# Competitor Pricing Monitor (`yearly_register/competitor-pricing-monitor`) Actor

Track competitor product pages for price and availability changes, with structured results designed for scheduled monitoring.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/yearly\_register/competitor-pricing-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Automation Tech](https://apify.com/yearly_register) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.50 / 1,000 product checkeds

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

## Competitor Pricing Monitor

Competitor Pricing Monitor extracts exact product price snapshots from public product pages using structured data when available or explicit CSS selectors when a site requires custom targeting. It is built for recurring price monitoring rather than manual spot checks.

### What it does

The Actor crawls configured product pages, resolves supported price information, normalizes the result, and writes stable price records to the default Apify dataset. Structured product data is preferred because it is usually more resilient than visual selectors. Selector-based extraction is available as a controlled fallback for sites that do not expose suitable metadata.

Typical use cases include:

- monitoring competitor prices on selected products;
- tracking price changes over time;
- feeding price snapshots into dashboards or alerts;
- collecting comparable public pricing data for research;
- scheduling recurring checks through Apify.

### Quick start

1. Add one or more public product URLs to the Actor input.
2. Run a small test with conservative limits.
3. Inspect the dataset and verify the detected price, currency, and source page.
4. If the page does not expose usable structured data, configure the supported selector options for that target.
5. Once the output is correct, schedule the Actor or call it through the Apify API.

The Input tab also includes crawler controls for result limits, request limits, retries, concurrency, timeouts, and proxy configuration.

### Output

Each dataset item represents a normalized product-price snapshot together with source and scrape metadata. The exact output contract is defined by the Actor's dataset schema. Results can be exported as JSON, CSV, or Excel or consumed directly from the Apify dataset API.

### Monitoring and integrations

For ongoing price tracking, run the Actor on a schedule that matches how frequently the target prices are likely to change. Use Apify webhooks or integrations to trigger alerts, store snapshots elsewhere, or feed the data into reporting systems.

### Limitations

Product pages vary widely. Structured markup may be missing or stale, while CSS selectors can break after a site redesign. Displayed prices can also depend on location, cookies, login state, taxes, membership, or variants. This Actor works with public page data and does not guarantee access to personalized or authenticated prices.

### Pricing

See the Actor's Apify Store **Pricing** tab for the active pricing model and rates. Platform cost depends on page count, retries, proxy use, and run frequency. Test a representative small batch before configuring a large recurring monitoring job.

# Actor input Schema

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

List of URLs to start scraping from

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

Maximum number of results to scrape

## `maxRequests` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of requests to process

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of concurrent requests

## `maxRequestRetries` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of retries for failed requests

## `maxRequestsPerMinute` (type: `integer`):

Maximum requests per minute

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

Request timeout in seconds

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

Proxy configuration for requests

## `debug` (type: `boolean`):

Enable debug logging

## `productNameSelector` (type: `string`):

Optional CSS selector, maximum 500 characters.

## `priceSelector` (type: `string`):

Optional CSS selector, maximum 500 characters.

## `compareAtPriceSelector` (type: `string`):

Optional CSS selector, maximum 500 characters.

## `currencySelector` (type: `string`):

Optional CSS selector, maximum 500 characters.

## `currencyHint` (type: `string`):

Three ASCII letters; used only when no source currency is present.

## `decimalSeparator` (type: `string`):

Must differ from the other separator.

## `thousandsSeparator` (type: `string`):

Must differ from the other separator.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "maxRequests": 10000,
  "maxConcurrency": 10,
  "maxRequestRetries": 3,
  "maxRequestsPerMinute": 60,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 30,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  },
  "debug": false,
  "productNameSelector": "",
  "priceSelector": "",
  "compareAtPriceSelector": "",
  "currencySelector": "",
  "currencyHint": "",
  "decimalSeparator": "dot",
  "thousandsSeparator": "comma"
}
```

# 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 = {
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("yearly_register/competitor-pricing-monitor").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 = { "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False } }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("yearly_register/competitor-pricing-monitor").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 '{
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call yearly_register/competitor-pricing-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yearly_register/competitor-pricing-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/Zoszx0NR2DjSXqR3b/builds/hBdwaHyjm5xwWMWqg/openapi.json