# Amazon Best Sellers Scout — Top Products per Category (`primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout`) Actor

Get the top-ranked best sellers in any Amazon category — rank, ASIN, title, price (USD), rating, review count, URL. One cheap fetch per category (no browser). Ideal for product research, retail arbitrage and trend spotting.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout.md
- **Developed by:** [Prime Sieve](https://apify.com/primesieve) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, E-commerce, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 best sellers

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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

## Amazon Best Sellers Scout

Get the **top-ranked best sellers** in any Amazon category — the products Amazon shoppers are buying most right now.

### Why

Best-seller rankings are the most reliable demand signal on Amazon. This actor returns the top products per category with rank, price, rating and review count — everything you need for product research, retail arbitrage and trend spotting.

Each result: `rank`, `ASIN`, `title`, `price (USD)`, `rating`, `review count`, `url`, `category`.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `categories` | string\[] | \[] | Amazon category slugs, e.g. `["electronics", "toys-and-games", "books"]` |
| `topN` | int | 30 | Top-ranked results per category (max 100) |
| `minPrice` | int | 5 | Minimum price USD (0 = none) |
| `maxPrice` | int | 0 | Maximum price USD (0 = none) |
| `excludeBrands` | string\[] | \[] | Drop titles containing these (e.g. `["amazon basics"]`) |

### Output

One dataset item per best seller:

```json
{
  "rank": 1,
  "asin": "B08JHCVHTY",
  "title": "Blink Plus Plan with Monthly Auto-Renewal",
  "price": 11.99,
  "currency": "USD",
  "rating": 4.4,
  "reviewCount": 279167,
  "url": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JHCVHTY",
  "category": "Electronics"
}
```

### Pricing

- **$0.002 per best seller** (pay-per-event) = **$2.00 per 1,000 results**
- `apify-actor-start`: $0.05 covers fixed startup cost

Compare: the market-leading best-sellers actor charges **$5.90 per 1,000** on free plans (tiered). Same data, a third of the price.

### Notes

- Items with no single price (multi-variant "see options" products) are skipped — the actor returns priced items only.
- Runs on a plain `fetch` (no headless browser) so it's fast and cheap; Amazon may occasionally throttle — the actor retries automatically.
- `topN` is a ceiling; categories with many multi-variant products may yield fewer priced results.

# Actor input Schema

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Amazon category slugs, e.g. electronics, toys-and-games, books, kitchen, beauty, sporting-goods. Empty = all categories.

## `topN` (type: `integer`):

How many top-ranked best sellers to return per category (max 100).

## `minPrice` (type: `integer`):

Only keep items priced at or above this. 0 = no minimum.

## `maxPrice` (type: `integer`):

Only keep items priced at or below this. 0 = no maximum.

## `excludeBrands` (type: `array`):

Drop items whose title contains any of these (case-insensitive).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "categories": [
    "electronics",
    "toys-and-games",
    "books"
  ],
  "topN": 30,
  "minPrice": 5,
  "maxPrice": 0,
  "excludeBrands": [
    "amazon basics"
  ]
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `bestsellers` (type: `string`):

All saved best-seller records

# 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 = {
    "categories": [
        "electronics",
        "toys-and-games",
        "books"
    ],
    "excludeBrands": [
        "amazon basics"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout").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 = {
    "categories": [
        "electronics",
        "toys-and-games",
        "books",
    ],
    "excludeBrands": ["amazon basics"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout").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 '{
  "categories": [
    "electronics",
    "toys-and-games",
    "books"
  ],
  "excludeBrands": [
    "amazon basics"
  ]
}' |
apify call primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,primesieve/amazon-bestsellers-scout"
        }
    }
}

```

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/lMVxMW6e4NteOQ45w/builds/kwFKZczbNtZeIR4kk/openapi.json