Freelancer Scraper

Scrape Freelancer.com project pages from direct URLs, search queries, category browse, or user profiles.

Modes

This actor supports four input modes — combine them freely:

1. Project URLs — paste direct project URLs into projectUrls.
2. Search queries — keywords (e.g. python, react native, data entry) listed in searchQueries.
3. Category URLs — paste a category-listing URL (e.g. https://www.freelancer.com/jobs/python/) into categoryUrls.
4. User profiles — paste an employer/freelancer profile URL (e.g. https://www.freelancer.com/u/username) into userUrls to scrape projects posted by that user.

Filters & sorting

Field	Type	Description
projectType	enum	any, fixed, hourly — restrict to fixed-price or hourly projects.
sortBy	enum	latest, lowest_budget, highest_budget, lowest_bids, highest_bids.
minBidCount	integer (0-1000)	Drop projects with fewer than N bids.
searchPages	integer (1-10)	Pages to crawl per search/category/user URL.
maxItems	integer (1-500)	Hard cap on emitted records.

Anti-bot

Field	Default	Description
useProxy	false	Route HTTP requests through Apify proxy. Freelancer.com is normally reachable without it.
autoEscalateOnBlock	true	Automatically retry blocked fetches via residential Apify proxy.
proxyConfiguration	{}	Apify proxy configuration (advanced; only used when useProxy is on).

Output

Each record can include:

• title / pageTitle / slug
• projectId / status
• budget (raw display string, e.g. "$250-750 USD") / budgetMinMax ({"min": 250, "max": 750, "currency": "USD"})
• hourlyRate (raw display string, e.g. "$15-30 USD / hr") / hourlyRateMinMax ({"min": 15, "max": 30, "currency": "USD"})
• paymentType / averageBid (numeric — int when the source is whole, float otherwise)
• bidCount / daysLeft / postedText
• description
• skills
• marketplaceRating / marketplaceReviewCount / marketplaceDescription
• sourceUrl / canonicalUrl
• recordType / scrapedAt

Empty values are omitted from output.

Use cases

• Monitor public freelance demand by skill or budget tier.
• Track sort-rank movements for budget-sensitive projects.
• Build project-intelligence datasets keyed by employer (via user URLs).
• Research freelance marketplace trends across project types.

Notes

• This actor is HTTP-first (no browser).
• Empty values are omitted from output (no null, blank strings, or empty arrays).

FAQ

Q: Why does sortBy=highest_budget mix projects with different currencies?

Freelancer's listing endpoint sorts by raw numeric budget upstream — it does not convert to a common currency. As a result a ₹1,000,000 INR project can rank above a $5,000 USD project even though USD-equivalent the USD job is larger. This actor returns results in the raw upstream order; USD-equivalent ranking is not applied client-side. For strict price comparison, restrict to a single currency by appending currency=USD (or another ISO code) to the source Freelancer search URL, then pass that URL via categoryUrls.

Q: How do I sort or filter on numeric budget locally?

Use the new budgetMinMax / hourlyRateMinMax companion fields — both contain numeric min, max, and currency (e.g. {"min": 250, "max": 750, "currency": "USD"}). The string budget / hourlyRate fields are kept verbatim for display.