# HotUKDeals Scraper - UK Deals & Coupons (`studio-amba/hotukdeals-scraper`) Actor

Extract live deals, discount codes and prices from hotukdeals.com, the UK's largest deals community (Pepper Global network). Get titles, prices, discount %, merchant, comment/heat score, coupon codes and expiry by category. No login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/studio-amba/hotukdeals-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Studio Amba](https://apify.com/studio-amba) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.20 / 1,000 result scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## HotUKDeals Scraper

Extract live deals and coupon codes from hotukdeals.com, the UK's largest deals community (part of the Pepper Global network, alongside mydealz.de, pepper.pl and dealabs.com).

### Why use this actor?

hotukdeals.com has no public API and its keyword-search backend is off-limits to crawlers (disallowed in robots.txt). This actor reads the site the way a real category browser does — pulling the same structured deal data hotukdeals.com's own frontend uses to render each card — so you get clean, structured deals, discount codes, prices and community heat scores without scraping raw HTML by CSS selector. Useful for price-monitoring tools, deal-alert bots, market research on UK ecommerce discounting, or feeding a broader European deals aggregator.

### How to scrape HotUKDeals data

1. Pick a category or product-keyword tag from the hotukdeals.com URL bar — visit `hotukdeals.com/tag/{slug}` in a browser and copy the slug (e.g. `electronics`, `fashion`, `beauty`, `groceries`, `gaming`, or a specific brand/product like `apple`, `samsung`, `laptop`, `smartwatch`).
2. Set `category` to that slug, or leave it empty to pull the site-wide "hot deals" feed instead.
3. Set `maxResults` (results load 30 at a time).
4. Run the actor. Each hotukdeals.com deal thread becomes one row in the output dataset: title, price, original price, discount %, merchant, shop domain, image, heat score, comment count, category, voucher code, and expiry when the poster set one.
5. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, or connect it via API to your own pipeline.

There is no login, no cookie banner to dismiss, and no CAPTCHA in the way for this actor's requests — hotukdeals.com's `/tag/{slug}` and homepage listing pages are plain server-rendered HTML, and Cloudflare (present on the domain) does not challenge plain HTTP requests. (It does challenge headless-browser navigation — this actor deliberately avoids browser automation and uses direct HTTP instead, see Limitations.)

### A note on hotukdeals.com's own data

hotukdeals.com is a community-posted deals board, not a retailer's own product feed. Two things follow directly from that and aren't scraper bugs:

- **`price` is what the poster typed in**, and on a meaningful share of threads it doesn't exactly match the price mentioned in the title text itself. Always treat the title as the human-readable source of truth and `price`/`originalPrice` as the structured (but occasionally imprecise) numeric fields.
- **`price` is legitimately empty on a lot of deals.** Freebies, £0.01-listing "free" offers, and pure coupon-code posts often carry no meaningful numeric price at all — in a sample category run field coverage on `price` was around 80%. That's the real shape of the data, not a missing DOM fallback.

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|-------|------|----------|-------------|
| `category` | String | No | hotukdeals.com tag slug from `/tag/{slug}` (e.g. `electronics`, `fashion`, `beauty`, `groceries`, `apple`, `laptop`). Empty = site-wide hot deals feed. |
| `maxResults` | Integer | No | Maximum deals to return (default: 50, loads in pages of 30). |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Object | No | Proxy settings. Defaults to Apify's automatic proxy — no residential needed, see Limitations. |

### Output

Each result contains:

| Field | Type | Example |
|-------|------|---------|
| `dealId` | String | `"4845708"` |
| `title` | String | `"Free Mozilla Firefox VPN (Built-in) \| 50GB per month"` |
| `url` | String | Full hotukdeals.com deal page URL |
| `price` | Number | null | `null` (freebie, no meaningful price) |
| `originalPrice` | Number | null | `0.01` |
| `discountPercentage` | Number | null | `40` |
| `currency` | String | `"GBP"` |
| `merchantName` | String | null | `"Mozilla"` |
| `shopDomain` | String | null | `"www.firefox.com"` |
| `imageUrl` | String | null | Deal image on hotukdeals.com's image CDN |
| `temperature` | Number | null | `11335.2` (community heat score) |
| `temperatureLevel` | String | null | `"Hot3"` |
| `commentCount` | Number | null | `451` |
| `category` | String | null | `"Electronics"` |
| `categorySlug` | String | null | `"electronics"` |
| `voucherCode` | String | null | `"SAVE10"` |
| `isExpired` | Boolean | `false` |
| `isHot` | Boolean | `true` |
| `isNew` | Boolean | `false` |
| `freeShipping` | Boolean | null | `null` |
| `publishedAt` | String | null | ISO 8601 timestamp |
| `expiresAt` | String | null | ISO 8601 timestamp, only when the poster set one |
| `searchCategory` | String | null | Input echo |
| `scrapedAt` | String | ISO timestamp of the scrape |

### Example output

```json
{
    "dealId": "4845708",
    "title": "Free Mozilla Firefox VPN (Built-in) | 50GB per month",
    "url": "https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/free-mozilla-firefox-vpn-built-in-50gb-per-month-4845708",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-08-09T14:12:31.436Z",
    "price": null,
    "originalPrice": 0.01,
    "discountPercentage": null,
    "currency": "GBP",
    "merchantName": "Mozilla",
    "shopDomain": "www.firefox.com",
    "imageUrl": "https://images.hotukdeals.com/threads/raw/SFxIN/4845708_1/re/768x768/qt/60/4845708_1.jpg",
    "temperature": 11335.2,
    "temperatureLevel": "Hot3",
    "commentCount": 451,
    "category": "Electronics",
    "categorySlug": "electronics",
    "voucherCode": null,
    "isExpired": false,
    "isHot": true,
    "isNew": false,
    "freeShipping": null,
    "publishedAt": "2026-03-24T17:00:01.000Z",
    "expiresAt": null,
    "searchCategory": "electronics"
}
```

### Cost estimate

This actor uses approximately **1 request per 30 results** (one listing page = 30 deals), making it one of the cheapest scrapers in the fleet per item — well under $0.01 per 30 deals in Apify compute alone. On Pay-Per-Result pricing the per-result charge is a flat, low commodity-retail rate regardless of category. A run's usage cost only settles once the run reports **SUCCEEDED** — checking cost mid-run under-reports actual spend.

### Limitations

- No robots.txt-compliant keyword search exists on hotukdeals.com (its `/search` route and REST/GraphQL APIs are all disallowed for crawlers, and filter query params like `groups=`, `sortBy=`, `priceFrom=` are disallowed too). This actor browses by category/tag slug instead — the same path a visitor takes from the site's own category menu.
- hotukdeals.com's Cloudflare protection does not challenge this actor's plain-HTTP requests, but it does challenge headless-browser navigation — a deliberate design choice, not an oversight, is to use direct HTTP (`got-scraping`) rather than Playwright here.
- `price`, `originalPrice` and `discountPercentage` are community-entered fields and are sometimes absent, approximate, or (rarely) inconsistent with the deal title — see the note above.
- A run's usage cost only settles after the run reports SUCCEEDED — checking cost mid-run under-reports actual spend.
- Data is scraped from the public website and may change without notice.

### Related Scrapers

Part of Studio AMBA's Pepper Global deals-network coverage:

- [mydealz-scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/mydealz-scraper) — mydealz.de, the German sibling site (same platform, same card JSON shape)
- [dealabs-scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/dealabs-scraper) — dealabs.com, the French sibling site
- [pepper-pl-scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/pepper-pl-scraper) — pepper.pl, the Polish sibling site

### Need this data on a schedule, or a custom version?

We run this scraper as a managed service for businesses: scheduled runs, deduplication, delta detection, and delivery to your inbox, Google Sheets, or API — maintenance included. We can also build a custom version with your exact fields and filters, or combine multiple sources into one feed.

See [studioamba.dev/services](https://studioamba.dev/services/) or email <hello@studioamba.dev> for a free data sample. We maintain 300+ European web scrapers and answer within one business day.

# Actor input Schema

## `category` (type: `string`):

hotukdeals.com tag slug, taken from the URL /tag/{slug} (e.g. 'electronics', 'fashion', 'beauty', 'gaming', 'groceries'). Many popular product/brand names also work as their own tag (e.g. 'apple', 'samsung', 'laptop', 'smartwatch') since hotukdeals tags deals with both broad categories and specific product groups. Leave empty to scrape the site-wide 'hot deals' feed instead of one category.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of deals to return. Results load in pages of 30.

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

Proxy settings. hotukdeals.com's Cloudflare protection is passive against plain HTTP requests (verified in recon) — Apify's automatic proxy works fine, no residential proxy needed.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "category": "electronics",
  "maxResults": 30,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "category": "electronics",
    "maxResults": 30,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("studio-amba/hotukdeals-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 = {
    "category": "electronics",
    "maxResults": 30,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("studio-amba/hotukdeals-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 '{
  "category": "electronics",
  "maxResults": 30,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call studio-amba/hotukdeals-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,studio-amba/hotukdeals-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/yG5NhDOSZrWpl5Vxl/builds/7ry7zRE6gyqZOTw38/openapi.json