# SaaS Domain Name Generator & Availability Watcher (`thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher`) Actor

Generate and rank SaaS domain ideas, scrape public registry availability, and monitor domain status changes across scheduled Apify runs without a domain API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher.md
- **Developed by:** [Inus Grobler](https://apify.com/thescrapelab) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, SEO tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 registry availability scrapes

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

## SaaS Domain Name Generator & Availability Watcher

Generate ranked SaaS domain ideas, check public registry availability, and monitor changes on a schedule. This Actor is useful for founders, startup studios, naming agencies, product teams, and domain researchers who need a reusable shortlist instead of checking names one by one.

No Vercel token, registrar account, or paid domain-data API is required. The Actor scrapes IANA delegation pages and public registry WHOIS sources. OpenRouter is not used because the built-in deterministic ranking does not need AI.

### What you get

- Ranked domain ideas from a brand name, product term, or exact watchlist
- Exact, compact, prefixed, and suffixed naming patterns
- Bulk domain availability checks from public registry sources
- `baseline`, `unchanged`, and `availability_changed` events across scheduled runs
- Dataset output for CSV, JSON, integrations, webhooks, and automations
- Conservative results that never turn an ambiguous response into an “available” claim

### Quick start

Use the defaults for ideas only, or enable **Check domain availability** to perform registry lookups.

```json
{
  "seedNames": ["North Star"],
  "domains": ["northstarhq.com"],
  "tlds": ["com", "io", "ai", "co"],
  "generationModes": ["exact", "prefixed", "suffixed"],
  "prefixes": ["get", "try"],
  "suffixes": ["app", "hq"],
  "maxCandidates": 40,
  "checkAvailability": true
}
```

### Inputs

| Input | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `seedNames` | Up to 10 brand names or product terms used to generate candidates. |
| `domains` | Optional exact domains placed first in the watchlist. |
| `tlds` | Domain suffixes to generate, such as `com`, `io`, `ai`, or `co.uk`. |
| `generationModes` | Select exact, compact, prefixed, or suffixed patterns. |
| `prefixes` | Words such as `get`, `try`, or `use` for prefixed candidates. |
| `suffixes` | Words such as `app`, `hq`, or `labs` for suffixed candidates. |
| `maxCandidates` | Maximum number of exact and generated domains, from 1 to 100. |
| `checkAvailability` | Scrape public registry availability for every returned candidate. No key is required. |

Operational settings are deliberately fixed to safe values, so clients do not need to configure concurrency, retries, timeouts, storage, teams, or tokens.

### How availability checking works

For each suffix, the Actor scrapes its official IANA delegation page and discovers the public WHOIS source. It then queries the registry WHOIS service. For `.io` and `.ai`, it submits the registry operator's web-WHOIS forms because those web sources are more reliable than port 43 from cloud infrastructure.

The decision rules are intentionally strict:

- `available`: the registry explicitly returned a not-found or free result
- `unavailable`: the registry returned positive registration evidence
- `unknown`: the source was unavailable, ambiguous, throttled, or the suffix publishes only RDAP
- `not_checked`: availability checking was disabled or the run reached its spending limit

`statusReason` explains the result in a stable, machine-readable way. For example, `explicit_not_found` supports `available`, `registration_record` supports `unavailable`, and `no_public_whois` explains an `unknown` result without treating it as a scraper failure. An unknown result uses `changeType: availability_unknown` because no reliable comparison with a previous successful observation can be made.

Raw WHOIS responses can contain personal registration data. They are parsed in memory and discarded; only the availability decision and source metadata are stored.

### Example output

```json
{
  "domain": "getnorthstar.com",
  "seedName": "North Star",
  "candidateType": "prefixed",
  "rank": 3,
  "priorityScore": 930,
  "availability": "available",
  "statusReason": "explicit_not_found",
  "checkedByScraping": true,
  "source": "registry_whois",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/com.html",
  "whoisServer": "whois.verisign-grs.com",
  "sourceHttpStatus": null,
  "attempts": 1,
  "changeType": "availability_changed",
  "previousAvailability": "unavailable",
  "isChanged": true,
  "observedAt": "2026-08-10T17:00:00.000Z",
  "message": "The public registry returned an explicit not-found result. Confirm with a registrar before purchase."
}
```

`RUN_SUMMARY` includes a plain `completionStatus` (`complete`, `complete_with_unknowns`, or `partial_budget`), requested and returned counts, charged events, IANA pages scraped, registry web pages scraped, WHOIS queries, circuit-breaker skips, retries, real source errors, unsupported public-WHOIS counts, and detected changes. Reaching the spending limit after every requested result is finished does not incorrectly mark the run as partial.

### Monitoring domains

Run the same input on an Apify schedule. The first successful result is stored as a `baseline`; later runs report `unchanged` or `availability_changed`. Connect an Apify webhook to Slack, email, Make, Zapier, or your own endpoint to act on changes.

State is saved in the Actor's named key-value store. Failed or ambiguous checks never overwrite the last successful state.

### Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing:

| Event | Price | Charged when |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Actor start | $0.00005 | Once per run. |
| Domain candidate | $0.00010 | For each result written to the Dataset. |
| Registry availability scrape | $0.00300 | When a registry WHOIS query or web-form lookup is attempted. No availability event is charged when the suffix publishes no usable WHOIS source. |

For example, 100 candidate-only results cost about **$0.01005**. Checking all 100 costs about **$0.31005**. The Apify Console price displayed when you start a run is authoritative. A maximum run spend is respected before the next billable unit begins.

### API example

#### Python

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher").call(
    run_input={
        "seedNames": ["North Star"],
        "tlds": ["com", "io", "ai"],
        "maxCandidates": 20,
        "checkAvailability": True,
    }
)

if run is None:
    raise RuntimeError("The Actor run did not start")

items = client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).list_items().items
for item in items:
    print(item)
```

Install the official client with `pip install apify-client`.

#### cURL

```bash
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/thescrapelab~saas-brand-domain-watcher/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"seedNames":["North Star"],"tlds":["com","io","ai"],"maxCandidates":20,"checkAvailability":true}'
```

Keep your Apify token private. The Actor itself needs no domain-provider token.

### Important limitations

- Availability is informational, not a reservation or purchase guarantee. Always confirm the final name with your registrar immediately before buying.
- A domain can be reserved, premium-priced, restricted, or unavailable for policy reasons even when WHOIS has no registration record.
- Some newer suffixes publish RDAP but no public WHOIS server. Because this Actor intentionally does not call domain-data APIs, those checks return `unknown`.
- Registries can throttle lookups or change their response formats. The Actor uses bounded retries and a per-source circuit breaker, then returns a safe error instead of repeating failures or guessing.
- The Actor does not provide trademark clearance. Check names with an appropriate trademark authority before launch.

### Support

When reporting a problem, include the run ID, affected suffix, and whether the result was `unknown` or incorrect. Never include an Apify token or other secret.

# Actor input Schema

## `seedNames` (type: `array`):

Enter up to 10 brand names or product terms. The Actor creates normalised domain candidates from these terms.

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Optional complete domains to check exactly, such as example.com. These are included before generated candidates.

## `tlds` (type: `array`):

Suffixes used for generated candidates, such as com or co.uk. Do not include a leading period.

## `generationModes` (type: `array`):

Choose the safe, readable domain patterns to generate from each brand term.

## `prefixes` (type: `array`):

Used only when Prefix the name is selected.

## `suffixes` (type: `array`):

Used only when Suffix the name is selected.

## `maxCandidates` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on generated and exact domains. Keep this focused for faster, respectful registry lookups.

## `checkAvailability` (type: `boolean`):

Scrape IANA and public registry WHOIS sources for each candidate. No API key or account is needed. Ambiguous results are returned as unknown.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "seedNames": [
    "example"
  ],
  "domains": [],
  "tlds": [
    "com",
    "io",
    "ai",
    "co",
    "net",
    "org"
  ],
  "generationModes": [
    "exact",
    "prefixed",
    "suffixed"
  ],
  "prefixes": [
    "get",
    "try",
    "use",
    "join"
  ],
  "suffixes": [
    "app",
    "hq",
    "labs",
    "cloud"
  ],
  "maxCandidates": 60,
  "checkAvailability": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `datasetItems` (type: `string`):

Generated or exact domains with their availability, priority, and change state.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Counts, public-source lookup health, and whether availability checking was enabled.

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher").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 '{}' |
apify call thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,thescrapelab/saas-brand-domain-watcher"
        }
    }
}

```

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/MSnhEPUzd4TWFsgjT/builds/ZOZc3tciOaciwRhlr/openapi.json