# MachineryTrader Equipment Scraper (`devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes MachineryTrader.com heavy-equipment listings by keyword and/or manufacturer, paginating search-results pages into structured rows: title, manufacturer, category, price, hours, year, location, seller, and phone.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [DevilScrapes](https://apify.com/devilscrapes) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

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

<div align="center">
  <img src=".actor/icon.svg" width="160" alt="Devil Scrapes mark" />

## MachineryTrader Equipment Scraper

**💰 $4.00 / 1 000 results**  ·  pay only for results  ·  no credit card to try

*The devil's in the data — we paginate so you don't have to.* 😈

Scrape heavy-equipment listing cards from MachineryTrader.com — the largest US heavy-equipment marketplace — by keyword and/or manufacturer. Get title, manufacturer, category, price, hours, year, location, seller, and phone for every listing, across as many result pages as you need.

</div>

***

### 🎯 What this scrapes

MachineryTrader.com is the largest US heavy-equipment marketplace, listing hundreds of thousands of excavators, cranes, dozers, loaders, and other machines for sale. It publishes no public API. This Actor walks its search-results pages by `keywords` and/or `manufacturer`, pulling every listing card's title, manufacturer, category, price (or "Call for Price"), meter hours, model year, location, seller, phone, and listing URL — paginated up to whatever `maxItems` / `maxPages` cap you set.

### 🔥 What we handle for you

- 🛡️ **We rotate browser fingerprints** (curl-cffi impersonation — Chrome / Firefox / Safari) so the target sees real-browser TLS, not Python.
- 🌐 **We rotate residential proxies** through Apify Proxy on every block — fresh `session_id`, fresh exit IP, pinned to the US.
- 🔁 **We retry with exponential backoff** on `408 / 429 / 5xx` and honour `Retry-After`. Up to 5 attempts per page.
- 🧱 **We back off when the target rate-limits.** Partial successes surface with a clear status message; we never silently return empty datasets.
- 🧊 **We keep the dataset clean** — Pydantic-validated rows, ISO-8601 timestamps, stable listing IDs.
- 💰 **You pay only for results that land.** No data → no charge beyond the small `actor-start` warm-up fee.

### 💡 Use cases

- **Dealer inventory monitoring** — track new listings and price changes for a manufacturer or keyword across runs.
- **Market research** — benchmark asking prices by category, manufacturer, year, and hours across the used heavy-equipment market.
- **Fleet buyer sourcing** — build a shortlist of machines matching a keyword search, with seller contact info attached.
- **Price-trend datasets** — feed structured listing data into your own valuation or comp-analysis models.

### ⚙️ How to use it

1. Click **Try for free** at the top of the page.
2. Set `keywords` and/or `manufacturer` — most fields have sensible defaults.
3. Click **Start**. Output streams into the run's dataset.
4. Export from **Storage → Dataset** as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or fetch via the API.

### 📥 Input

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Notes |
|---|---|:--:|---|---|
| `keywords` | `string` | no | `"excavator"` | Free-text search term, maps to `Keywords=`. |
| `manufacturer` | `string` | no | `null` | Manufacturer filter, maps to `Manufacturer=` (e.g. `"CATERPILLAR"`). |
| `maxItems` | `integer` | no | `150` | Total rows to collect across pages, across the whole run. |
| `maxPages` | `integer` | no | `6` | Safety valve on page count; pagination stops at whichever of `maxItems`/`maxPages` is hit first. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | `object` | no | `{"useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"], "apifyProxyCountry": "US"}` | Standard Apify proxy editor, pinned to RESIDENTIAL + US. |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "keywords": "excavator",
  "manufacturer": null,
  "maxItems": 150,
  "maxPages": 6,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}
```

### 📤 Output

Every row is one dataset item.

| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `listing_id` | `string` | Listing ID from the card wrapper. |
| `title` | `string` | Listing title, e.g. `"2015 GROVE GHC130"`. |
| `manufacturer` | `string` | Equipment manufacturer / brand. |
| `category` | `string` | Equipment category. |
| `price` | `integer \| null` | Asking price in whole currency units. `null` for "Call for Price". |
| `currency` | `string` | ISO-4217 currency code, e.g. `"USD"`. |
| `hours` | `integer \| null` | Recorded meter hours, when published. |
| `year` | `integer \| null` | Model year. |
| `location` | `string` | Listing location. |
| `seller` | `string` | Seller / dealer name. |
| `phone` | `string \| null` | Seller phone number, when published. |
| `url` | `string` | Absolute URL to the listing detail page. |
| `scraped_at` | `string` | ISO-8601 UTC timestamp of the fetch. |

#### Example output

```json
{
  "listing_id": "258197815",
  "title": "2015 GROVE GHC130",
  "manufacturer": "GROVE",
  "category": "Telescopic Boom Crawler Cranes",
  "price": 725000,
  "currency": "USD",
  "hours": 9930,
  "year": 2015,
  "location": "Ottsville, Pennsylvania",
  "seller": "PKF-MARK III INC",
  "phone": "+17243827465",
  "url": "https://www.machinerytrader.com/listing/for-sale/258197815/2015-grove-ghc130",
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-18T14:32:07Z"
}
```

### 💰 Pricing

Pay-Per-Event — you pay only when these events fire:

| Event | USD | What it is |
|---|---:|---|
| `actor-start` | $0.20 | One-off warm-up charge per run |
| `result-scraped` | $0.004 | Charged once per listing row pushed to the dataset |

Example: 1 000 results at the rates above ≈ **$4.20**. No subscription, no minimum, no card to start — Apify gives every new account free trial credit.

### 🚧 Limitations

Search cards carry the fields above but not full detail-page specs (photo galleries, financing calculators, extended spec sheets) — that's out of scope for v1. There is no category-facet filter in this version; only `keywords` and `manufacturer` are supported. "Call for Price" listings return `price: null` by design, and non-metered equipment returns `hours: null`.

### ❓ FAQ

**Do I need a MachineryTrader account or API key?**

No. MachineryTrader publishes no public API. This Actor scrapes the public search-results pages.

**Can I filter by equipment category?**

Not in this version — see Limitations. Use `keywords` (e.g. `"crane"`, `"dozer"`) to narrow results instead.

**Why did my run return fewer rows than `maxItems`?**

Either the search ran out of matching listings before hitting your cap, or a page hit a rate limit and the run reported a partial result rather than failing outright — check the run's status message.

**What currency are prices in?**

Whichever currency the listing publishes — almost always USD for MachineryTrader.

### 💬 Your feedback

Spotted a bug, hit a weird edge case, or need a new field? Open an
issue on the Actor's **Issues** tab on Apify Console — we ship
fixes weekly and we read every report.

***

<div align="center">

Built by **[Devil Scrapes](https://apify.com/DevilScrapes)** 😈 — a small fleet of
opinionated public-data Actors. Honest pricing, real engineering, zero fine print.

</div>

# Changelog

This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper/changelog.md

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `string`):

Free-text search term, maps to MachineryTrader's <code>Keywords=</code> query param (e.g. <code>excavator</code>).

## `manufacturer` (type: `string`):

Manufacturer filter, maps to <code>Manufacturer=</code> (e.g. <code>CATERPILLAR</code>). Leave empty to search across all manufacturers.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Total rows to collect across pages, across the whole run.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Safety valve on page count, independent of Max items — pagination stops at whichever limit is hit first. MachineryTrader lists 28 results per page.

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

Apify Proxy spec. Pinned to RESIDENTIAL + US: a bare (datacenter) useApifyProxy measured 50% Cloudflare clearance (4/8 runs, build 0.1.1, 2026-09-18) while RESIDENTIAL+US measured 8/8 on the same build/query/hour — see CHANGELOG 0.2.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": "excavator",
  "manufacturer": null,
  "maxItems": 150,
  "maxPages": 6,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `datasetItems` (type: `string`):

All dataset items as JSON.

## `datasetItemsCsv` (type: `string`):

Same data exported to CSV.

## `datasetView` (type: `string`):

Open the run dataset in the Console.

# 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": "excavator",
    "maxItems": 150,
    "maxPages": 6,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper").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": "excavator",
    "maxItems": 150,
    "maxPages": 6,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "US",
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper").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": "excavator",
  "maxItems": 150,
  "maxPages": 6,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}' |
apify call devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,devilscrapes/machinerytrader-equipment-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

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/3TScfOZ7UdrAaPtlL/builds/DEsUf37quEarxaHDB/openapi.json