# Freelancer.com Projects Scraper: Budget, Bids, Skills (`talcoe/freelancer-projects`) Actor

Scrape open Freelancer.com projects with budget in USD, bid counts, skills and full descriptions, filtered by keyword, fixed or hourly type and minimum budget, with a fixed price per result.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/talcoe/freelancer-projects.md
- **Developed by:** [M Usama](https://apify.com/talcoe) (community)
- **Categories:** Jobs, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 results

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

### Data source

Public Freelancer.com projects JSON API (the same endpoint behind the site search pages), read without a login, so results are as fresh as the live listing.

### What does Freelancer.com Projects Scraper do?

It returns open Freelancer.com projects with the fields buyers and agencies care about: title, link, fixed or hourly type, budget range in the original currency and in USD, number of bids, average bid, required skills, categories, full description and posting time. Filter by keyword, project type and minimum budget so you only pay for the projects you want. Pricing is per result.

### Why use it?

- Lead generation for freelancers and agencies: find new projects in your niche the hour they are posted.
- Market research: see which skills are in demand, what budgets look like and how crowded each project is (bid count).
- Monitoring: schedule it every hour and push new projects to Slack, email or a spreadsheet.
- Replaces manual searching, saved alerts that arrive late, and stale exports.

### How to use it

1. Open the Actor and set the filters.
2. Click Start. Download results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.
3. Add a Schedule and an Integration (Slack, Google Sheets, webhook) to get new records automatically.

### Input

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `query` | Keywords matched against titles and descriptions. Leave empty for all newest projects. |
| `projectType` | `any`, `fixed` or `hourly`. |
| `minBudgetUsd` | Skip projects whose top budget, converted to USD, is below this value. 0 disables it. |
| `sortBy` | `newest` (posting time) or `recently_updated`. |
| `maxResults` | Hard stop for the run. You are billed per result, so this caps the cost. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Apify proxy is recommended for larger runs. |

Example input:

```json
{ "query": "python", "projectType": "fixed", "minBudgetUsd": 100, "sortBy": "newest", "maxResults": 50 }
```

### Output

Every record has the same shape:

```json
{
  "id": "40754600",
  "title": "Healthcare Data Science Portfolio",
  "url": "https://www.freelancer.com/projects/data-visualization/Healthcare-Data-Science-Portfolio",
  "projectType": "fixed",
  "budgetMin": 1500,
  "budgetMax": 12500,
  "currency": "INR",
  "budgetMinUsd": 15.5,
  "budgetMaxUsd": 129.17,
  "bidCount": 48,
  "averageBid": 7702.06,
  "averageBidUsd": 79.59,
  "skills": ["Python", "Machine Learning (ML)", "Data Science", "Pandas"],
  "categories": ["Websites, IT & Software", "Artificial Intelligence"],
  "description": "For my portfolio, I want to develop a complete Python data-science walkthrough...",
  "postedAt": "2026-10-07T05:47:26.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-10-07T05:47:26.000Z",
  "bidPeriodDays": 7,
  "hoursPerWeek": null,
  "language": "en",
  "featured": false,
  "urgent": false,
  "sealed": false,
  "nda": false,
  "status": "open",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-07T08:25:29.847Z"
}
```

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `id` | Freelancer.com project id, safe for deduplication between runs |
| `budgetMin`, `budgetMax`, `currency` | Budget as posted (hourly projects: rate per hour) |
| `budgetMinUsd`, `budgetMaxUsd`, `averageBidUsd` | Converted with the exchange rate Freelancer.com publishes |
| `bidCount`, `averageBid` | Competition and typical offer so far |
| `skills`, `categories` | Skills the client tagged and their parent categories |
| `hoursPerWeek` | Weekly commitment for hourly projects |
| `postedAt`, `updatedAt` | ISO timestamps (UTC) |

### Pricing

Pay per event: a fixed price per result returned. You only pay for records that pass your filters. Set `maxResults` to cap any run.

### Limitations

- Only open (active) projects are returned, not closed or awarded ones.
- Client name, client country and reviews are not exposed without a login, so they are not included.
- The site search returns at most about 5,000 projects per query. Use narrower keywords for more.
- Budgets in some projects are missing when the client chose a custom or "contest" style listing.

### FAQ

**Is this legal?** The Actor reads listings the site publishes for any visitor without a login and stores only business information published for that purpose. You are responsible for how you use the data.

**Something is missing or broken?** Open an issue in the Issues tab; response time is usually under a day.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Keywords matched against project titles and descriptions, for example python scraper. Leave empty for all newest projects.

## `projectType` (type: `string`):

Fixed price, hourly, or both.

## `minBudgetUsd` (type: `integer`):

Skip projects whose top budget, converted to USD, is below this value. 0 disables the filter.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Newest posted first, or most recently updated first.

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

Hard stop for the run. You are billed per result, so this caps the cost.

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

Apify proxy is recommended for larger runs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "python",
  "projectType": "any",
  "minBudgetUsd": 0,
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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 = {
    "query": "python",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("talcoe/freelancer-projects").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 = {
    "query": "python",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("talcoe/freelancer-projects").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 '{
  "query": "python",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call talcoe/freelancer-projects --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/BZbDCwPciXydM8Pew/builds/4aEUbymbfWxkr0g2y/openapi.json