BBB Advanced Scraper

🚀 BBB Scraper: Better Business Bureau Search for Contractor Leads

Run a Better Business Bureau search for any keyword and city, and export every matching business as clean JSON, CSV or Excel. The BBB Advanced Scraper returns each business's name, address, phones, BBB letter rating, accreditation, categories and service areas. Use it to build roofing leads, HVAC leads, plumber leads and other contractor leads, or as a simple alternative to a BBB API.

🎯 Use Cases: Roofing, HVAC and Plumber Leads

• Roofing leads: pull every roofing contractor BBB lists in Houston, Dallas or any other city, with phones and ratings.
• BBB business search in bulk: search many keywords across many cities or ZIP codes in one run instead of clicking through BBB page by page.
• HVAC leads and plumber leads: build call lists of heating, air conditioning and plumbing companies for sales or partnership outreach.
• Contractor leads and home improvement leads: find remodelers, electricians and general contractors, then filter by accreditation or rating.
• BBB rating lookup at scale: check the letter grade and accreditation of a whole category of local businesses before you pick a vendor.
• BBB accredited business list: turn on BBB Accredited businesses only to export just the accredited companies in a trade and city.
• Market research: count how many businesses of a type operate in an area and how they are rated.

Ready-made examples (roofing in Houston, HVAC in Phoenix, plumbers in Chicago, electricians in Dallas, dentists in New York, home improvement in Los Angeles) are on the Actor's Examples tab.

✨ Features

• Lead data for each business: name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, phone numbers and map coordinates.
• BBB rating and accreditation: the letter grade (A+ to F), a numeric rating score and whether the business is BBB Accredited.
• Categories and service areas: the primary business type, all BBB categories, and the counties, cities or ZIP codes the business says it serves.
• Many keywords × many locations: every keyword is searched in every city or ZIP code, in one run. Leave the location empty to search all of BBB.
• Distance filter: limit each search to a radius in miles around its location.
• No duplicates: a business found by more than one search is saved and charged only once. Branches of the same business at different addresses stay as separate rows.
• Search tracking: each row records the keyword and location that found it.
• Past BBB's 225-result limit: large searches are split automatically (by category, A–Z and Z–A order, state and accreditation). "HVAC" in Phoenix, AZ returns 2,313 of BBB's 2,941 matches instead of 225.
• Fair billing: set a maximum charge per run and the Actor stops saving once it is reached.

🛠️ How It Works

1. Enter search keywords (for example Roofing, HVAC, Plumber) and one or more cities or ZIP codes, with an optional distance.
2. Run the scraper: it opens every result page of every keyword and location pair and removes duplicates.
3. Download the leads as JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull them through the Apify API.

⚙️ Input

Field	What it does
Search keyword	A keyword as you would type it on BBB, e.g. Roofing Contractors.
Additional search keywords	More keywords for the same run. Each one is combined with every location.
Location	City and state or ZIP code, e.g. Houston, TX or 90210. Empty searches all of BBB.
Additional locations	More cities or ZIP codes for the same run.
Distance	Search radius in miles around each location (1 or more). Optional.
BBB Accredited businesses only	Return only BBB Accredited businesses. Off by default (all businesses).
Split large searches	On by default. Splits searches with more than 225 matches so you get far more of them. Turn off for the first 225 only.
Max results	Stop after this many businesses in total. Empty = no limit (your maximum charge per run still applies).

{
    "search": "Roofing Contractors",
    "searches": ["HVAC", "Plumber"],
    "location": "Houston, TX",
    "locations": ["Dallas, TX"]
}

This input runs 6 searches (3 keywords × 2 cities). The single search and location fields and the searches and locations lists are combined, so older inputs with only search and location still work unchanged. A location without any keyword matches nothing on BBB, so the run stops with a message and charges nothing. An empty input runs the example search "Home Improvement" in Los Angeles, CA.

Getting more than 225 results per search

BBB shows at most 225 businesses (15 pages) per search, even when it has thousands of matches. With Split large searches on (the default), the scraper detects this and re-runs the search in narrower slices: by BBB category, in A–Z and Z–A order, by state for nationwide searches, and accredited-only. It removes duplicates across all slices. "HVAC" in Phoenix, AZ returns 2,313 of the 2,941 businesses BBB lists, instead of 225, in about 13 minutes.

Big searches therefore return (and bill) many more businesses than 225. Set Max results or your maximum charge per run to cap a run. Listing many ZIP codes with a small distance still works for even finer coverage.

{
    "search": "Plumber",
    "searches": ["Roofing", "Electrician"],
    "location": "90001",
    "locations": ["90002", "90003", "90004", "90005"],
    "distance": 5
}

This input runs 15 searches (3 keywords × 5 ZIP codes).

💰 Pricing

Pay only for the businesses you get. No monthly rental.

Event	Price	What you get
Result	$0.004 per business ($4.00 per 1,000)	One business with all the fields shown below.

Duplicates found by several searches are charged once.

Examples: 225 businesses (one search with splitting off) = $0.90 · 1,000 leads = $4.00 · "HVAC" in Phoenix, AZ with splitting on (2,313 businesses) = $9.25. Set Max results to cap the cost of a run.

📊 Sample Output Data

A real row from an "HVAC" search in Phoenix, AZ:

{
    "businessName": "South Mountain Air",
    "address": "6820 N 35th Ave",
    "city": "Phoenix",
    "state": "AZ",
    "postalcode": "85017-1081",
    "tobText": "Air Conditioning Contractors",
    "rating": "A+",
    "bbbMember": true,
    "charitySeal": false,
    "isCharity": 0,
    "accreditedCharity": true,
    "reportUrl": "/us/az/phoenix/profile/air-conditioning-contractor/south-mountain-air-1126-97021397",
    "phone": ["(480) 202-4419", "(480) 212-0890", "(480) 495-8371"],
    "location": "33.5374870300293,-112.13683319091797",
    "ratingScore": 100,
    "score": null,
    "logoUri": null,
    "bbbName": "BBB, Mountain West & Pacific Southwest",
    "distance": null,
    "requestAQuoteUrl": "/pacific-southwest/quote/request-south-mountain-air-97021397",
    "localReportUrl": "/us/az/phoenix/profile/air-conditioning-contractor/south-mountain-air-1126-97021397/addressId/384022",
    "leaveReviewUrl": "/us/az/phoenix/profile/air-conditioning-contractor/south-mountain-air-1126-97021397/leave-a-review",
    "raqEnabled": true,
    "outOfBusinessStatus": null,
    "categories": [
        "Air Conditioning Contractors",
        "Heating and Air Conditioning",
        "Air Conditioning Repair",
        "Residential Air Conditioning Contractors"
    ],
    "serviceAreaDescription": null,
    "hasServiceArea": true,
    "serviceArea": null,
    "serviceAreasSummary": ["Phoenix, AZ"],
    "businessLoginUrl": "/pacific-southwest/login?not=1",
    "accreditationStatus": "Accredited",
    "searchKeyword": "HVAC",
    "searchLocation": "Phoenix, AZ"
}

accreditationStatus is Accredited or Not accredited (the same as bbbMember being true or false). tobText is the primary business type, and location holds latitude and longitude. reportUrl is the path of the business's BBB profile (add https://www.bbb.org in front); localReportUrl points to the profile of this specific branch. searchKeyword and searchLocation show which search found the business; if several searches found it, the first one is kept.

🔁 Schedule and Integrate

For lead generation, run the same searches once a week to catch newly listed businesses and rating changes; daily works too for busy categories. Set it up in Apify Schedules. Send new leads to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n or a webhook with Apify integrations, so they land in your CRM or call list automatically.

🤖 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). An agent can call it with:

{ "search": "Roofing", "location": "Houston, TX" }

❓ BBB Business Search FAQ

Does BBB have an official API? The Better Business Bureau does not offer a public API for searching its business directory. This Actor is the practical alternative to a BBB API: no key, no approval and no paging code. You give it keywords and locations and get the same public data BBB shows in its search results, as structured rows.

Do I need a BBB account? No. The Actor reads the public BBB search results.

Why is a rating, address or phone empty? Some businesses are not rated by BBB, so rating and ratingScore are null. Service-area businesses that do not publish a street address have no address, and a few listings have no phone. Fields BBB does not fill for a listing, such as distance or score, stay null.

How many businesses can I get per search? BBB itself shows only 225 per search, but with Split large searches on (the default) the scraper collects far more: 2,313 of 2,941 for "HVAC" in Phoenix, AZ. The final status says how many BBB listed and how many were saved. Use Max results to cap a run.

Can I search the whole country? Yes: leave the location empty to search all of BBB. Large nationwide searches are split by state and category automatically; for the most complete coverage, list cities or ZIP codes.

Does it return emails, websites or reviews? Not from the search results. Pass the reportUrl profiles to the BBB Business Details Scraper for email, website, principals, licenses, complaints and reviews.

How do I find good roofing or HVAC contractors near me? Search the trade and your city, then sort the results by rating and turn on BBB Accredited businesses only (or keep rows where accreditationStatus is Accredited) to see accredited, A-rated businesses first.

🔗 Related Scrapers

• BBB Business Details Scraper: full BBB profiles with contacts, email, websites, licenses, complaints and reviews for the businesses you find here.
• Local Google Maps Lead Scraper: local businesses from Google Maps with emails, social links and a lead score, to widen the same lead list.
• Yelp Business Scraper: Yelp listings by search term and location with ratings, phones and websites, for a second opinion on the same contractors.
• Trustpilot Company Scraper: companies from Trustpilot with TrustScore, review counts and contact details.
• AI Lead Enrichment & Outreach Generator: turn an exported lead list into personalized outreach in one run.