Brownbook Real-Time Data

Free trial: free Apify plans get a 2-result sample per run. Upgrade to a paid plan for full, unlimited data.

Live company intelligence from Brownbook — the worldwide business listing database with tens of millions of companies across 200+ countries. Search businesses by keyword and location, open full company profiles with reviews, and enrich leads with emails and social profiles. Every record streams to your dataset the moment it is collected.

Who this is for

• Lead-gen agencies building outreach lists by trade and city (plumbers in Houston, notaries in Chicago)
• Local SEO teams auditing directory presence, categories, claimed status, and reviews
• Sales prospectors who need phone, website, email, and socials in one row
• Market researchers sizing categories city by city or country by country
• CRM / data teams enriching a company list they already have via Company URLs
• Directory affiliates tracking listings, ratings, and profile completeness

Features

Checkbox	What you get
🔎 Business search (default on)	Keyword + city + country tasks; one row per company with name, category, address, phone, website, and Brownbook link
🔗 Company URLs	Paste brownbook.net/business/... links to get the same rows, ideal for enriching a list you already own
🎯 Full company details	Fills each row with its complete profile: description, full category path, business hours, tags, extra phones/websites, images, and published reviews
🎯 Lead details (email discovery)	Visits each company's own website and adds contact emails plus social profiles; works with or without full details
🔔 Webhook delivery	JSON or Slack push of every record, in addition to the dataset
🌐 Connection	Residential proxy (US default) for reliable collection

Search matches business names in the directory. Location and country scope each task; leave them empty to search worldwide.

Input reference

{
  "enableSearch": true,
  "searchTasks": [
    { "keyword": "plumber", "location": "New York", "country": "United States", "maxResults": 10 },
    { "keyword": "notary", "location": "Houston", "country": "United States", "maxResults": 10 }
  ],
  "enableScrapeByUrl": false,
  "scrapeUrls": ["https://brownbook.net/business/51285661/juliette-come2u-northeast-houston-notary-services"],
  "enableListingDetails": false,
  "enableLeadDetails": false,
  "concurrency": 2,
  "webhookUrl": "",
  "webhookFormat": "json"
}

Field	Type	Default	Notes
enableSearch	boolean	true	Primary discovery feature
searchTasks[].keyword	string	—	Required per task, e.g. plumber, dentist, coffee shop
searchTasks[].location	string	""	City, e.g. New York. Empty = worldwide
searchTasks[].country	string	""	Country, e.g. United States, United Kingdom. Empty = worldwide
searchTasks[].maxResults	integer	10	Cap for that one search
enableScrapeByUrl / scrapeUrls	boolean / string[]	false / []	Company URLs to enrich directly
enableListingDetails	boolean	false	Full profile + reviews on the same row (detailsFetched: true)
enableLeadDetails	boolean	false	Website email + social discovery on the same row (leadDetails: true)
concurrency	integer 1–4	2	Parallel detail enrichments
webhookUrl / webhookFormat	string	"" / json	Extra real-time push (json or slack)
proxyConfiguration	object	Residential US	Change only for another country or your own proxy

Empty input still runs a useful demo: Business search on, plumber in New York, United States, 10 rows.

Output fields

One row per business. Fast cards carry what the directory shows; enrichments add fields to the same row — rows are never dropped.

Core: name, category, categories, description, profileUrl, profileId, phone, mobile, fax, website, street, city, state, zipCode, country, location, lat, lng, rating, reviewCount, logoUrl, claimed, yearEstablished.

Full company details adds: businessHours, full categories path, extra contact points, images-backed logoUrl, reviews, detailsFetched: true.

Lead details adds: email, emails, socials, instagram, facebook, linkedin, twitter, leadDetails: true.

Traceability: featureType (search | scrape_by_url), searchKeyword, searchLocation, searchCountry, searchTaskIndex, searchTaskLabel, source, scrapedAt. The run summary (OUTPUT) reports totals, duration, errors, and paywall status.

Webhooks

Set Webhook URL to also POST every record the moment it is collected (dataset writes always happen first). json posts the full record; slack posts a compact company card. Delivery is fire-and-forget — a failing webhook never stops the run.

MCP / AI-agent usage

Pair with the Apify MCP server: your agent can start runs and read the dataset directly.

Example question for your agent:

"Run the Brownbook actor for dentist in Austin, United States (10 results with lead details), then list every company that has an email address."

FAQ

• Which proxy is used? Apify residential (US default) on the platform; DataImpulse residential for local development. Change the country only if you need another market.
• How fresh is the data? Every run collects live directory data — nothing is cached or pre-scraped.
• What does the free trial include? Free Apify plans export a 2-result sample per run so you can validate the schema before upgrading.
• How am I charged? Pay-per-event: one result event per exported row, plus any spend cap you set on your account.
• Search or URLs? Search for discovery; Company URLs when you already have a list to enrich.
• Will enrichment slow my run? Full details and lead discovery each add a little extra time per record. Keep them off for the fastest discovery runs.

Delivery & trial notice

Runs stream structured company rows to the default dataset in real time. Free Apify plans are limited to a 2-result sample per run (FREE_TIER_MAX_ITEMS=2, limit mode); the owner can switch to block mode via the FREE_TIER_MODE environment variable. Paying plans get full, unlimited output.