MerchantCircle Business Directory Scraper

Scrape MerchantCircle.com — a US business directory covering 100K+ merchants with contact info, addresses, star ratings, and business categories. Browse every business in a city/state (optionally filtered to one of 15 top-level categories) or search by keyword across the whole platform. Completely free — no API key, login, or cookies required.

What this actor does

• Browse by city/state — every business listed for a US city (e.g. tx / san-antonio), or an entire state if no city is given
• Filter by category — restrict a city browse to one of MerchantCircle's 15 fixed top-level categories (Autos, Home & Garden, Legal & Financial, Food & Dining, etc.)
• Search by keyword — find businesses by keyword (e.g. plumber, dentist) anywhere on the platform, optionally scoped to a city/state location
• Optional detail-page enrichment — fetch each business's own page for phone, website, exact street address, rating, review count, description, hours, and photos
• Automatic pagination — walks every result page until maxItems is reached or the source is exhausted
• Fully free — no API key, no cookies, no paid proxy required
• Empty fields are omitted from output — the actor never fabricates data for a field the source doesn't publish

Output per business

• companyId — MerchantCircle's internal numeric ID for the business
• name — Business name
• address, city, state, zipCode
• phone — Contact phone number
• category — Business category as published on the business's own page
• categoryGroup — The top-level category slug used to find this business (only present when the category input filter was set)
• rating — Star rating (0-5), when published
• reviewCount — Number of reviews, when published
• website — Business website, when published and different from MerchantCircle
• description — The business's own "About" description text (detail-page enrichment only)
• hours — Weekly business hours as a day-abbreviation → time-range object, e.g. {"Mon": "9:00 am - 5:00 pm"} (detail-page enrichment only)
• photos[] — Business photo URLs from the listing's photo gallery (detail-page enrichment only)
• sourceUrl — MerchantCircle business page URL
• logoUrl — Business logo/photo URL
• recordType — Always business
• scrapedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp of when the record was scraped

Example Output

{
  "companyId": "52310229",
  "name": "HOLT Truck Centers San Antonio",
  "address": "1380 Ackerman Road",
  "city": "San Antonio",
  "state": "TX",
  "zipCode": "78219",
  "phone": "210-661-8371",
  "category": "Truck Dealers",
  "categoryGroup": "autos",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.merchantcircle.com/holt-truck-centers-san-antonio-san-antonio-tx",
  "logoUrl": "https://media.merchantcircle.com/52310229/1768132575.41-8fbbc96df15f1048740d21d6630e5b08_medium.png",
  "recordType": "business",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-15T05:28:55.429140+00:00"
}

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	String	browseCity (default) or search
stateSlug	String	US state abbreviation for browseCity mode (e.g. tx, ca, ny)
citySlug	String	City slug for browseCity mode (e.g. san-antonio, los-angeles). Leave blank to browse the whole state
category	String	Optional category filter for browseCity mode — one of the 15 fixed MerchantCircle categories (Autos, Business to Business, Community, Education, Electronics, Entertainment & Arts, Food & Dining, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Legal & Financial, Professional Services, Real Estate, Recreation, Retail Shopping, Travel & Lodging)
query	String	Search keyword (mode=search only), e.g. plumber, dentist, restaurant
location	String	City/state location filter for mode=search (e.g. San Antonio TX). Recommended — without it, MerchantCircle may use the scraper's IP-detected location
fetchDetails	Boolean	If enabled, fetches each business's own detail page for richer data (phone, website, exact address). Slower but more complete. Default: true
maxItems	Integer	Maximum number of business records to return (1-5000, default: 10)

Example Input — Browse a City

{
  "mode": "browseCity",
  "stateSlug": "tx",
  "citySlug": "san-antonio",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example Input — Browse a City by Category

{
  "mode": "browseCity",
  "stateSlug": "tx",
  "citySlug": "san-antonio",
  "category": "autos",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example Input — Search by Keyword

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "plumber",
  "location": "San Antonio TX",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Use Cases

• Local lead generation — build a list of businesses in a city or category with phone/address/website
• Market research — measure how many businesses of a given type operate in a market
• Competitive analysis — see who is listed, their ratings, and review counts in a niche
• Directory/data aggregation — combine MerchantCircle listings with other local-business sources

FAQ

Do I need an API key or account? No. MerchantCircle's directory pages are publicly accessible; the actor needs no login, cookies, or API key.

What US cities/states are supported? Any US state (2-letter abbreviation) and city slug that MerchantCircle indexes — coverage spans all 50 states and thousands of cities.

What categories are available? MerchantCircle organizes businesses into 15 fixed top-level categories: Autos, Business to Business, Community, Education, Electronics, Entertainment & Arts, Food & Dining, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Legal & Financial, Professional Services, Real Estate, Recreation, Retail Shopping, and Travel & Lodging.

Why do some records lack a rating or website? Not every business on MerchantCircle has received reviews or listed a website. The actor never fabricates data — fields are simply omitted when the source doesn't publish them.

Does fetchDetails=false return less data? Yes — it skips each business's own page and returns only what's shown on the browse/search results page (name, address, phone, logo, and sometimes rating). Enable fetchDetails for richer records (website, exact address, category, description, hours, photos) at the cost of one extra request per business.

Why do some records lack description, hours, or photos? These come from each business's own detail page and are only fetched when fetchDetails is enabled. Not every business publishes an "About" description, weekly hours, or photos — fields are omitted (never fabricated) when the source doesn't have them.