# Kakaku.com (価格.com) Price Watch - Japan lowest prices (`superslowsloth/kakaku-prices`) Actor

Scrape Kakaku.com (価格.com) category lists, Japan's price-comparison site, into one flat row per product: lowest price in JPY, cheapest shop, shop count, rating, review count, rankings, release date, image and specs.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/superslowsloth/kakaku-prices.md
- **Developed by:** [Superslow Sloth](https://apify.com/superslowsloth) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.35 / 1,000 product scrapeds

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/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Kakaku.com Scraper (価格.com price watch)

This Kakaku.com scraper reads the category lists of Kakaku.com (価格.com), Japan's
price-comparison site, and returns one flat row per product: no nested objects,
no HTML to strip yourself. Built for Japan price monitoring and competitor
tracking. Give it categories such as laptops (`pc/note-pc`) or vacuum cleaners
(`kaden/vacuum-cleaner`) and you get each product's lowest price in yen, the shop
that asks it, how many shops list the product, its ratings and rankings, and its
release date.

### Input

| field | meaning |
|---|---|
| `categories` | One or more categories, as a path (`pc/note-pc`) or a list URL (`https://kakaku.com/pc/note-pc/itemlist.aspx`). A pasted URL keeps the filters in it (a maker, a screen size) and is paged for you |
| `sort` | `bestselling` (Kakaku's default), `price_asc` (cheapest first), `price_desc`, `rating`, `reviews` or `newest` |
| `maxItems` | Stop after this many products in total, shared across every category, in order. Kakaku shows 40 products a page |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Apify datacenter proxy by default. See **Proxy** below |

### Output

| field | meaning |
|---|---|
| `product_id` | Kakaku's id for the row: `K0001788964` for a product, `J0000049506` for a group of colour variants shown as one row, all digits on old discontinued products |
| `url`, `name` | Product page link and the product name without the maker |
| `maker` | The maker printed before the name ("HP", "日立", "ダイソン") |
| `variant_label` | The bracketed tag next to the maker, verbatim, e.g. `【直販モデル】` (maker-direct model) |
| `lowest_price_jpy` | The lowest price any listed shop asks, in yen |
| `lowest_price_shop` | The shop that price comes from |
| `shop_count` | How many shops list the product ("全14店舗") |
| `sales_rank` | Position in Kakaku's 売れ筋 (best-seller) ranking of the category |
| `attention_rank` | Position in Kakaku's 注目 (attention) ranking |
| `rating` | Average review score out of 5, as printed |
| `review_count` | The review count printed next to the score |
| `comment_count` | The クチコミ (forum posts) count |
| `favorite_count` | How many members saved the product as a favourite |
| `registered_date` | When the product was added to Kakaku, ISO 8601 |
| `release_date_text` | The release column as printed, spaces removed: `2026/5/29`, `2025/8/上旬` (early August), `2026/夏` (summer), `2024/10` |
| `release_date` | `release_date_text` as an ISO date, only when it names a full day |
| `image_url` | The product photo |
| `color_variants` | Colour families a variant-group row stands for (`ブラック系`, `ホワイト系`); empty list otherwise |
| `spec_text` | The 【スペック】 line under the row, as printed. Which specs appear depends on the category |
| `category_path`, `category_name` | The category the row was listed under: `pc/note-pc` and its Japanese name, ノートパソコン |
| `page`, `position` | Which page of the list the row was on, and its position on that page |

The list page shows only the lowest price and a shop count. It does not show a
price range or the full per-shop price list, so those are not in the output.

#### `null` is not zero

A column is `null` when that row of Kakaku's list does not show it. The actor
never puts a `0` or an empty string in its place:

- `lowest_price_jpy`, `lowest_price_shop` and `shop_count` are `null` on a
  product no shop lists, where the page prints "¥―" (an `arrows Tab EH` on the
  last page of the laptop list on 2026-10-10). A `0` would read as a free product.
- `rating` is `null` on every product with no reviews: the page prints "-". The
  `review_count` beside it is `0`, because the page prints "(0件)" - a printed count,
  not a gap.
- `sales_rank` and `attention_rank` are `null` where the page prints "-位", which
  is many products, especially on the attention ranking.
- `release_date_text` is `null` where the page prints "-". `release_date` is
  `null` unless the text names a full day, so "2025/8/上旬" has a text and no date.
- `favorite_count` is `null` where the favourites button shows no number.
- `image_url` is `null` where Kakaku shows its "no photo yet" placeholder.

### Paging

Kakaku pages a category with `pdf_pg=N` and shows 40 products a page. The page
prints which rows it holds ("41件～80件を表示"); the actor checks every later page
starts where the last one stopped. If Kakaku ignored the request and sent an
earlier page again, the actor stops and says so in the run log, and does not bill
you for the repeat. A page past the end of a category is an HTTP 404; the actor
reads that as "no more products", not as a failure. A product is charged once per
run, even when several categories or pages list it.

### Proxy

The default is Apify's datacenter proxy. On 2026-10-10 kakaku.com served full
category lists (`pc/note-pc`, `kaden/vacuum-cleaner`) to both Apify datacenter and
Apify residential exits. The site is behind Cloudflare, and a refusal can arrive
with HTTP status 200, so the actor checks the page body, not the status. A page
that is not a product list counts as a refusal: the actor switches proxy address
and retries.

### Billing

Pay per event: **$0.00035 per product**, plus **$0.002 per run** for actor-start.
Platform usage (compute, bandwidth, proxy) is included. You pay the two event
prices above and nothing else. A product listed twice in one run is charged once.

For comparison, the cheapest other Kakaku scraper on the Apify Store charges
$0.0005 per item (`finespun_acorn/kakaku-jp-price-ranking`); the others charge
$0.0026 to $0.02. This actor's $0.00035 is 30% under the cheapest.

# Actor input Schema

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

One or more Kakaku.com categories, each as a path like "pc/note-pc" (laptops) or "kaden/vacuum-cleaner" (vacuum cleaners), or as the full list URL https://kakaku.com/pc/note-pc/itemlist.aspx. Take the path from any category page's address bar. A pasted URL keeps the filters already in it (a maker, a screen size) and is paged for you. Every category shares the maxItems budget below, in order - if the first alone reaches maxItems, later ones are never fetched. Anything that is not a Kakaku category is skipped and named in the run log.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Order the category list is read in. Best-selling is Kakaku's default ranking. Cheapest first is the one for a price watch: pair it with maxItems to get the lowest-priced products in the category.

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

Stop after this many products in total, shared across every category above. Kakaku shows 40 products per page, so up to 40 costs a single page request and each further 40 is one more. Large categories run to 50+ pages (about 2,000 products for laptops).

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

Apify datacenter proxy is the default: kakaku.com served full category lists to datacenter and to residential exits alike on 2026-10-10. The site sits behind Cloudflare, which can turn an address away; the actor then switches address and retries.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "categories": [
    "pc/note-pc"
  ],
  "sort": "bestselling",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `products` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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": [
        "pc/note-pc"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("superslowsloth/kakaku-prices").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": ["pc/note-pc"],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("superslowsloth/kakaku-prices").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": [
    "pc/note-pc"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call superslowsloth/kakaku-prices --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/m18apyzkna5D5J357/builds/H9hGlEfbkURnI98Nc/openapi.json