find live auctions with. Each keyword is searched for auctions ordered by which end first.
Only auctions ending within (hours)	whole number	empty	For keyword discovery only: keep just the auctions ending within this many hours. Leave empty to keep every auction a keyword finds. Maximum 720.
Max auctions per keyword	whole number	60	How many auctions to take from each keyword search. Maximum 240.
eBay site	select	US	Which country's eBay site to read auctions on.
Parallel auctions	whole number	4	How many auctions to work on at the same time. Higher is faster, but eBay serves fewer complete pages when pushed hard. Maximum 10.

At least one of the two auction inputs is required — a fixed list, keywords, or both.

Output fields

Field	Description
itemId	eBay item number.
title	Listing title.
marketplace	The eBay site the auction was read on.
listingStatus	ACTIVE, ENDED or SOLD.
buyingFormat	auction, auction-with-bin (auction that also offers Buy It Now) or buy-it-now.
currentBid	Current high bid { amount, currency }, or empty on non-auctions.
bidCount	Number of bids placed, or empty when the listing is not an auction.
hasReservePrice	Whether the auction has a reserve.
reserveMet	Whether eBay has published that the reserve is met (empty when eBay does not show it).
buyItNowPrice	The Buy It Now price { amount, currency } when the listing offers one.
startDate / endDate	When the listing started and ends, as full timestamps.
timeRemainingSeconds	Seconds left until the auction ends, measured at the moment of collection.
watchers	How many people are watching the listing, when eBay shows it.
condition	Item condition.
seller	{ username, feedbackScore, feedbackPct }.
itemLocation	Where the item is located.
imageUrl	Main listing image.
url	Canonical eBay listing link.
source	auctions for a listing you supplied, discovery for one found by keyword.
discoveryQuery	The keyword that found the auction, when it was discovered.
capturedAt	When this reading was taken.

Pricing

You pay per auction captured — one charge for each result in the dataset, and nothing else.

• Auction snapshot — $0.002 per auction (that is $2.00 per 1,000).

Worked example: watching 250 auctions costs about $0.50; a keyword sweep that reads 1,000 auctions costs about $2.00. Apify platform usage is billed separately by Apify.

Limits & what this actor cannot do

• Bids, prices, watchers and stock are a reading taken at one moment and keep changing after collection — schedule repeat runs if you need to follow them.
• Bid count, current bid and reserve status come from the auction listing itself. On listings that are not auctions those bidding columns are simply empty, and the Buy It Now price is filled in instead.
• Auctions that have been removed, ended or never existed are reported as unavailable rather than returned as an error; ended and sold auctions still come back with a full row so you keep the final numbers.
• The "ending within" filter for keyword discovery uses eBay's own remaining-time label on each search result; it is accurate to the minute eBay shows, not to the second.
• Keyword discovery reads eBay's auction search results, whose ordering and totals eBay itself varies between reads; the actor returns the auctions eBay actually serves.
• Delivery cost and shipping eligibility are not reported, because eBay shows those differently depending on where a page is read from — they would not be reliable for you.
• Speed depends on the size of the job and on eBay's own response times; no fixed rate is promised.
• eBay's terms govern automated access. You are responsible for using the data lawfully and in line with eBay's terms, and for handling any personal data in line with applicable privacy law.

FAQ

Do I need an eBay account? No. It reads publicly visible auction pages — no account required.

Does it need my login or password? No. No login of any kind is used.

Can I schedule it? Yes. Each run is one snapshot, so scheduling it (for example every few minutes near an auction's close) builds a bid-by-bid history.

Can I just give it keywords instead of links? Yes. Put keywords in discoveryQueries and the actor finds live auctions for you, newest-ending first. You can also combine keywords with a fixed list of auctions.

Why is bidCount empty on some rows? That listing is not an auction (it is a fixed-price Buy It Now item). Its price appears in buyItNowPrice instead.

Is the data complete? It reflects what eBay shows at the moment of collection. Values change afterwards, and removed listings are reported as unavailable, so treat each run as a point-in-time snapshot.