HTTP Request Runner: Bulk API Calls with Retries

Send hundreds of HTTP requests in one run and get one clean result row for each: status code, headers, and the response body, already parsed if it's JSON. Any method (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD), your headers, query parameters, and JSON or text bodies. Failed calls are retried the sensible way, and your own lookup key comes back on every row so you can join results to your data.

$1 per 1,000 requests ($0.70 on Gold plans and above). Requests that get no response at all are free.

Who it's for

• Clay, n8n, Make and Zapier users: call any API from a workflow, in bulk, without writing a server
• Data teams: enrich a list of IDs from a REST API and get a dataset back
• Developers: smoke-test endpoints, check webhooks, or replay a batch of calls
• AI agents: make many API calls through one Apify run

Input

{
  "requests": [
    "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1",
    {"url": "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts", "method": "POST",
     "json": {"title": "Hello"}, "lookupKey": "row-42"}
  ],
  "defaultHeaders": {"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"},
  "maxRetries": 2
}

Each request is a URL, or an object with url, method, headers, params, json or body, and lookupKey. For a single call, use the url, method and json fields instead.

Option	What it does
defaultHeaders	Added to every request (stored as a secret); a request's own headers win
maxRetries	Retries after 408, 429, 5xx and connection errors, waiting as long as the server's Retry-After asks (up to 30 s). A 4xx is your request being wrong, so it is not retried.
parseJson	JSON responses land in json as data; anything else in body as text
maxBodyBytes	Longer responses are cut and marked truncated
callbackUrl	Each row is also POSTed to your webhook as soon as it's ready
maxConcurrency, maxRequestsPerHost	Parallel requests overall and per server (default 20 and 5)

Output

One row per request. A real row from a test run (body shortened):

{
  "lookupKey": "patch",
  "url": "https://httpbin.org/anything",
  "method": "PATCH",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "ok": true,
  "attempts": 1,
  "finalUrl": "https://httpbin.org/anything",
  "responseHeaders": {"content-type": "application/json", "...": "..."},
  "json": {"method": "PATCH", "json": {"a": 1}, "...": "..."},
  "body": null,
  "truncated": false,
  "error": null
}

statusCode is null when no response arrived (DNS error, timeout, refused); error then says why. ok is true for a 2xx.

Tested

On a mixed batch: GitHub API and Open-Meteo JSON parsed, a PATCH with a JSON body echoed back, http://github.com followed to https://github.com/, a 503 retried once and reported, a dead domain reported without a status, and a request to a private address refused. 11 automated tests cover retries, Retry-After, truncation, lookup keys and validation.

Pricing

$0.001 per request that gets a response (any status code, including 4xx and 5xx: the call was made). Bronze $0.0009, Silver $0.0008, Gold and above $0.0007. Requests with no response at all, and refused ones, are free. The run stops cleanly at your spending limit.

Honest limits

• No proxies and no bot-detection tricks: requests come from Apify's servers as they are. Use it for APIs and sites that allow automated access.
• Only public addresses: URLs that point to private networks are refused.
• Bodies over maxBodyBytes (default 2 MB, max 8 MB) are cut.

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/prometheus-maker~http-request-runner/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"requests": ["https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1"]}'

More examples: apify-tools-examples.

Related tools

• Bulk File Downloader: images, PDFs and other files from URL lists or web pages
• Website to Markdown Crawler: a whole site as clean Markdown for AI and RAG
• Website Tech Stack Detector: what a website is built with: CMS, analytics, CDN, hosting

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