Alibaba Image Search Scraper

🚀 Alibaba Image Search Scraper: Search Alibaba by Image

Search Alibaba by image and get the matching products as clean JSON, CSV or Excel. The Alibaba Image Search Scraper takes one or more product photos and returns the visually similar Alibaba.com listings, with price ranges, minimum order quantities, supplier details, verification and ratings. Use it to find a product by image, find the supplier or manufacturer behind a photo, or as a simple alternative to an Alibaba image search API.

🎯 Use Cases: Find a Product by Image

• Find a product by image: you have a photo from Amazon, Instagram or a competitor's shop and want to know who makes it and what it costs wholesale.
• Alibaba sourcing from a picture: turn a list of product photos into a shortlist of factories with price ranges, MOQ and supplier years.
• Find a wholesale supplier for products you already sell: compare several suppliers of the same item by price, verification, ratings and on-time shipping.
• Margin checks for resellers: see the factory price range behind a retail product before you list or buy it.
• Find similar products by image: collect look-alike items and alternative designs for product research.

✨ Features

• Reverse image search for products: paste the URL of any product photo, or upload your own file as a data: URL, and get similar Alibaba.com listings, most similar first.
• Supplier data on every match: supplier name, ID, country, years on Alibaba.com, third-party verification (for example SGS, Intertek, TÜV Rheinland), supplier certifications, store link and company profile link.
• Sourcing numbers: price range as text and as numbers (min/max), promotion price and discount, currency, minimum order quantity and unit, sold count when shown, estimated delivery date as Alibaba shows it (e.g. "Dec 24", no year) and whether the product is customizable.
• Quality signals: product review score and count, supplier service score, on-time shipping score and product certifications (CE, RoHS, CPC…).
• Up to 100 matches per photo, and more on request: above 100, the search continues with the other objects detected in the photo and then with the suggested product categories, 100 at a time. Every row says what it matched on.
• No duplicates: a product found again in a later set is saved once per image.
• Fair billing: images that can't be loaded or return no matches get a free row with the reason, so you only pay for searches that found something.

🛠️ How It Works

1. Add image URLs: one photo per line. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and AVIF up to 10 MB are supported.
2. Set Max matches per image: 50 by default, up to 100 in one search, more if needed.
3. Run the scraper: each photo is searched separately. Results land in the dataset in similarity order and can be exported to JSON, CSV or Excel, or pulled through the API.

⚙️ Input

Field	What it does
Image URLs	Public URLs of product photos, one per line. A base64 data:image/... URL also works. Each image is searched separately.
Max matches per image	How many similar Alibaba.com products to return for each image, most similar first. Default 50.

{
    "imageUrls": [
        "https://cbu01.alicdn.com/img/ibank/O1CN01ImHZo51sn2AJ4qBDw_!!2009745810-0-cib.jpg"
    ],
    "maxResultsPerImage": 150
}

💰 Pricing

Pay only for searches that find products. No monthly rental.

Event	Price	What you get
Image	$0.02 per image	One image that returns matches, with the first set of up to 100 similar products.
Additional results	$0.01 per set	Each extra set of up to 100 new matches for the same image, only when you ask for more than 100.
Actor start	$0.00005 per run	Charged once when the run starts.

Images that fail or have no matches are free.

Examples:

• 1 photo × 50 matches = $0.02 + $0.00005 = $0.02005
• 200 photos × 50 matches = 10,000 rows for $4.00 (+ $0.00005 start)
• 10 photos × 300 matches = 10 × ($0.02 + 2 × $0.01) = $0.40 (+ $0.00005 start), when each photo has enough matches to fill the extra sets

📊 Sample Output Data

Each match is one row. A real row from a run on the default photo (image list trimmed):

{
    "queryImage": "https://cbu01.alicdn.com/img/ibank/O1CN01ImHZo51sn2AJ4qBDw_!!2009745810-0-cib.jpg",
    "rank": 47,
    "matchedBy": "photo",
    "productId": "1600848399253",
    "url": "https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Multi-style-Durable-Dog-Accessories-Pet_1600848399253.html",
    "title": "Multi-style Durable Dog Accessories Pet Toy Trp Dog Chew Toy Bone Ball Puppy Teething Cotton Rope Dog Chew Toy",
    "imageUrl": "https://s.alicdn.com/@sc04/kf/H13cd732a444845cfa9f465c45a2b3830m.jpg_300x300.jpg",
    "images": [
        "https://s.alicdn.com/@sc04/kf/H13cd732a444845cfa9f465c45a2b3830m.jpg_300x300.jpg",
        "…"
    ],
    "priceText": "$0.70-1",
    "priceMin": 0.7,
    "priceMax": 1,
    "promotionPriceMin": null,
    "promotionPriceMax": null,
    "discount": null,
    "currency": "USD",
    "minOrderQuantity": 10,
    "minOrderUnit": "pieces",
    "soldCount": 50,
    "estimatedDelivery": "Dec 24",
    "customizable": false,
    "certifications": ["CE", "ROHS", "CPC", "CCPSA"],
    "supplierName": "Guangzhou Daimengmao Technology Co., Ltd.",
    "supplierId": "259862191",
    "supplierUrl": "https://dimengkit.en.alibaba.com/",
    "supplierProfileUrl": "https://dimengkit.en.alibaba.com/company_profile.html",
    "supplierCountry": "CN",
    "supplierYears": 6,
    "verifiedBy": "TÜV Rheinland",
    "supplierCertifications": [],
    "reviewScore": 4.8,
    "reviewCount": 87,
    "supplierServiceScore": 4.8,
    "onTimeShippingScore": 4.8,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-20T06:01:43.050Z"
}

matchedBy is photo for the first 100 matches, object in photo for matches on another object detected in the picture, and category: <name> for matches within a suggested category. Category matches are broader, and later categories drift further from the original photo. verifiedBy names the inspection company that verified the supplier; discount and the promotion prices are filled only when a deal is running.

Images that could not be searched produce a row with status (image_error, no_matches or failed) and an error message instead of product fields.

🔁 Schedule and Integrate

For sourcing, run it once a week with the same photos to catch new suppliers and price changes, or daily if you watch a fast-moving category. Every run is a dated snapshot. Set it up in Apify Schedules, and send the results to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n or a webhook with Apify integrations, so new matches land where your sourcing team already works.

🤖 Use with AI Agents (MCP)

This Actor works as a tool in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com), so an agent can find suppliers for a product photo on its own. An agent can call it with:

{ "imageUrls": ["https://cbu01.alicdn.com/img/ibank/O1CN01ImHZo51sn2AJ4qBDw_!!2009745810-0-cib.jpg"], "maxResultsPerImage": 20 }

❓ FAQ

Does Alibaba have an official API? Alibaba.com's open platform is for registered sellers and partners and needs an application and approval. There is no public image search API. This Actor needs no key or account: you send a photo and get back the same public results a buyer sees with Alibaba's search by image, with supplier, MOQ and rating fields already structured.

How do I find a product by image on Alibaba? Put the photo URL in Image URLs and run the Actor. The matches come back most similar first, each with the product link, price range, MOQ and supplier, so you can compare suppliers in a spreadsheet instead of clicking through results.

Do I need an Alibaba.com account? No. The scraper only uses public search results.

Can I search with a photo from my computer? Yes. Convert it to a base64 data:image/jpeg;base64,... URL and paste it in place of a link.

Why are some fields empty? Alibaba doesn't show every detail on every listing. discount and promotion prices appear only during a deal; soldCount, estimatedDelivery, verifiedBy and certifications appear only when the supplier or listing has them. Missing values are null or an empty list.

How many matches can I get, and in which currency? Up to 100 per photo from the main search, and more from detected objects and suggested categories when you ask for over 100. The number of extra sets depends on the photo. Prices are in US dollars, as on Alibaba.com's international site.

What are alternatives to Alibaba for finding suppliers by photo? AliExpress for retail-sized orders, 1688 for China's domestic wholesale prices, and Made-in-China.com for another supplier directory. Each has its own image search Actor below.

🔗 Related Scrapers

• AliExpress Image Search Scraper: the same photo search on AliExpress, with retail prices and order counts for small quantities.
• 1688 Image Search Scraper: find the factory price on China's domestic 1688 wholesale market from the same photo.
• Made-in-China Image Search Scraper: search Made-in-China.com suppliers by photo to widen your supplier list.
• Alibaba Listings Scraper: keyword search results with MOQ and tiered pricing, when you know the product name.
• Alibaba Product Details Scraper: the full record for the product URLs you find here: price tiers, variants, specs and supplier.