# Free Google Maps Reviews Scraper — Stars + Replies (`s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper`) Actor - **URL**: https://apify.com/s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [SR](https://apify.com/s-r) (community) - **Categories:** Lead generation, Business - **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, NaN 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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage ## What's an Apify Actor? Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases. 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. In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md): ```bash npm install apify-client ``` In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md): ```bash pip install apify-client ``` In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): ````bash # MacOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash # Windows irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex ```bash In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md). If your project is in a different language, use 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 ## Free Google Maps Reviews Scraper — Stars, Text, Author & Owner Replies A Google Maps reviews scraper that pulls every review for any business listing — star rating, full review text, reviewer name and profile URL, posting date, attached photos, and the owner's response — as clean structured JSON. No Google Maps Reviews API key (the official one is gated to listing owners only), no headless browser, no $129/month Outscraper subscription. $0.001 per review, paginate up to 500 per place. ### What you get - Star rating (1-5) and full review text in the original language the reviewer posted - Reviewer name, public Google profile URL, and total reviews-written count (so you can spot serial reviewers vs. one-off voices) - Posting time as a relative phrase ("3 weeks ago") plus the timestamp Google emits - Owner response text and timestamp when the business has replied — critical for sentiment-trail and reputation auditing - Attached photo URLs the reviewer included (food shots, room photos, signage, etc.) - Place name and canonical URL echoed back so you can join reviews back to their place rows - `reviews_count_returned` — the actual count delivered for this run, useful for budget reconciliation - Reviewer language code — handy when you need to filter to a single locale before piping into sentiment models ### Why scrape Google reviews Google's official Google Maps Reviews API is locked to verified business owners — you can read your own reviews via the **My Business API**, but you can't read a competitor's, a vendor's, or a market segment's. Google's Places API (New) returns at most **5 reviews per place** and explicitly forbids redistribution. For agencies, analysts, and ML teams that need the full review corpus across hundreds of locations — competitive sentiment dashboards, multi-location franchise reputation audits, training data for sentiment models, or local-SEO competitor research — there is no first-party API that ships the data. Either you log into each Google Business Profile manually (impossible at scale), pay $129+/month to Outscraper or DataForSEO for flat-rate reviews access, or scrape it yourself. This actor solves that by hitting Google Maps' internal `/maps/preview/place` and `/listentitiesreviews` AJAX endpoints with `curl_cffi` (Chrome TLS impersonation) plus fresh anonymous Google session cookies from a managed minter pool. Pass any canonical Google Maps place URL, and the actor returns up to 500 reviews per place — paginated automatically — for **$0.001 per review**, or **$1 per 1000 reviews**. That's 5-10× cheaper than the closest Apify alternative (`compass/google-maps-reviews-scraper` ranks #2 on the `google reviews scraper` SERP and charges per-result on a sliding scale that lands around $5-10 per 1000 reviews). Concrete buyer math: a multi-location franchise with 200 stores tracking new reviews weekly (say ~30 new reviews per store per week) pays 200 × 30 × $0.001 = **$6 per weekly run** — versus Outscraper's $129/month flat-rate or DataForSEO's $0.0045/review which is **4.5× more expensive**. A reputation-management agency auditing a competitor's 5,000-review history pays $5 once. ### Input | Field | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | `place_urls` | required | Array of canonical Google Maps place URLs (`https://www.google.com/maps/place//data=...`) | | `max_reviews_per_place` | `50` | Cap reviews per place (1-500) | | `use_cookies` | `true` | Use a fresh anonymous Google session — bypasses the EU consent banner and reduces CAPTCHA at scale | The actor extracts the FID (feature ID), lat/lng, and place ID from the URL itself — you don't need to pass any extra metadata. Both short URLs (`/maps/place//`) and long ones with `data=!4m...` parameters are accepted. ### Output ```json { "place_name": "The Pantry", "place_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Pantry/data=!4m7!3m6!1s0x47c609e91734d71b:0xb13072d0007a87d1!8m2!3d52.3634845!4d4.8849427!16s%2Fg%2F1tfxfwsp", "reviews_count_returned": 50, "reviews": [ { "author_name": "Sarah Vermeulen", "author_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/108347291847238...", "author_total_reviews": 47, "rating": 5, "text": "Absolutely loved the stamppot — best traditional Dutch food I've had in Amsterdam. Service was warm and the place has so much character. Will definitely return.", "language": "en", "time_relative": "2 weeks ago", "timestamp": 1761436800000, "photos": [ "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNk...=w408-h408", "https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipMo...=w408-h408" ], "owner_response": { "text": "Bedankt Sarah! We're so glad you enjoyed your visit. See you next time!", "time_relative": "1 week ago" } } ] } ```` The actor returns one record per place (not one record per review), with the reviews bundled into a `reviews[]` array — this matches how downstream tools like Looker Studio and BigQuery prefer to ingest grouped place-review data. To get a flat one-review-per-row dataset, expand `reviews[]` in your downstream loader. ### Use cases **Multi-location franchise auditing reputation across stores.** You operate 150 quick-service restaurants and need a weekly digest of every new review across all stores, segmented by `rating < 3`. Pull all 150 place URLs, run the actor with `max_reviews_per_place=20` (just the latest 20), filter for `rating <= 2`, pipe to Slack. Total: 150 × 20 × $0.001 = **$3 per weekly run**, automated end-to-end. **Local SEO consultant doing competitor sentiment research.** Your client owns a Brooklyn pizzeria. You pull 12 competitor place URLs, fetch 200 reviews each (2,400 total = $2.40), and run the texts through a topic-modeling notebook. Within an hour you know that the dominant complaint about the top-3 competitors is "slow delivery" — a positioning angle your client can win on. The whole research project costs less than a coffee. **Hotelier or restaurant owner doing reputation defense.** You want a daily alert for every new 1-2 star review across your 8-property hotel chain. Schedule the actor daily, `max_reviews_per_place=10`, filter for `rating <= 2` AND `time_relative` containing "hour" or "day". Pipe to PagerDuty. **$0.08 a day** for proactive crisis-management coverage. **ML team training a sentiment / aspect-based model.** You need 100,000 labeled (rating + text) pairs across restaurants, hotels, and retail. Pull 200 places per category × 3 categories × 200 reviews each = 120,000 reviews for $120. For comparison, scraping equivalent volumes from Yelp via official API is rate-limited to 5,000/day and requires partnership approval. ### How it compares | Actor | Price per 1000 reviews | Owner replies | Photos | Pagination | |---|---|---|---|---| | **This actor (s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper)** | **$1.00** | yes | yes | up to 500 / place | | `compass/google-maps-reviews-scraper` (#2 on `google reviews scraper` SERP) | ~$5-10 sliding scale | yes | yes | yes | | Outscraper Google Maps Reviews (#1 SERP) | flat $129+/month | yes | yes | yes | | HasData Google Maps Reviews (#8 SERP) | per-request, similar tier | yes | partial | yes | | Google Places API (New) | $32 + 5 reviews max | no | no | no (5 cap) | The closest Apify competitor is `compass/google-maps-reviews-scraper`, which is the established Maps Reviews scraper on the platform — but its sliding-scale pricing and Crawlee-based architecture push the per-review cost above $5/1000 for typical workloads. This actor is pure HTTP (`curl_cffi` + cookies) which is why it can sustain ~25 reviews/second at $1/1000. ### Pricing This actor uses Apify's pay-per-event monetization at $0.001 per review returned — that's $1.00 per 1000 reviews, or roughly 80-90% cheaper than the closest Apify alternative. All pricing is pay-per-event — you only pay for results you receive. No actor-start fee, no per-compute-unit charges, no charge for empty queries or pagination retries. ### Limits and gotchas - Maximum 500 reviews per place per run — most businesses have <500 reviews; for the long-tail (Eiffel Tower has 200,000+), run multiple times sorted by date filter - Reviews are returned in Google's default sort (most-relevant first); Google does not expose a "newest first" toggle on the AJAX endpoint, so pulling the latest reviews requires sorting by `timestamp` downstream - Owner responses are populated only when the business has actually replied — expect ~30-40% reply rate in mature markets - Reviewer names and profile URLs are public-by-design (Google publishes them so other users can see who wrote a review); store and process them in line with GDPR / CCPA if you operate in those jurisdictions - Apify residential proxy is **not** required — the cookie pool plus `curl_cffi`'s Chrome TLS fingerprint is enough for sustained throughput - Cold-start time is ~3-5 seconds for the first place; subsequent places in the same run reuse the session pool - The `place_url` must be the canonical Maps URL (the one with `/data=!4m7!3m6!1s...`); shortlinks like `g.co/...` need to be resolved upstream ### FAQ **How do I scrape Google reviews without an API key?** This actor calls Google's internal `/maps/preview/place` and `/listentitiesreviews` AJAX endpoints directly with `curl_cffi` (Chrome TLS impersonation) and a fresh anonymous Google session cookie. No Google Cloud account, no Places API key, no My Business approval. You only pay Apify's per-review rate. **Can I scrape Google Maps reviews for businesses I don't own?** Yes. Reviews are public-by-design — anyone browsing Google Maps can read them. Scraping publicly visible reviews is generally treated as fair use under hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn and similar precedents. What's restricted is the official **My Business API**, which only returns reviews for properties you've verified ownership of. **What's the cost to scrape 1000 Google reviews?** 1000 × $0.001 = **$1.00**. For comparison: DataForSEO charges $4.50 for the same 1000 reviews; Outscraper charges a flat $129/month for unlimited reviews access (worth it if you scrape >129,000 reviews/month, otherwise more expensive). **Will Google rate-limit my scraping?** At default settings (fresh session cookies, no proxy) the actor sustains ~25 reviews/second across multiple places without throttling. For sustained >100/sec throughput, supply a residential proxy URL via the `PROXY_URL` env var. **Does this scraper get the owner's reply to a review?** Yes — when a business has replied to a review, the `owner_response` object is populated with the reply text and a relative timestamp. About 30-40% of reviews in mature markets have owner replies; the field is `null` when no reply exists. ### Related Actors - [Free Google Maps Scraper](https://apify.com/s-r/free-google-maps-scraper) — find places by keyword and city; outputs canonical URLs ready to feed into this Reviews scraper - [Free Google Maps Images Scraper](https://apify.com/s-r/free-google-maps-images-scraper) — bulk photo URLs from any Google Maps place - [Free Google Shopping Reviews](https://apify.com/s-r/free-google-shopping-reviews) — product reviews and rating breakdown from Google Shopping by SKU/gpcid # Actor input Schema ## `place_urls` (type: `array`): List of Google Maps place URLs (e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Restaurant+Name/data=…). ## `max_reviews_per_place` (type: `integer`): Cap reviews per place (1-500). Default 50. ## `use_cookies` (type: `boolean`): Recommended. Bypasses the EU consent banner and reduces CAPTCHA at scale. ## Actor input object example ```json { "place_urls": [ "https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Pantry/data=!4m7!3m6!1s0x47c609e91734d71b:0xb13072d0007a87d1!8m2!3d52.3634845!4d4.8849427!16s%2Fg%2F1tfxfwsp" ], "max_reviews_per_place": 50, "use_cookies": true } ``` # 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 '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "place_urls": [ "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower/@48.8583701,2.2922926,17z/", "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Statue+of+Liberty/@40.6892494,-74.0445004,17z/" ] }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper").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 '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "place_urls": [ "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower/@48.8583701,2.2922926,17z/", "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Statue+of+Liberty/@40.6892494,-74.0445004,17z/", ] } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"]) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{ "place_urls": [ "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower/@48.8583701,2.2922926,17z/", "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Statue+of+Liberty/@40.6892494,-74.0445004,17z/" ] }' | apify call s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=s-r/free-google-maps-reviews-scraper", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer " ] } } } ``` ## OpenAPI specification ```json { "openapi": "3.0.1", "info": { "title": "Free Google Maps Reviews Scraper — Stars + Replies", "version": "0.1", "x-build-id": "XqobMRsk4lT1FODPu" }, "servers": [ { "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2" } ], "paths": { "/acts/s-r~free-google-maps-reviews-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-s-r-free-google-maps-reviews-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } }, "/acts/s-r~free-google-maps-reviews-scraper/runs": { "post": { "operationId": "runs-sync-s-r-free-google-maps-reviews-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK", "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema" } } } } } } }, "/acts/s-r~free-google-maps-reviews-scraper/run-sync": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-s-r-free-google-maps-reviews-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } } }, "components": { "schemas": { "inputSchema": { "type": "object", "required": [ "place_urls" ], "properties": { "place_urls": { "title": "Google Maps place URLs", "type": "array", "description": "List of Google Maps place URLs (e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Restaurant+Name/data=…).", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "max_reviews_per_place": { "title": "Max reviews per place", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 500, "type": "integer", "description": "Cap reviews per place (1-500). Default 50.", "default": 50 }, "use_cookies": { "title": "Use fresh Google cookies", "type": "boolean", "description": "Recommended. Bypasses the EU consent banner and reduces CAPTCHA at scale.", "default": true } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } } } ```