Barcode / EAN / ISBN Product Lookup

Scan any barcode — food, books, beauty, household, pet — and get clean product data in one call.

Enter a barcode (EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, ISBN-10 or ISBN-13) and get the product name, brand, category, image, and product page link — aggregated from six free public databases (Open Food Facts, Open Products Facts, Open Beauty Facts, Open Pet Food Facts, Open Library and Google Books). No API keys, no subscriptions, no scraping. Pay only when a product is found.

What you get

• 6 product databases in one lookup — food, books, cosmetics, pet food, household goods and general products
• Every barcode format supported — EAN-8/13, UPC-A, ISBN-10 (auto-converted to ISBN-13) and ISBN-13
• Clean, structured output — product title, brand, category, image URL, source and product page link
• Category targeting — choose a category (food, books, beauty, pet, household) to search only its sources at a lower rate
• Bulk lookup — check up to 10 barcodes in a single run, priced per barcode
• No key required — all sources are free public databases; no API key setup on your side

Sample output

Input: {"barcode": "3017620422003", "category": "food"}

{
  "barcode": "3017620422003",
  "title": "Nutella",
  "brand": "Nutella, Ferrero, Yum yum",
  "category": "Confectionary based spreads",
  "image_url": "https://images.openfoodfacts.org/images/products/301/762/042/2003/front_en.879.400.jpg",
  "product_url": "https://world.openfoodfacts.org/product/3017620422003",
  "source": "openfoodfacts",
  "category_label": "food",
  "charged": true
}

Books? Input {"barcode": "9780306406157", "category": "books"} returns the book title, publisher, cover image and its Open Library page.

Pricing

Targeted lookup — you pick a category (food / books / beauty / pet / household)	$0.003 per barcode
All-sources lookup — no category, all, or an unknown category	$0.005 per barcode
1,000 targeted lookups	$3
1,000 all-sources lookups	$5

• Pay only for results — a valid barcode that isn't found in any searched source is free
• Invalid input is cheaper — a malformed barcode (wrong format or failed checksum) that we have to validate and reject is charged a $0.001 handling fee, never the full rate
• Bulk is priced per barcode — a run of 10 barcodes = 10 × the per-barcode rate, charged only for the ones that return data
• No subscription — pay as you go; Apify free-plan credits apply

How to use

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console (or call it via the API).
2. Enter a single barcode in the Barcode field — e.g. 3017620422003 — optionally pick a Category to search only that category's sources at the cheaper rate. For several products, add up to 10 barcodes to the Barcodes list (one per line).
3. Get results as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or integrate via API, schedules, webhooks, or Zapier / Make / n8n.

Who is this for?

• E-commerce & inventory developers — enrich product catalogs from barcodes without maintaining scrapers or paying for commercial barcode APIs
• Grocery, nutrition & wellness apps — barcode-scan features backed by Open Food Facts and Open Beauty Facts data
• Libraries, bookstores & reading apps — resolve ISBNs to titles, covers and publisher data via Open Library / Google Books
• AI agents & chatbots — answer "what is this product?" questions from a photo or scanned code
• Consumer researchers — batch-lookup product origins, categories and brands

FAQ

Which countries / databases does it cover? Products are resolved through the open Open Food Facts / Open Beauty Facts / Open Pet Food Facts / Open Products Facts / Open Library / Google Books catalogs — these are global, community-maintained databases, so coverage is worldwide.

Do I need an API key? No. All sources are free public databases — there is no key setup on your side.

Can I look up multiple barcodes at once? Yes — up to 10 per run in the Barcodes list. Each barcode is processed and priced independently.

What happens if a barcode isn't found? If the barcode is valid but no source has it, you are not charged — the record tells you it wasn't found and which sources were checked.

What about an ISBN vs a normal barcode? Both work. ISBN-10 is converted to ISBN-13 automatically and routed to book catalogs only — that's why a book ISBN searched without a category still returns quickly.

Do you scan images? This Actor takes barcode numbers as text input. Use any barcode scanner app to turn a photo into the digits, then pass those in.

For AI agents & automations

Deterministic JSON in, JSON out — no API keys, no subscriptions, no auth walls. Callable as a tool through Apify's MCP server (agents search barcode / product lookup), or directly via the API:

curl -X POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/mechniverse~barcode-product-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"barcode":"3017620422003","category":"food"}'

One valid barcode in → one clean product record out, priced per barcode and billed independently. Invalid formats return an error record, never a silent empty result.

Data sources

This Actor reads only publicly listed product information from open databases — no private or personal data. Product data is provided by the respective source catalogs as-is.

Questions or feature requests? Open an issue on the Issues tab — we read every one.

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