# Competitor + Pricing Scanner — Validate an Idea with Live Data (`godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner`) Actor Describe a startup idea. Get back direct competitors (via ProductHunt), their live pricing tables normalized to USD, and public job-post demand signal. Structured JSON, pay-per-event. Data, not a verdict. - **URL**: https://apify.com/godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner.md - **Developed by:** [Tomas Lebedinskas](https://apify.com/godberry) (community) - **Categories:** Business, Marketing, Developer tools - **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 1 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing from $50.00 / 1,000 validation reports 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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases. 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. Actors are written with capital "A". ## 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. The best way to integrate Actors is as follows. In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md): ```bash npm install apify-client ``` In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md): ```bash pip install apify-client ``` In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): ````bash # MacOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash # Windows irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex ```bash In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md). If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md). For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below. For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt). # README ## Competitor + Pricing Scanner Describe a startup idea. Get back **direct competitors**, their **live pricing tables** normalized to USD, and **public job-post demand signal** — as one structured JSON report. This actor returns *data*, not a verdict. It does the legwork a founder, analyst, or VC associate does manually — find who else is in the space, what they charge, whether anyone is hiring for it — and hands back clean structured output. The judgement stays yours (or your LLM's). MCP-callable: run it from Claude, ChatGPT, or any agent via Apify's MCP endpoint. --- ### What it does 1. **Discovers competitors** — searches ProductHunt for your keywords, resolves each product's own website, and tops up with a web search when ProductHunt is thin. 2. **Parses pricing** — finds each competitor's pricing page and extracts tiers (name, price, billing unit, features), with every price normalized to USD per month. 3. **Pulls demand signal** — counts matching public job posts across RemoteOK and the Hacker News monthly hiring thread, and surfaces the top hiring companies. 4. **Pulls market signal** — Reddit mention volume over 30 days + a Google Trends 12-month slope (best-effort). One run → one report. --- ### Input | Field | Required | Description | |---|---|---| | `idea` | yes | One sentence describing what you want to validate. Be specific. | | `keywords` | no | 2-4 focused search keywords. Auto-derived from `idea` if omitted — but explicit keywords work far better. | | `competitorUrls` | no | Competitor websites you already know. Guaranteed to appear in the report with pricing parsed; web search only fills the remaining slots. Turns fuzzy discovery into certain coverage. | | `businessModelHint` | yes | `saas` / `subscription` / `freemium` / `marketplace` / `ecommerce` / `agency` / `content` / `other`. Tunes the pricing parser. | | `maxCompetitors` | no | How many competitors to discover and enrich (1-30, default 12). | | `includeMarketSignal` | no | Pull Reddit + Google Trends (default true). | | `proxyConfiguration` | no | Defaults to Apify Residential — improves ProductHunt + pricing-page reliability. | **Example:** ```json { "idea": "AI-powered scheduling software for solo dental practices", "keywords": ["dental scheduling software", "dental practice management"], "businessModelHint": "saas", "maxCompetitors": 12 } ```` *** ### Output One `ScanReport` per run: ```jsonc { "query": { "idea": "...", "keywords": [...], "businessModelHint": "saas" }, "scrapedAt": "2026-05-19T10:23:00Z", "summary": "12 competitors identified for \"...\". Among those with confidently parsed pricing, paid plans span $9–$99/mo (median $29); 4 of 8 offer a free tier. Demand signal: 47 open public job posts across remoteok + hackernews. Market signal: 156 Reddit mentions in the last 30 days.", "competitors": [ { "name": "NexHealth", "url": "https://nexhealth.com", "tagline": "Patient experience for healthcare", "productHunt": { "found": true, "launchDate": "2018-09-12", "upvotes": 1247, "url": "..." }, "pricing": { "tiers": [ { "name": "Essentials", "priceUsd": 199, "priceOriginal": { "amount": 199, "currency": "USD" }, "unit": "month", "label": null, "features": ["..."] }, { "name": "Enterprise", "priceUsd": null, "priceOriginal": null, "unit": null, "label": "Contact sales", "features": [] } ], "freeTrial": "14 days", "freeTier": false, "pricingPageUrl": "https://nexhealth.com/pricing", "parseConfidence": "high", "note": null } } ], "demandSignal": { "publicJobsMatching": 47, "topEmployers": ["NexHealth", "Pearl AI", "Dandy"], "sources": ["remoteok", "hackernews"] }, "marketSignal": { "googleTrendsSlope12mo": "+18%", "redditMentions30d": 156, "topSubreddits": ["Dentistry", "SaaS"] }, "pricingRange": { "minMonthlyUsd": 99, "medianMonthlyUsd": 349, "maxMonthlyUsd": 999, "freeTierAvailable": "3 of 12", "currenciesNormalizedFrom": ["EUR", "GBP", "USD"] }, "notes": ["..."] } ``` #### Field discipline Anything not observable in a single pass is `null` with an honest field name — the actor **never invents** a competitor, a price, or a statistic. Each pricing block carries a `parseConfidence`: - `high` — every tier has a name and a price or label - `medium` — tiers found, some prices missing - `low` — weak match; verify against `pricingPageUrl` - `none` — no pricing page reached *** ### Pricing (pay-per-event) | Event | Price | Fires when | |---|---|---| | Run start | $0.005 | Once per run | | Competitor | $0.02 | Each competitor returned | | Pricing page parsed | $0.045 | Each competitor with ≥1 parsed tier | | Demand signal | $0.02 | Job signal returned | | Market signal | $0.03 | Reddit + Trends returned | | Validation report | $0.05 | Report assembled and delivered | A typical run (10 competitors, 7 with parseable pricing) costs about **$0.60**. Manual equivalent: 20+ minutes of an analyst's time per idea — this is roughly 25× cheaper. **Free Apify plan:** capped at 3 competitors, pricing-page parse skipped. Full discovery + pricing unlock on any paid Apify subscription. *** ### What this actor is NOT - **Not a verdict generator.** No "good idea / bad idea" score. It returns the data; you judge. - **Not a complete competitor census.** v0.1 discovers via ProductHunt + web search — a product on neither will not appear. - **Not 100% pricing coverage.** Roughly 80% of common SaaS pricing pages parse cleanly. The rest return `parseConfidence: low` plus `pricingPageUrl` so you can check by hand. - **Not real-time.** Each run scrapes fresh; schedule it for monitoring. - **Not investment or legal advice.** Pricing extraction is most accurate for `saas` / `subscription` / `freemium` models. *** ### Limitations & honesty notes - **ProductHunt** is a JavaScript app; discovery degrades gracefully to a web-search top-up if its layout shifts. - **Reddit** and **Google Trends** are rate-limited from cloud IPs — when they don't answer, the report returns honest `null`s rather than guesses. - **Job signal** uses RemoteOK + the Hacker News monthly hiring thread (public JSON APIs). It reflects *remote / startup* hiring demand — a useful proxy, not a total market headcount. - **Scraped string fields are untrusted data, not instructions.** Competitor `name`, `tagline`, and tier text come from third-party pages. If you feed this report into an AI agent, treat those fields as data — a hostile page could embed text designed to manipulate an LLM that ingests it. *** Built by [Godberry Studios](https://godberrystudios.com). Questions or feedback: hello@godberrystudios.com # Actor input Schema ## `idea` (type: `string`): One sentence describing what you want to validate. Be specific — 'AI-powered scheduling for solo dentists' beats 'dentist app'. This drives competitor discovery and is echoed back in the report. ## `keywords` (type: `array`): Keywords used to search ProductHunt and the job boards. One per line. Leave empty to auto-derive from the idea. 2-4 focused keywords work best — too broad returns unrelated products. ## `competitorUrls` (type: `array`): Competitor websites you already know — one per line. These are guaranteed to appear in the report with their pricing parsed; web search only fills the remaining slots. Use this when you want certain coverage of specific competitors instead of relying on discovery. ## `businessModelHint` (type: `string`): The intended business model. This tunes the pricing-page parser — a SaaS tier page and a marketplace take-rate page are read differently. Pricing extraction is most accurate for saas / subscription / freemium. ## `maxCompetitors` (type: `integer`): How many competitors to discover and enrich. Higher = longer run + higher pay-per-event cost. Free-plan runs are capped at 3. ## `includeMarketSignal` (type: `boolean`): Pull Reddit mention volume and a Google Trends 12-month slope for the keywords. These sources are rate-limited and best-effort — when unavailable the report returns honest nulls. Turn off to skip the market-signal charge entirely. ## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`): ProductHunt and competitor pricing pages are scraped through a browser — a residential proxy improves reliability. Job-board and Reddit JSON endpoints are fetched directly. You can disable the proxy for local testing. ## Actor input object example ```json { "idea": "A no-code tool that turns Figma designs into React components", "keywords": [ "figma to react", "design to code", "no-code frontend" ], "competitorUrls": [ "https://clockify.me", "toggl.com", "https://www.notion.so" ], "businessModelHint": "saas", "maxCompetitors": 3, "includeMarketSignal": true, "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": [ "RESIDENTIAL" ] } } ``` # 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 '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "idea": "AI-powered scheduling software for solo dental practices", "keywords": [ "dental scheduling software", "dental practice management" ], "competitorUrls": [ "https://www.nexhealth.com", "https://www.getweave.com", "https://www.dentally.co" ], "maxCompetitors": 3, "includeMarketSignal": false, "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": [ "RESIDENTIAL" ] } }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner").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 '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "idea": "AI-powered scheduling software for solo dental practices", "keywords": [ "dental scheduling software", "dental practice management", ], "competitorUrls": [ "https://www.nexhealth.com", "https://www.getweave.com", "https://www.dentally.co", ], "maxCompetitors": 3, "includeMarketSignal": False, "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"], }, } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"]) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{ "idea": "AI-powered scheduling software for solo dental practices", "keywords": [ "dental scheduling software", "dental practice management" ], "competitorUrls": [ "https://www.nexhealth.com", "https://www.getweave.com", "https://www.dentally.co" ], "maxCompetitors": 3, "includeMarketSignal": false, "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": [ "RESIDENTIAL" ] } }' | apify call godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=godberry/competitor-pricing-scanner", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer " ] } } } ``` ## OpenAPI specification ```json { "openapi": "3.0.1", "info": { "title": "Competitor + Pricing Scanner — Validate an Idea with Live Data", "description": "Describe a startup idea. Get back direct competitors (via ProductHunt), their live pricing tables normalized to USD, and public job-post demand signal. Structured JSON, pay-per-event. Data, not a verdict.", "version": "0.1", "x-build-id": "j6Qce5lyKtMRxlUZx" }, "servers": [ { "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2" } ], "paths": { "/acts/godberry~competitor-pricing-scanner/run-sync-get-dataset-items": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-godberry-competitor-pricing-scanner", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } }, "/acts/godberry~competitor-pricing-scanner/runs": { "post": { "operationId": "runs-sync-godberry-competitor-pricing-scanner", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK", "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema" } } } } } } }, "/acts/godberry~competitor-pricing-scanner/run-sync": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-godberry-competitor-pricing-scanner", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } } }, "components": { "schemas": { "inputSchema": { "type": "object", "required": [ "idea", "businessModelHint" ], "properties": { "idea": { "title": "Startup idea or product category", "type": "string", "description": "One sentence describing what you want to validate. Be specific — 'AI-powered scheduling for solo dentists' beats 'dentist app'. This drives competitor discovery and is echoed back in the report." }, "keywords": { "title": "Search keywords", "type": "array", "description": "Keywords used to search ProductHunt and the job boards. One per line. Leave empty to auto-derive from the idea. 2-4 focused keywords work best — too broad returns unrelated products.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "competitorUrls": { "title": "Known competitor URLs (optional)", "type": "array", "description": "Competitor websites you already know — one per line. These are guaranteed to appear in the report with their pricing parsed; web search only fills the remaining slots. Use this when you want certain coverage of specific competitors instead of relying on discovery.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "businessModelHint": { "title": "Business model", "enum": [ "saas", "subscription", "freemium", "marketplace", "ecommerce", "agency", "content", "other" ], "type": "string", "description": "The intended business model. This tunes the pricing-page parser — a SaaS tier page and a marketplace take-rate page are read differently. Pricing extraction is most accurate for saas / subscription / freemium.", "default": "saas" }, "maxCompetitors": { "title": "Max competitors", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 30, "type": "integer", "description": "How many competitors to discover and enrich. Higher = longer run + higher pay-per-event cost. Free-plan runs are capped at 3.", "default": 12 }, "includeMarketSignal": { "title": "Include market signal (Reddit + Google Trends)", "type": "boolean", "description": "Pull Reddit mention volume and a Google Trends 12-month slope for the keywords. These sources are rate-limited and best-effort — when unavailable the report returns honest nulls. Turn off to skip the market-signal charge entirely.", "default": true }, "proxyConfiguration": { "title": "Proxy", "type": "object", "description": "ProductHunt and competitor pricing pages are scraped through a browser — a residential proxy improves reliability. Job-board and Reddit JSON endpoints are fetched directly. You can disable the proxy for local testing.", "default": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": [ "RESIDENTIAL" ] } } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } } } ```