Apify Ideas Radar

Find profitable Actor opportunities from the Apify $1M Challenge by matching community ideas with market demand data from the Apify Store.

Apify Ideas Radar analyzes ideas from the Apify Ideas board and matches them with existing Actors from Apify Store to help you discover untapped opportunities for the Apify $1M Challenge.

What is Apify Ideas Radar?

Ideas Radar is a market intelligence tool for Apify developers. It automatically:

• Downloads ideas from the Apify Ideas board with customizable filters
• Matches ideas to existing Actors using TF-IDF semantic similarity
• Assesses Challenge eligibility using compound platform + scraping detection
• Identifies market signals like rising demand, painful unmet needs, and proven traction
• Validates niches with keyword search and competition analysis
• Outputs actionable data with match evidence and opportunity scoring

Whether you're exploring the entire ideas board or validating a specific niche, Ideas Radar gives you data-driven insights to make better decisions about what to build.

Why use Apify Ideas Radar?

Find Opportunities Faster

Manual research takes hours. Ideas Radar processes hundreds of ideas and actors in minutes, surfacing opportunities you might have missed.

Make Data-Driven Decisions

Instead of guessing, see actual market signals:

• How many people requested this idea?
• Are there existing Actors solving similar problems?
• What's the competition level?
• Is there rising demand or proven traction?

Focus on Challenge-Eligible Ideas

Built-in eligibility assessment filters out ideas that mention restricted platforms (YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) combined with scraping keywords, so you focus on Challenge-eligible opportunities.

Validate Your Niche

Use Search mode to instantly check if your idea has demand and assess the competitive landscape before investing time in development.

How to use Apify Ideas Radar

Quick Start: Discover Mode

1. Run the Actor with default settings (no configuration needed)
2. Review results in the dataset - each idea includes eligibility status and top 3 evidence matches
3. Sort by fit tags to find ideas with market signals like rising, painful_demand, or proven_demand
4. Pick an opportunity and start building!

Example Input (Discover Mode):

{
  "mode": "discover",
  "challengeEligibleOnly": true
}

What you get: A dataset of Challenge-eligible ideas, each matched with evidence Actors that prove demand exists.

Validate a Niche: Search Mode

Have a specific idea or keyword? Use Search mode to validate it:

1. Set mode to search
2. Enter your keyword (e.g., "shopify", "pricing monitoring", "pdf parser")
3. Choose search method:
   • semantic - finds related concepts using TF-IDF (recommended)
   • exact - finds literal keyword matches
4. Review the summary to see competition, demand signals, and opportunity assessment

Example Input (Search Mode):

{
  "mode": "search",
  "keyword": "pricing page monitoring",
  "searchMethod": "semantic"
}

What you get: A single result with matching ideas, actors, and a competition summary that tells you if the niche is worth pursuing.

How much does Apify Ideas Radar cost?

Ideas Radar uses pay-per-event pricing for transparent, predictable costs.

Pricing Breakdown

Event	Price	When Charged
Actor Start	$0.00005	Once per run (Apify synthetic event)
Idea Found (Search mode)	$0.002	Per eligible idea in search results
Dataset Item (Discover mode)	$0.002	Per eligible idea matched

Example Costs

Discover Mode:

• 50 ideas = $0.10
• 100 ideas = $0.20
• 200 ideas = $0.40

Search Mode:

• 10 matching ideas = $0.02
• 25 matching ideas = $0.05
• 50 matching ideas = $0.10

Free Tier

On Apify's free plan, you get $5 of free credits monthly - enough for 2,500 ideas analyzed!

Why pay-per-event?

You only pay for results you receive. If a search returns 0 ideas, you don't pay. If you filter to Challenge-eligible ideas only, you're not charged for ideas that were filtered out.

What data can Apify Ideas Radar extract?

Discover Mode Output

Each idea includes:

Field	Description
title	Idea title from Apify Ideas board
url	Direct link to the idea
eligible_for_challenge	Boolean - is this Challenge-eligible?
ineligible_reason	Why the idea was marked ineligible (if applicable)
evidence_actors	Array of top 3 matching Actors with similarity scores
fit_tags	Market signals (e.g., rising, painful_demand, proven_demand)

Search Mode Output

Field	Description
keyword	Your search term
searchMethod	semantic or exact
ideas	Array of matching ideas with eligibility assessment
actors	Array of matching Actors with usage stats
summary.competition	low, medium, or high (based on actor count)
summary.demand_signal	weak, moderate, or strong (based on fit tags)
summary.opportunity_assessment	Plain-English assessment combining all factors

Input

Click on the Input tab to configure these options:

Mode Selection

• Discover (default): Scans all ideas and matches each to Store Actors
• Search: Validates a specific keyword or niche

Search Options (Search mode only)

• Keyword: Your search term (e.g., "shopify", "email parser")
• Search Method: semantic (TF-IDF, finds related concepts) or exact (literal match)

Filtering Options

• Ideas Status: To Develop (default) or All
• Idea Categories: Optional allowlist (e.g., ["SEO Tools", "Lead Generation"])
• Challenge Eligible Only: Filter to only Challenge-eligible ideas (default: true)
• Idea Keyword Excludes: Custom keywords that mark ideas as ineligible

Actor Pool Configuration

• Pricing Model: Filter actors by pricing (FREE, PAY_PER_EVENT, etc.)
• Exclude Actor Keywords: Remove actors containing specific keywords
• Fit Types: Which market signals to detect (default: all four types)

Advanced Matching

• Number of Top Matches: How many actors to keep per idea (default: 3)
• Minimum Similarity: Threshold for matching (0.0-1.0, default: 0.18)

Output

Discover Mode Example

{
  "type": "idea",
  "title": "Weather API integration tool",
  "url": "https://apify.com/ideas/weather-api-integration",
  "eligible_for_challenge": true,
  "ineligible_reason": null,
  "evidence_actors": [
    {
      "actor_title": "OpenWeather API Connector",
      "actor_url": "https://apify.com/username/weather-connector",
      "similarity": 0.76,
      "fit_tags": ["rising", "high_intent_low_usage"]
    },
    {
      "actor_title": "Weather Data Scraper",
      "actor_url": "https://apify.com/username/weather-scraper",
      "similarity": 0.68,
      "fit_tags": ["painful_demand"]
    }
  ]
}

Search Mode Example

{
  "type": "search_result",
  "keyword": "shopify",
  "searchMethod": "semantic",
  "ideas": [
    {
      "title": "Shopify product analyzer",
      "url": "https://apify.com/ideas/shopify-analyzer",
      "similarity": 0.89,
      "eligible_for_challenge": true
    }
  ],
  "actors": [
    {
      "title": "Shopify Scraper",
      "url": "https://apify.com/username/shopify-scraper",
      "similarity": 0.92,
      "users30": 450,
      "fit_tags": ["proven_demand", "rising"]
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "idea_count": 3,
    "actor_count": 12,
    "competition": "high",
    "demand_signal": "strong",
    "opportunity_assessment": "High competition but proven demand. Look for underserved niches within Shopify ecosystem."
  }
}

You can download the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML format from the Output tab.

Challenge Eligibility Rules

Ideas are automatically assessed for Challenge eligibility using compound detection:

Ineligible Ideas

An idea is marked ineligible when it mentions BOTH:

1. A restricted platform: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X/Twitter, Apollo.io, Amazon, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Trends
2. A scraping keyword: scrape, scraper, scraping, crawler, extract, extractor, harvest, data mining, collect data, etc.

Examples

✅ Eligible:

• "YouTube tutorial generator" (platform without scraping)
• "Generic web scraper" (scraping without restricted platform)
• "Shopify product tracker" (e-commerce platform, not in restricted list)

❌ Ineligible:

• "LinkedIn data scraper" (LinkedIn + scraping keyword)
• "Instagram post extractor" (Instagram + extraction keyword)
• "YouTube video harvester" (YouTube + harvesting keyword)

Custom Exclusions

Use idea_keyword_excludes to add your own exclusion rules. Any keyword match immediately marks the idea as ineligible, regardless of platform.

Understanding Fit Tags

Fit tags are market signals computed from Actor usage data:

Tag	What it means	Thresholds
rising	Growing rapidly (users7/users90 > 0.3, users30 > 10)	Hot new niche
painful_demand	Low satisfaction but high usage (rating < 4.0, users90 > 25, reviews > 3)	Opportunity to build better
proven_demand	High satisfaction + strong usage (rating ≥ 4.0, users90 > 100, reviews > 5)	Validated market
high_intent_low_usage	High bookmarks but few users (bookmarks > 100, users90 < 50)	Interested but underserved

Pro tip: Filter for painful_demand or high_intent_low_usage to find opportunities where you can build a better solution!

FAQ

Can I use this for non-Challenge ideas?

Yes! While optimized for the Apify $1M Challenge, Ideas Radar is useful for any Apify Actor development. Set challengeEligibleOnly: false to see all ideas regardless of eligibility.

How accurate is the similarity matching?

Ideas Radar uses TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency), the same algorithm used in search engines. Similarity scores above 0.6 are strong matches; above 0.8 are very strong matches.

What if I want to search multiple keywords?

Run the Actor once per keyword (Search mode handles one keyword at a time). You can schedule multiple runs or use the API to batch searches.

Can I customize the eligibility rules?

Yes! Use idea_keyword_excludes to add custom exclusion keywords. For example, adding ["gambling", "crypto"] will mark any idea mentioning those keywords as ineligible.

How often is the Apify Ideas data updated?

The Actor fetches ideas in real-time from the Apify Ideas CSV endpoint. You'll always get the latest ideas available.

How do I integrate this with my workflow?

Use Apify's Scheduling to run weekly and catch new ideas, Webhooks to trigger actions when new opportunities appear, or the API to integrate with your own tools.

Is it legal to scrape Apify Ideas?

Yes! The Apify Ideas board is public data provided by Apify specifically for this purpose. This Actor uses Apify's official CSV endpoint.

Tips for Best Results

Finding Hidden Gems

1. Use Discover mode with challengeEligibleOnly: true to get a curated list
2. Sort by fit tags in the dataset view - look for painful_demand (build better) or high_intent_low_usage (underserved)
3. Check ideas with few evidence matches - these might be underserved niches!

Validating Your Idea

1. Use Search mode with semantic matching for your core keyword
2. Check the competition level in the summary
3. Look at demand_signal - weak might mean unproven, strong means validated
4. Review evidence actors - are they highly rated? Recent? Actively used?

Reducing Costs

• Use max_ideas to limit processing (e.g., max_ideas: 100 for quick scans)
• Set challengeEligibleOnly: true to avoid paying for ineligible ideas
• Use idea_categories to focus on specific categories
• In Search mode, use exact matching for precise searches (fewer results = lower cost)

Support

• 🐛 Found a bug? Open an issue
• 💡 Feature request? Start a discussion
• ❓ Questions? Check the Issues tab first

Running locally

Clone the repository and run:

$apify run

Run tests:

$uv run pytest

Related Resources

• Apify Ideas Board - Submit and vote on Actor ideas
• Apify $1M Challenge - Learn about the Challenge
• Apify Actor Development - Build your own Actors
• Pay-Per-Event Pricing - Monetize your Actors

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