# Mercado Libre Scraper & API — 17 Countries (`oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor`) Actor

Scrape Mercado Libre listings and product pages across 17 Latin American marketplaces. No API key and no quota. Every price carries its own currency — six markets mix local and US dollars on the same page — plus the Venezuelan USD/local pair.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor.md
- **Developed by:** [Oswaldo Carabano](https://apify.com/oswaldocarabano) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Lead generation, Developer tools
- **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.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — 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

## Mercado Libre Scraper & API — 17 Countries

Scrape Mercado Libre listings and product pages across **17 Latin American
marketplaces** with a single parser. Search by keyword, by category URL, or feed it
product URLs directly.

Built on a browser with a coherent fingerprint and a residential proxy that exits in
each marketplace's own country, because nothing else reaches the data: plain HTTP,
a Chrome TLS fingerprint and even a solved proof-of-work all end at the anti-bot wall.

***

### Why this one

**Per-row currency.** On six marketplaces — Uruguay, Paraguay, Dominican Republic,
Nicaragua, Guatemala and Panama — the local currency and `US$` appear **in the same
results page**. Summing prices without reading each row's currency produces a
meaningless number. Every row carries its own `currency`.

**The dual-price pair, which nobody else returns.** Venezuelan product pages show
`US$ 580.80` **and** `Bs. 476,314`. This Actor returns both plus
`exchange_rate_implied`, derived from the page's structured data — not from the
rendered price, which splits the cents into a separate element and shifts the rate
by 0.14%. Measured across product pages on one day, the derived rate came out
identical on every single one.

**A primary key that does not lie.** `item_id` comes from the page's embedded search
results array. Three link shapes coexist on one results page — `articulo.…/MLA-…`,
`/p/MLA…` and `/up/MLAU…` — and a URL pattern silently drops the third, which can be
40% of the page.

**Blocking is reported, not hidden.** The anti-bot wall answers `HTTP 200` with a
well-formed page and zero listings. Every run reports `wall_hits`, `captcha_hits`,
`retries` and robots-policy counters, and **a run that scraped nothing because every
page was blocked fails instead of reporting success with zero rows.**

***

### Coverage

| Site | Country | Currency | `iphone` results measured | Mixed currencies | Catalog pages | Installments |
|---|---|---|---:|---|---|---|
| MLA | Argentina | ARS | 5078 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MLM | Mexico | MXN | 6372 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MCO | Colombia | COP | 5305 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MLC | Chile | CLP | 3496 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MLU | Uruguay | UYU | 1882 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MPE | Peru | PEN | 2229 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MLV | Venezuela | VES | 436 | No | No | No |
| MEC | Ecuador | USD | 358 | No | Yes | Yes |
| MBO | Bolivia | BOB | 27 | No | No | No |
| MPY | Paraguay | PYG | 65 | Yes | No | No |
| MRD | Dominican Republic | DOP | 40 | Yes | No | No |
| MCR | Costa Rica | CRC | 60 | No | No | No |
| MNI | Nicaragua | NIO | 42 | Yes | No | No |
| MGT | Guatemala | GTQ | 30 | Yes | No | No |
| MHN | Honduras | HNL | 31 | No | No | No |
| MSV | El Salvador | USD | 29 | No | No | No |
| MPA | Panama | PAB | 26 | Yes | No | No |

**Two different marketplaces in one platform.** The large ones return thousands of
results per query and use catalog product pages; the small ones return dozens, have
no catalog pages, and **one page is the entire result set** — there is nothing to
paginate. The Actor detects this: it requests the next page only when the previous
one came back full, so a query in Panama costs exactly one page load.

**Not available: Brazil (MLB) and Cuba (MCU).** Brazil is out until there is a
documented LGPD basis; Cuba is unreviewed and its proxy route is unverified. The
Actor **refuses those inputs** with a clear error instead of silently accepting them.

***

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| `siteId` | string | `MLA` | Which marketplace. One of the 17 above |
| `searchQueries` | array | `[]` | Free-text searches, e.g. `iphone` |
| `categoryUrls` | array | `[]` | Category listing URLs to scrape directly |
| `startUrls` | array | `[]` | Listing or product URLs. Product URLs are scraped as detail pages |
| `maxItems` | integer | `100` | Hard cap on rows |
| `scrapeDetail` | boolean | `false` | Open every product page. **Multiplies page loads by ~40** |
| `allowPagination` | boolean | `true` | Follow `_Desde_` pagination. See the note below |
| `respectRobots` | boolean | `false` | Skip every path `robots.txt` disallows |
| `categorySlicing` | boolean | `true` | Also fetch page 1 of each allowed sub-category |
| `maxSlices` | integer | `20` | Cap on sub-category pages per query |
| `maxConcurrency` | integer | `2` | Parallel pages. Each listing page is 2.4-4.5 MB |
| `useCache` | boolean | `true` | Reuse listings seen in the last 24 hours |

```json
{
  "siteId": "MLV",
  "searchQueries": ["iphone"],
  "maxItems": 500,
  "scrapeDetail": false
}
```

#### Pagination and robots.txt — read this before running

Mercado Libre's `robots.txt` allows page 1 of a search and **disallows page 2**
(`Disallow: /*_Desde_`).

- `allowPagination` is **on by default**, and with it on the Actor requests paths
  `robots.txt` disallows. **You are the one running it.**
- `respectRobots: true` stays inside the allowed paths. Coverage drops to page 1 per
  query plus category slices, and skipped pages are counted as
  `pages_truncated_by_robots_policy`.
- Either way there is a **hard ceiling of roughly 2,000 items per query**. Paginating
  to the very end of an Argentine `iphone` search reaches about 39% of what the site
  itself says it has. `categorySlicing` is the only route past that ceiling; how much
  extra coverage it gives **has not been measured and is not promised**.

***

### Output

One row per listing, in `snake_case`. Product text stays in the marketplace's own
language — `Envío gratis`, `Frete grátis`, `Reacondicionado` — because that is data,
not interface.

#### From listing pages

| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| `item_id` | Primary key, cache key, dedupe key |
| `title` · `url` · `thumbnail` | |
| `price` · `currency` · `currency_symbol` | **Per row**, never per marketplace |
| `price_original` | Only when a struck-through price is shown |
| `seller_name` · `condition` · `shipping_text` · `installments_text` | Fill rates vary widely by marketplace |
| `variations_text` | |
| `link_kind` · `is_catalog` | `publication`, `catalog` or `user_product` |
| `position` · `query` · `source_url` | Where the row came from |
| `site_id` · `scraped_at` · `from_cache` · `data_age_hours` | Every row declares its age |

#### Only with `scrapeDetail: true`

`rating` · `reviews_count` · `location` · `sold_quantity_text` ·
`available_quantity_text` · `attributes` · `seller_id` · `description` · `images` ·
`brand` · `sku` · `availability` · `breadcrumb` · `warranty_text` ·
`price_local` · `currency_local` · `exchange_rate_implied`

**None of these appear on listing pages on any marketplace.** Competing Actors that
promise them from listings return `null`.

> **Stock and sales figures are ranges, not numbers.** Mercado Libre publishes
> `+25 vendidos`, never `25` — its own API returns `RANGO_1_50` for the same data.
> This Actor returns the text as served in `sold_quantity_text`. Any derived number
> is named `_min`, because a minimum is what it is. **No exact integer is invented
> from a range.**

#### Run statistics

Written to the log and to the `RUN_STATS` key-value record:

```
queries · pages_fetched · items_pushed · items_from_cache
wall_hits · captcha_hits · shell_hits · degraded_hits · retries · sessions_retired
pages_truncated_by_robots_policy · pages_disallowed_by_robots_fetched
detail_pages_fetched · pages_skipped_resumed · errors
```

Failed pages go to a separate `ERRORS` dataset, never mixed into the results.

***

### Pricing

Pay per result, in two events, because opening a product page costs about 40 times
what a listing row costs:

| Event | What it is |
|---|---|
| `item-scraped` | One listing delivered |
| `item-detail-scraped` | One listing enriched with its product page |

**What is never charged:**

1. Results that were not delivered.
2. **Pages that hit the anti-bot wall.** The wall costs a full browser load and the
   Actor absorbs it. You pay for data, not for attempts.
3. A product page that was not opened. If the detail fetch fails, you get the listing
   row and are charged the listing rate.

Cached rows are charged normally **and always declare their age** — `from_cache`,
`scraped_at`, `data_age_hours`. In a marketplace, serving a cached price without
saying how old it is would be selling a possibly false number.

***

### Reliability

The site returns an anti-bot wall on a fraction of requests, and it answers
`HTTP 200` with a well-formed page. The Actor separates six different responses:
a page with data, an exhausted page, the wall, a CAPTCHA, a page that had not
finished rendering, and a page that returns a plausible but nearly empty result set.
**Only the first is treated as data.** A wall retires the proxy session and retries
with a fresh one.

**A sustained CAPTCHA rate stops the run.** This Actor never solves CAPTCHAs, by any
method.

***

### What this Actor does not do

- **It never signs in.** No account, no session cookies, no OAuth, no API key.
- **It never solves CAPTCHAs.**
- **It does not scrape buyer questions or reviews.** That is text written by
  identifiable people.
- **It does not return seller phone numbers or email addresses.** Some Actors in this
  category do. This one does not.
- **It does not touch seller profile pages** (`/perfil/`), which `robots.txt`
  disallows.
- **It does not rehost images.** Rows carry image URLs.
- **It does not run on Brazil or Cuba.**

### Data removal

Listings are cached for at most 24 hours and every row declares its age. To request
removal of a listing or of seller data, write to **privacy@actorstack.dev** with the
`item_id`. Requests are actioned on receipt.

# Actor input Schema

## `siteId` (type: `string`):

Which Mercado Libre marketplace to scrape. Not available: MLB (Brasil), MCU (Cuba) — this Actor refuses to run on them.

## `searchQueries` (type: `array`):

Free-text searches, e.g. "iphone". Page 1 returns up to 48 listings.

## `categoryUrls` (type: `array`):

Category listing URLs to scrape directly.

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

Listing or product URLs. Product URLs are scraped as detail pages.

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

Hard cap on rows pushed to the dataset.

## `scrapeDetail` (type: `boolean`):

Open every product page to get rating, reviews, location, stock ranges, attributes and seller. WARNING: this multiplies the number of browser page loads by about 40 and is billed separately. The listing page does NOT contain these fields on any marketplace.

## `allowPagination` (type: `boolean`):

Follow *Desde* pagination to collect more than 48 listings per query. NOTE: robots.txt on Mercado Libre allows page 1 of a search and disallows page 2 (Disallow: /\**Desde*). With this enabled the Actor requests paths robots.txt disallows, and there is a hard ceiling of about 2,000 items per query regardless. Turn on "Respect robots.txt" to stay within the allowed paths.

## `respectRobots` (type: `boolean`):

Skip every path the site's robots.txt disallows, including pagination. Coverage drops to page 1 per query plus allowed category slices. Skipped pages are reported as "pages\_truncated\_by\_robots\_policy".

## `categorySlicing` (type: `boolean`):

Also fetch page 1 of each allowed sub-category found on the results page. This is the only way past the ~2,000 item ceiling, and it uses paths robots.txt allows. Coverage gain has not been measured yet.

## `maxSlices` (type: `integer`):

Upper bound on sub-category pages fetched per query.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Parallel browser pages. Each listing page is 2.4-4.5 MB, so keep this low and polite.

## `useCache` (type: `boolean`):

Reuse listings seen in the last 24 hours. Every row declares from\_cache and data\_age\_hours.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "siteId": "MLA",
  "searchQueries": [
    "iphone"
  ],
  "categoryUrls": [],
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "scrapeDetail": false,
  "allowPagination": true,
  "respectRobots": false,
  "categorySlicing": true,
  "maxSlices": 20,
  "maxConcurrency": 2,
  "useCache": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `listings` (type: `string`):

One row per Mercado Libre listing.

## `errors` (type: `string`):

Failed pages, kept in a separate dataset so views never mix them with data.

## `runStats` (type: `string`):

Wall hits, captcha hits, retries and robots policy counters.

# 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 = {
    "searchQueries": [
        "iphone"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor").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 = { "searchQueries": ["iphone"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor").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 '{
  "searchQueries": [
    "iphone"
  ]
}' |
apify call oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,oswaldocarabano/mercadolibre-data-actor"
        }
    }
}

```

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/ly5jjF1gNoG3Q4AtJ/builds/SXSK48zGkliSpcaYX/openapi.json