# Competitor Monitor – Tech Stack, DNS & Key Page Changes (`pontio/competitor-monitor`) Actor

Track a competitor's tech stack, email/DNS providers and pricing/careers pages over time. Each run reports what changed since the last one; the first run is the baseline.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/pontio/competitor-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Gabor Molnar](https://apify.com/pontio) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Marketing, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## 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

## Competitor Monitor – Tech Stack, DNS & Key Page Changes

Give it a competitor's domain and, on every scheduled run after the first, it tells you what changed: technologies added or removed, a new or dropped email/DNS provider (MX hosts, nameservers, authorized SPF senders, and domain-verification TXT tokens — usually a new SaaS sign-up), and text changes on the competitor's own pricing and careers pages, found automatically from its homepage. The first run for a domain takes the baseline; every run after that is a comparison. Only the competitor's own pages are compared — never a third-party job board or review site. Put it on an Apify schedule and it becomes a monitor. You pay per check that gave an answer.

### What you get

One dataset item per domain you send. Here is one, for a scheduled recheck of a competitor that switched email providers, swapped one marketing tool for another and raised its price:

```json
{
  "domain": "acme.com",
  "monitorName": "daily",
  "reasonCode": "changed",
  "technologies": {
    "current": [{ "name": "Intercom", "category": "chat", "source": "html", "evidence": "widget.intercom.io" }],
    "added": [{ "name": "Intercom", "category": "chat", "source": "html", "evidence": "widget.intercom.io" }],
    "removed": [{ "name": "Drift", "category": "chat", "source": "html", "evidence": "js.driftt.com" }]
  },
  "mx": { "current": ["aspmx.l.google.com"], "added": ["aspmx.l.google.com"], "removed": ["mail.oldprovider.com"] },
  "ns": { "current": ["ns1.acme.com"], "added": [], "removed": [] },
  "spfIncludes": { "current": ["_spf.google.com"], "added": ["_spf.google.com"], "removed": ["oldprovider.net"] },
  "verificationTxt": { "current": ["google-site-verification=abc"], "added": ["google-site-verification=abc"], "removed": [] },
  "pricingPage": { "url": "https://acme.com/pricing", "added": ["$15 per month"], "removed": ["$10 per month"] },
  "careersPage": { "url": null, "added": [], "removed": [] },
  "previousCheckedAt": "2026-09-26T06:00:04.118Z",
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-27T06:00:03.902Z"
}
```

The first run for a domain stores its baseline and reports `reasonCode: "baseline"`. Every later run that can compare against it reports `unchanged`, `changed`, or `domain_gone` if the competitor's site vanished entirely. A bot wall or an unreachable site on any run — first or later — is free instead and leaves the stored baseline untouched, so the next run that does succeed still compares against the last one that did.

### Use it when

- You track a shortlist of competitors and want a weekly (or daily) diff instead of re-reading their sites by hand.
- A competitor's tech stack or email provider change tells you something (a new CRM, a new ESP, a payment processor swap).
- A new domain-verification TXT record (`google-site-verification=`, `atlassian-domain-verification=`, ...) usually means the competitor just signed up for a SaaS tool, before it shows up anywhere else.
- You want to know the moment a competitor's pricing page or careers page changes — a price move, a new plan, a hiring spree or a hiring freeze.
- An agent needs "what changed about this competitor since last week" as structured data, not a screenshot.

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `domains` | array of strings | yes | Up to 1,000 competitor domains or URLs per run. A repeated site is checked and charged once. |
| `monitorName` | string | no | Keeps this monitor's snapshots apart from any other monitor watching the same domains. Use one per scheduled task. Change it to start over from a fresh baseline. Lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, up to 40. |

### How it works

Each run reads the domain's DNS (MX, nameservers, TXT) and crawls its homepage plus, when linked from there, its pricing and careers pages. A careers or pricing link that redirects off the competitor's site (to a hosted job board, say) is not compared. Technologies are fingerprinted from that HTML and DNS using the same ~80-entry table as the Tech Stack Detector Actor (CMS, ecommerce, framework, analytics, marketing, chat, payments, consent, CDN, email and business-app tools). The result is compared against the snapshot the previous run stored:

- **`technologies`** — every technology currently fingerprinted, plus which ones are new or gone since last time.
- **`mx` / `ns`** — the domain's current mail servers and nameservers, plus what changed. A new MX host is usually a mail-provider migration; a new nameserver is usually a DNS or hosting migration.
- **`spfIncludes`** — the `include:` hosts in the domain's SPF record: who is currently authorized to send mail as this domain, and who was added or dropped.
- **`verificationTxt`** — other TXT records shaped like a domain-ownership verification token (`key=value`, e.g. `google-site-verification=...`). A new one is usually a new SaaS vendor's onboarding step, even one the technology table doesn't recognize by name.
- **`pricingPage` / `careersPage`** — the pricing and careers/jobs page found from the homepage (by URL pattern, e.g. `/pricing`, `/careers`), with the lines of visible text added or removed since last time, the same text-diff approach as the Website Change Monitor Actor. `url` is `null` when the homepage links no such page. A linked page that can't be read on a run (an error, a redirect off-site, no text) reports no change rather than all its text removed, and a page the first run couldn't read is not reported as all-new the first time it can. Only the lines that moved are reported, never the whole page.

Snapshots are kept in a key-value store named `competitor-monitor` in your own Apify account, one per domain and `monitorName`. Deleting that store resets every baseline.

### Pricing

Pay per event, {{PRICE}} per 1,000 checks that gave an answer, charged on the `competitor-monitor-checked` event.

| `reasonCode` | Charged |
| --- | --- |
| `baseline` (no earlier snapshot for this domain and `monitorName`: the baseline is taken) | yes |
| `unchanged` (compared against the previous snapshot; nothing moved) | yes |
| `changed` (compared; see `technologies`, `mx`, `ns`, `spfIncludes`, `verificationTxt`, `pricingPage`, `careersPage`) | yes |
| `domain_gone` (DNS says the domain no longer exists, and a baseline had it: a real finding for a monitored competitor) | yes |
| `domain_not_found` (DNS says the domain does not exist, and it was never checked before: most likely a wrong domain) | no |
| `website_blocked` (401, 403 or 429 on the homepage: a bot wall, not an answer) | no |
| `website_unreachable` (no DNS, no connection, a timeout, or a server error) | no |
| `invalid_domain` (an IP, a bare TLD, `localhost`, a malformed name) | no |

A free check never overwrites the stored baseline, so the next check that can see the domain still compares against the last one that did. If DNS itself fails to answer on an otherwise-successful check, the MX/nameserver/SPF/verification-TXT fields and the DNS-sourced technologies are carried forward from the last snapshot rather than reported as gone — a resolver outage on our side is never read as a change on the competitor's. If DNS failed on the baseline run itself, those fields show `current: null` (unknown, not empty), and the first run that reads them records them without reporting them as added.

Technologies are compared by vendor, not by where the evidence came from: Stripe seen in the HTML today and only in a TXT record last time is the same Stripe, not a new one. A domain that comes back after `domain_gone` reports `changed`, with everything it came back with listed as added.

If you set a maximum total charge for a run, the Actor stops as soon as that limit is reached instead of working for free. Items after that point are left out of the dataset and not charged, and the run log says how many; submit them in a new run.

### Limits

- Pricing and careers pages are found among at most 3 same-site links from the homepage matching common path shapes (`/pricing`, `/plans`, `/careers`, `/jobs`, ...). A site that names them differently, links them from somewhere other than the homepage, or hides them behind a JavaScript-rendered menu, will show `url: null`.
- Pages are read as served, without running JavaScript. A page that renders its content client-side may show no page found, or no change where a human would see one.
- Text that differs on every load (an A/B-tested fragment, a personalized recommendation widget, a "posted 3 minutes ago" line) reports a change every run, the same limitation website-change-monitor's text diff has. A real run against stripe.com/pricing hit exactly this: a "not sure where to start?" recommendation block reordered between two checks a minute apart, with no real pricing change underneath it.
- Technologies come from a fixed table of markup and DNS patterns, not from running JavaScript or reading HTTP response headers. A technology missing from `technologies.current` means it wasn't seen — never that the competitor definitely doesn't run it.
- Domains are checked one after another. If you set a maximum charge for the run, or the run reaches its timeout, it stops there. The items already written stay in the dataset, so you can re-run the remainder.
- This only compares the competitor's own pages and public DNS records — never a job board, a review site, or any other third party. A key page that redirects elsewhere is fetched once per run (that is how the redirect is seen) but never compared.

### Data sources

The competitor's own site, fetched directly, and its public DNS records, read through Cloudflare's public DNS-over-HTTPS resolver (1.1.1.1). No paid or third-party data service. Snapshots stay in a key-value store in your own Apify account.

# Changelog

This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/pontio/competitor-monitor/changelog.md

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Competitor websites to monitor, as domains or URLs (max 1000 per run). Repeats of the same site are checked and charged once.

## `monitorName` (type: `string`):

Keeps this monitor's snapshots apart from other monitors on the same input (lowercase letters, digits, hyphens). Change it to start over from a fresh baseline. Defaults to one shared set of snapshots.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "example.com"
  ]
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

Results produced by this run, in its default dataset.

# 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 = {
    "domains": [
        "example.com"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("pontio/competitor-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 = { "domains": ["example.com"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("pontio/competitor-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 '{
  "domains": [
    "example.com"
  ]
}' |
apify call pontio/competitor-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,pontio/competitor-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/4VVPONCLb65hiAvis/builds/0u3wDVdcKUgM1bNok/openapi.json