# eBay Price Tracker (`arched_friend/ebay-price-tracker`) Actor

Track live eBay prices for any keyword search. Returns every active listing with its price, shipping, condition, seller and format, and flags every price drop, price rise, new listing and disappearance since your last run.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/arched\_friend/ebay-price-tracker.md
- **Developed by:** [Peach O](https://apify.com/arched_friend) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 69.6% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$20.00 / 1,000 search checkeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## eBay Price Tracker: Watch Live Listings and Catch Every Price Drop

Give it a search term and it returns every active eBay listing with its price, postage, condition, format and seller. Run it again and it tells you what moved: which prices dropped, what is newly listed, and what disappeared because it sold.

Built for resellers, collectors and sourcing teams who need to see a price change or a new listing the day it happens.

### How it works

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A["Search terms"] --> B["Render eBay search<br/>(residential proxy, pinned country)"]
    B --> C["Price + postage = total"]
    C --> D{"Compare with<br/>last run"}
    D -->|cheaper| E["price drop"]
    D -->|dearer| F["price rise"]
    D -->|unseen| G["new listing"]
    D -->|vanished| H["ended or sold"]
    E --> I[("Alert rows")]
    F --> I
    G --> I
    H --> I
```

Changes are measured on **price plus postage**, not the headline price, because that is what a buyer actually pays and it is the number a £0.99 listing with £12 postage is designed to hide.

### Built for

- **Resellers and flippers** watching a category for underpriced stock
- **Collectors** tracking a specific model, set or variant across sellers
- **Sourcing teams** benchmarking what a part really trades for
- **Brand owners** spotting counterfeits and grey-market listings early

### Input

```json
{
  "keywords": ["lego star wars", "vintage pyrex bowl"],
  "site": "UK",
  "onlyChanged": true,
  "maxPrice": 50,
  "titleExcludes": ["replica", "empty box"]
}
```

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `keywords` | Search terms, tracked separately across runs |
| `site` | Which eBay site to search: `US`, `UK`, `DE` and 8 more |
| `onlyChanged` | Return only drops, rises and new listings |
| `reportDisappeared` | Also return listings that ended or sold since last run |
| `condition` / `buyItNowOnly` | Narrow the search before it runs |
| `minPrice` / `maxPrice` | Filter on total price including postage |
| `titleExcludes` | Drop replicas, cases and accessories by keyword |
| `timeBudgetSecs` | How long a run may spend searching before it returns what it has |

### Output

```json
{
  "itemId": "306275584439",
  "keyword": "coffee mug",
  "title": "Graduation Mug 11oz – University of Central Florida Graduate Gift",
  "price": 10.95,
  "currency": "$",
  "shippingCost": 6.99,
  "freeShipping": false,
  "totalPrice": 17.94,
  "condition": "new",
  "format": "buy-it-now",
  "bidCount": null,
  "seller": "cutti--0",
  "location": "United States",
  "watchers": 135,
  "previousTotalPrice": 16.94,
  "priceChange": 1.0,
  "changeType": "price-rise",
  "url": "https://www.ebay.com/itm/306275584439",
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-15T18:16:25.101Z"
}
```

`changeType` is the field to filter on. It is one of `price-drop`, `price-rise`, `new-listing`, `ended-or-sold`, `unchanged` or `first-run`.

### Turn it into a daily alert

Set `onlyChanged` to true and schedule it. The first run records the baseline. Every run after that returns only what moved, plus anything that sold.

```json
{
  "keywords": ["vintage pyrex bowl"],
  "onlyChanged": true,
  "maxPrice": 40
}
```

### Run it as an API

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arched_friend~ebay-price-tracker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "keywords": ["lego star wars"],
    "site": "UK",
    "onlyChanged": true
  }'
```

### Pricing

You pay $0.02 for each search actually read, however many listings it returns. A search returning 240 listings costs the same as one returning 5.

| Watching 10 searches daily | Monthly cost |
| --- | --- |
| Checking by hand | roughly 15 hours |
| Most reseller tools | $30 to $100 per month |
| This Actor | $6 per month |

### Common questions

**Does it cover sold and completed listings?** No, and that is deliberate. eBay serves a "Security Measure" challenge page for sold and completed searches from any proxy exit, so an Actor promising sold prices would return nothing. This one covers live listings, which do work reliably.

**Why is the seller or location empty on some sites?** eBay renders those lines on `ebay.com` search cards but not on every international site. The fields are populated wherever eBay shows them and left null where it does not, rather than guessed at.

**What does `ended-or-sold` mean exactly?** The listing was in your last run and is not in this one. On eBay that usually means it sold, but it can also mean the seller pulled it or it dropped out of the search ranking.

**Does eBay ever block it?** Occasionally, even from residential exits. A challenge costs a retry on a fresh session, not the run: the crawler retries up to eight times across a 100-session pool.

### Related products

- **Amazon Price Tracker** to price the same product on Amazon
- **Amazon Stock & Buy Box Alert** to watch who is winning the buy box
- **Shopify Price Tracker** to watch brands on their own storefronts
- **Multi-Store Stock Alert** to chain Amazon, eBay and Shopify into one feed
- **Google Maps Lead Finder** to find local retailers selling the same goods

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

What to search for on eBay, one per line. Each term is tracked separately across runs.

## `site` (type: `string`):

Which eBay site to search. The proxy exit country is pinned to match, so prices come back in that site's currency.

## `maxListingsPerKeyword` (type: `integer`):

Upper limit on how many listings to keep for each search term.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

How eBay should order the results before they are read.

## `condition` (type: `string`):

Restrict the search to new or used items before it runs.

## `buyItNowOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Exclude auctions and return only fixed-price listings.

## `onlyChanged` (type: `boolean`):

Return only price drops, price rises and new listings. Turn this on for scheduled monitoring so each run is a short alert list.

## `reportDisappeared` (type: `boolean`):

Include a row for every listing that was present last run and is gone now, which on eBay usually means it sold.

## `minPrice` (type: `integer`):

Keep only listings at or above this price including postage. 0 means no minimum.

## `maxPrice` (type: `integer`):

Keep only listings at or below this price including postage. 0 means no maximum.

## `freeShippingOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Keep only listings that ship free.

## `conditions` (type: `array`):

Keep only listings matching these conditions, for example new, used, refurbished, open-box or for-parts.

## `formats` (type: `array`):

Keep only listings matching these formats: auction, buy-it-now or best-offer.

## `titleExcludes` (type: `array`):

Drop any listing whose title contains one of these words. Useful for filtering out replicas, cases and accessories.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

eBay challenges datacentre IPs, so this defaults to Apify residential proxy pinned to the site's country.

## `timeBudgetSecs` (type: `integer`):

How long the run may spend searching before it returns what it has. eBay rate limits in bursts, so this stops a challenged keyword from stretching the run. Raise it for long keyword lists.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "coffee mug"
  ],
  "site": "US",
  "maxListingsPerKeyword": 60,
  "sort": "best",
  "condition": "any",
  "buyItNowOnly": false,
  "onlyChanged": false,
  "reportDisappeared": true,
  "minPrice": 0,
  "maxPrice": 0,
  "freeShippingOnly": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ]
  },
  "timeBudgetSecs": 240
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `listings` (type: `string`):

One row per active listing with price, postage, condition, format and what changed since the last run, plus a row for anything that ended or sold.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Per keyword counts of listings found, price drops, new listings and items that ended, with the lowest, median and highest price.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keywords": [
        "coffee mug"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("arched_friend/ebay-price-tracker").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "keywords": ["coffee mug"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("arched_friend/ebay-price-tracker").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "keywords": [
    "coffee mug"
  ]
}' |
apify call arched_friend/ebay-price-tracker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,arched_friend/ebay-price-tracker"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/6VsBtFMT13thRu0q6/builds/Jtvg0BZfNEpPESp5g/openapi.json