# Checkatrade Scraper — UK Trade Leads, Phones & Ratings (`scrapersdelight/checkatrade-scraper`) Actor

Scrape verified UK tradespeople from Checkatrade by trade and town: business name, phone, Checkatrade rating, review count, services and reviews.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scrapersdelight/checkatrade-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Scrapers Delight](https://apify.com/scrapersdelight) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Automation, Agents
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$4.50 / 1,000 per trader returneds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## Checkatrade Scraper — UK Trade Leads, Phones & Ratings

Extract verified UK tradespeople from [Checkatrade](https://www.checkatrade.com) by
**trade** and **town**. Great for local-services lead generation, market research
and building trade directories.

### What you get (one row per unique trader)

| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| `businessName` | Trader / company name |
| `phone` | Contact number (E.164 where available) |
| `profileUrl`, `profileSlug` | Checkatrade profile URL and its stable slug (the dedupe key) |
| `ratingValue` / `ratingBest` | Checkatrade rating (out of **10**) |
| `reviewCount` | Number of verified reviews |
| `businessLocality`, `businessRegion` | Trader's registered town / region |
| `searchTrade`, `searchLocation` | The trade × town this row was found under |
| `sampleReviewBody`, `sampleReviewAuthor` | One review from the search card |
| `services` | Full service list (e.g. "Gas Boiler Installation", "Power Flushing") — profile enrichment |
| `description` | Profile description — profile enrichment |
| `areaServed` | Areas the trader covers — profile enrichment |
| `reviews` | Recent reviews: `{ author, date, rating, body }` — profile enrichment |
| `enriched` | `true` if the profile page was read for the extra fields above |

### Input

- **trades** — e.g. `["Plumber", "Electrician", "Roofer"]`. Free text is normalized
  to Checkatrade's slug and validated against its
  [trade list](https://www.checkatrade.com/sitemap/trades.xml).
- **locations** — UK towns / areas, e.g. `["London", "Manchester"]`. Every trade is
  searched in every location (trades × locations).
- **startUrls** *(advanced)* — paste search URLs directly, e.g.
  `https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/Plumber/in/London`.
- **maxItems**, **maxPagesPerSearch**, **enrichProfiles**, **onlyWithPhone**,
  **requestDelayMs**, **proxyConfiguration** — see the input form.

### How it works / reliability

Checkatrade is fronted by Cloudflare's managed challenge and **blocks datacenter
IPs outright**. This actor therefore drives a real **Chromium** browser over Apify
**Residential** proxy (**country GB**, the default) to pass the challenge, then reads
the server-rendered **schema.org JSON-LD** (`ItemList` on search pages,
`LocalBusiness` on profiles) — a stable surface, not brittle DOM scraping. One
browser session solves the challenge once and is reused across pages; on a
rate-limit it rotates to a fresh session. Because a real browser + residential proxy
is used, runs are slower and more compute-heavy than a plain HTTP scraper — keep
`enrichProfiles` off if you only need phone/rating lists.

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: charged once per **unique** trader returned (deduplicated by profile
slug, so the same trader appearing on multiple search pages is billed once).

### Legality

You are responsible for complying with Checkatrade's Terms of Service and applicable
law. Records may contain **personal data** (sole-trader names, phone numbers,
review-author names); processing it lawfully (e.g. under UK GDPR) is your
responsibility.

# Actor input Schema

## `trades` (type: `array`):

Trade categories to search, e.g. "Plumber", "Electrician", "Roofer". Free text is normalized to Checkatrade's slug and validated against its trade list. See https://www.checkatrade.com/sitemap/trades.xml for every valid trade.

## `locations` (type: `array`):

UK towns or areas to search each trade in, e.g. "London", "Manchester", "Greater-London". Combined with every trade above (trades × locations).

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

Optional: paste Checkatrade search URLs directly, e.g. https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/Plumber/in/London . Used in addition to the trades × locations above.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many unique traders (0 = no limit). Each trader is charged once.

## `maxPagesPerSearch` (type: `integer`):

How many result pages (10 traders each) to read per trade × location.

## `enrichProfiles` (type: `boolean`):

Open each trader's profile to add the full services list, description and recent reviews. Slower but far richer. Turn off for fast phone/rating-only lists.

## `onlyWithPhone` (type: `boolean`):

Drop any trader that does not publish a phone number.

## `requestDelayMs` (type: `integer`):

Politeness delay between page loads. Lower is faster but more likely to hit Cloudflare rate-limits (429).

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Checkatrade is behind Cloudflare and blocks datacenter IPs. Apify Proxy RESIDENTIAL, country GB is required and is the default.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "trades": [
    "Plumber",
    "Electrician"
  ],
  "locations": [
    "London",
    "Manchester"
  ],
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 3,
  "enrichProfiles": true,
  "onlyWithPhone": false,
  "requestDelayMs": 3500,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `leads` (type: `string`):

One item per unique trader: name, phone, Checkatrade rating (out of 10), review count, services, sample reviews and profile URL.

# 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 = {
    "trades": [
        "Plumber",
        "Electrician"
    ],
    "locations": [
        "London",
        "Manchester"
    ],
    "startUrls": [],
    "maxItems": 100,
    "maxPagesPerSearch": 3,
    "requestDelayMs": 3500,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("scrapersdelight/checkatrade-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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "trades": [
        "Plumber",
        "Electrician",
    ],
    "locations": [
        "London",
        "Manchester",
    ],
    "startUrls": [],
    "maxItems": 100,
    "maxPagesPerSearch": 3,
    "requestDelayMs": 3500,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": True,
        "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
        "apifyProxyCountry": "GB",
    },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("scrapersdelight/checkatrade-scraper").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 '{
  "trades": [
    "Plumber",
    "Electrician"
  ],
  "locations": [
    "London",
    "Manchester"
  ],
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 3,
  "requestDelayMs": 3500,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": [
      "RESIDENTIAL"
    ],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "GB"
  }
}' |
apify call scrapersdelight/checkatrade-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,scrapersdelight/checkatrade-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

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/leU9uHw9sB8uEmLmW/builds/aYZJC2YqqN5CZkHnS/openapi.json