# SaaS Pricing Page Monitor (`lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor`) Actor

Watch SaaS pricing pages for structured plan cards and typed price/plan changes. Built for PMM, competitive intel, agencies, and agents — with parse confidence and fair pay-per-event pricing.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Martin Lain](https://apify.com/lainmar) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $15.00 / 1,000 page snapshots

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

## SaaS Pricing Page Monitor

Stop pasting competitor pricing into spreadsheets. This Actor turns public SaaS pricing pages into **structured plan cards** and **typed change events** you can schedule, alert on, and feed to agents.

### Paid use cases

1. **Weekly competitive pricing watch** — Schedule Linear / Notion / category peers; get `price_changed` and `plan_added` / `plan_removed` instead of HTML diffs.
2. **Battlecard refresh for PMM** — Emit a compact `battlecard` row (plan matrix + lowest paid price) into Slack, Sheets, or your CRM workflow.
3. **Agency category coverage** — Monitor many client-competitor pricing URLs with one Actor and a durable KV store name per book of business.
4. **Agent / MCP pipelines** — Consume a stable event vocabulary (`price_changed`, `plan_added`, `page_changed_unparsed`, …) without scraping DOM yourself.

### Why not a generic change monitor?

Generic detectors scream on every marketing tweak. Specialty pricing Actors on the Store either lack traction or price snapshots punitively. This product is **pricing-intel first**:

- Plan schema: name, amount, currency, billing period, per-seat flag, features
- `parseConfidence` on every snapshot
- Honest `page_changed_unparsed` when the page changed but plans could not be trusted — **no fake plan removals**
- Fair pay-per-event pricing meant for weekly schedules

### How to use

1. Prefill already includes sample pricing URLs — replace with your watchlist.
2. Set a durable `kvStoreName` (same name every scheduled run).
3. First run establishes a baseline (snapshots / battlecard only).
4. Later runs emit `change_event` rows when plans or prices change.
5. Wire the dataset to webhooks, Make/Zapier, or your agent pipeline.

### Input highlights

- `startUrls` — required; Store Console ships with working examples
- `kvStoreName` — monitor state across runs
- `minParseConfidence` — default `0.45`; below this, removals are suppressed
- `eventTypes` — optional filter
- `emitSnapshots` / `emitBattlecard` toggles
- Optional proxy with country pin for currency stability

### Pricing

Pay per event:

| Event | When | Price |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `page_snapshot` | Successful fetch + parse attempt | $0.015 |
| `change_event` | Each typed change row | $0.03 |
| `battlecard` | Each battlecard summary (if enabled) | $0.01 |

### Limitations (MVP)

- HTTP / SSR extraction first (JSON-LD, embedded price JSON, text/card heuristics). Fully client-rendered pages may return low confidence — use `page_changed_unparsed` rather than inventing removals.
- Does not log into customer portals or bypass paywalls.
- Feature lists are capped for size; full-list fingerprint still drives `features_changed`.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

One or more public SaaS pricing page URLs to monitor.

## `kvStoreName` (type: `string`):

Persists last successful plan fingerprints across scheduled runs.

## `eventTypes` (type: `array`):

Filter which change_event types are pushed. Default = all.

## `minParseConfidence` (type: `number`):

Below this, do not invent plan removals; may emit page_changed_unparsed when the page hash changes.

## `emitSnapshots` (type: `boolean`):

When true, push a snapshot row with structured plans for each successful page.

## `emitBattlecard` (type: `boolean`):

When true, push a compact battlecard summary per page.

## `maxPlansPerPage` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on extracted plans kept per pricing page.

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

Optional. Pin a country when currency localization matters.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://linear.app/pricing"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.notion.so/pricing"
    }
  ],
  "kvStoreName": "saas-pricing-page-monitor-state",
  "eventTypes": [
    "plan_added",
    "plan_removed",
    "price_changed",
    "billing_period_changed",
    "features_changed",
    "currency_changed",
    "page_changed_unparsed"
  ],
  "minParseConfidence": 0.45,
  "emitSnapshots": true,
  "emitBattlecard": true,
  "maxPlansPerPage": 40
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset rows discriminated by recordType: snapshot | change_event | battlecard.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

OUTPUT key with per-run counts, PPE tallies, and page errors.

# 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 = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://linear.app/pricing"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://www.notion.so/pricing"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor").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 = { "startUrls": [
        { "url": "https://linear.app/pricing" },
        { "url": "https://www.notion.so/pricing" },
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor").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 '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://linear.app/pricing"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.notion.so/pricing"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,lainmar/saas-pricing-page-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/ThLDZXBXrRaLrfZCo/builds/O3lP6QxckRlGQgblP/openapi.json