# PeoplePerHour Freelance Jobs Scraper (`devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-scraper`) Actor

Search PeoplePerHour's freelance jobs board by keyword and/or category and export structured job postings — budget, project type, proposal counts, client details, and canonical URL. Multi-query fan-out with per-query fault isolation and full pagination.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [DevilScrapes](https://apify.com/devilscrapes) (community)
- **Categories:** Jobs, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% 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

<p align="center">
  <img src=".actor/icon.svg" width="160" alt="PeoplePerHour Freelance Jobs Scraper icon" />
</p>

## PeoplePerHour Freelance Jobs Scraper

**$3.20 / 1 000 results** — pay only for results that land, no credit card to try.

Search PeoplePerHour's freelance jobs board by keyword and/or category and get back structured job postings — budget, project type, proposal counts, client details, and a canonical URL — instead of hand-rolled HTML scraping that breaks the moment PeoplePerHour tweaks a class name.

### 🔍 What this scrapes

PeoplePerHour (`peopleperhour.com/freelance-jobs`) is a UK-based freelance micro-job marketplace. This Actor reads the same JSON payload the listing page itself renders from — a full Redux state blob embedded in the HTML — and turns it into clean dataset rows:

- Job title, description, canonical URL
- Category + sub-category (name and slug)
- Budget amount, currency, and USD-converted amount
- Project type (fixed price / hourly) and location type (remote / on-site)
- Client name, country, city, and public profile URL
- Proposal counts (total and unread), posted/expiry timestamps
- Urgent / featured / pre-funded flags and client experience band

### ⚙️ Features

- 🛡️ **We rotate browser fingerprints** (curl-cffi impersonation — Chrome and Firefox profiles) so the target sees a real-browser TLS handshake, not raw Python.
- 🔁 **We retry with exponential backoff** on `403 / 408 / 429 / 5xx` responses, minting a fresh Apify Proxy exit IP on every retry.
- 🧱 **Per-query fault isolation.** Run multiple keyword/category combinations in one job — one blocked or malformed query never aborts the others.
- 🧊 **We keep the dataset clean** — Pydantic-validated rows, ISO-8601 timestamps, stable job ids.
- 💰 **You pay only for results that land.** No data → no charge beyond the small `actor-start` warm-up fee.

### 💡 Use cases

- **Freelance market research** — track budgets, project types, and demand by category over time.
- **Lead generation for freelancers** — build a keyword-filtered feed of fresh jobs to bid on, refreshed on a schedule.
- **Competitive/staffing intelligence** — monitor which categories and budget bands are trending on a major micro-job marketplace.
- **Aggregator/feed builders** — pull a normalized job feed into your own job board or Slack/email digest.

### 🚀 How to use it

1. Click **Try for free** (or **Run**) on the Apify Store page.
2. Add one or more `queries` — each is a `{"keyword": "...", "categorySlug": "..."}` pair. Leave both blank in an entry to browse the unfiltered latest-jobs listing.
3. Set `maxResultsPerQuery` and `sort`, then start the run.
4. Read results from the run's **Dataset** tab, or export as JSON/CSV.

```json
{
  "queries": [
    { "keyword": "logo design" },
    { "categorySlug": "digital-marketing" }
  ],
  "sort": "latest",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 45
}
```

### 📥 Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `queries` | array | One or more `{keyword, categorySlug}` pairs. Required, at least one entry. |
| `sort` | string | `latest` (default) / `relevance` / `popularity` / `ending` / `budget`. |
| `maxResultsPerQuery` | integer | Hard cap on rows per query. Default 45. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Apify Proxy config. Plain Apify Proxy is enough — no anti-bot signal was found on this target. |

### 📤 Output

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `job_id` | PeoplePerHour's internal project id. |
| `title` | Job posting title. |
| `url` | Absolute URL to the job listing. |
| `category` / `category_slug` | Top-level category. |
| `sub_category` / `sub_category_slug` | Sub-category. |
| `project_type` | `fixed_price` or `hourly`, verbatim from the site. |
| `budget_amount` / `budget_currency` / `budget_converted_usd` | Budget, native currency, and USD conversion. |
| `proposal_count` / `unread_proposal_count` | Bidding activity. |
| `client_name` / `client_country` / `client_city` / `client_url` | Client details. |
| `posted_at` / `expires_at` | Listing lifecycle timestamps. |
| `scraped_at` | ISO-8601 wall-clock time this row was recorded. |

```json
{
  "job_id": "4522054",
  "title": "PPC Campaigns - Google Ads & Instagram / Tiktok Ads",
  "url": "https://www.peopleperhour.com/freelance-jobs/digital-marketing/sem-google-ads-ppc/ppc-campaigns-google-ads-instagram-tiktok-ads-4522054",
  "category": "Digital Marketing",
  "category_slug": "digital-marketing",
  "project_type": "fixed_price",
  "budget_amount": 300,
  "budget_currency": "GBP",
  "proposal_count": 0,
  "client_name": "Kevin B.",
  "client_country": "United Kingdom",
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-18T12:00:00+00:00"
}
```

### 💰 Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing — you only pay for what actually happens.

| Event | Price | When it's charged |
|---|---|---|
| Actor start | $0.20 | Once, the first time a query completes (not at boot, and never for a run that never reached the target). |
| Job scraped | $0.003 | Once per unique job posting written to the dataset. |

$0.20 start fee + 1,000 × $0.003 job fee = **$3.20 per 1,000 results**. A run whose search legitimately matches nothing still finishes `SUCCEEDED` and bills only the $0.20 start fee — never the per-row charge.

### 🚧 Limitations

- Public listing data only — no bidding, messaging, or account actions.
- `budget_converted_usd` reflects PeoplePerHour's own currency conversion at scrape time and may drift from the live rate.
- Very deep pagination (thousands of results per query) takes proportionally longer; `maxResultsPerQuery` bounds both cost and runtime.

### ❓ FAQ

**Does this need a PeoplePerHour login?**
No — the listing pages this Actor reads are fully public.

**What happens if PeoplePerHour rate-limits a request?**
We back off exponentially and rotate to a fresh Apify Proxy exit IP automatically. A block on a later page ends that query with whatever it already collected — a partial success, clearly noted in the run's status message — rather than losing the whole run.

**Can I run multiple searches in one job?**
Yes — pass multiple entries in `queries`. Each is scraped independently, so one bad query never blocks the others.

**Why do some optional fields come back null?**
PeoplePerHour doesn't populate every field on every listing (e.g. some jobs have no sub-category). Rows still validate — only the always-present fields (`job_id`, `title`, `url`, `proposal_count`, `scraped_at`) are required.

### 🙋 Your feedback

Found a bug, a wire-format drift, or a field you need that's missing? Message us through the Apify Console — we read every report and this Actor gets fixed fast.

# Changelog

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

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

One or more <code>{"keyword": "...", "categorySlug": "..."}</code> pairs. Every query is scraped independently — one query's block never aborts the others. Leave both fields blank in an entry to browse the unfiltered latest-jobs listing.

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

PeoplePerHour's own <code>sort</code> param, applied to every query in this run.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on emitted rows per query; also bounds pagination (20 jobs/page).

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

Apify Proxy spec. Defaults to RESIDENTIAL pinned to GB, and both halves are load-bearing: a bare datacenter proxy gets HTTP 202 on every listing URL (measured in the cloud 2026-09-18), while RESIDENTIAL/GB returned 20 rows on the same build minutes later. The country pin matters because PeoplePerHour is UK-facing and a geo-random exit can return plausible but wrong regional results with a 200.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    {
      "keyword": "logo design"
    },
    {
      "categorySlug": "digital-marketing"
    }
  ],
  "sort": "latest",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 45,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
  }
}
```

# 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 = {
    "queries": [
        {
            "keyword": "logo design"
        },
        {
            "categorySlug": "digital-marketing"
        }
    ],
    "sort": "latest",
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 45,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-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 = {
    "queries": [
        { "keyword": "logo design" },
        { "categorySlug": "digital-marketing" },
    ],
    "sort": "latest",
    "maxResultsPerQuery": 45,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "GB",
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-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 '{
  "queries": [
    {
      "keyword": "logo design"
    },
    {
      "categorySlug": "digital-marketing"
    }
  ],
  "sort": "latest",
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 45,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
  }
}' |
apify call devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,devilscrapes/peopleperhour-freelance-jobs-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/0sPRghJ1qpOVlS8Mv/builds/gH3Z3jN1i3fqcLknS/openapi.json