🌐 Browser as a Service (BaaS)

Automate any website with simple JSON. No code required.

Tell it what page to visit and what to do — click buttons, fill forms, grab text, take screenshots. It runs a real browser in the cloud and gives you back clean data.

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⚡ How it works (3 steps)

1️⃣ Get your Apify API token

Go to apify.com → create a free account → Settings > Integrations → copy your API token.

2️⃣ Tell it what to do

Send a JSON message with two things:

• url — the page you want to visit
• actions — a list of steps to perform (in order)

3️⃣ Get your data

Results come back as clean JSON — text, data, screenshot links, whatever you asked for. Each scraped item shows up as a row in the output table.

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🤖 Use with AI — Just Copy & Paste

Don't know how to code? No problem. Just paste one of these prompts into your favorite AI and tell it what you want. It does the rest.

💬 Prompt for Claude / Claude Code

Copy this whole block, paste it into Claude, and replace the two things in [brackets]:

I want to use the Apify actor "zenacquire/browser-as-a-service" to automate a browser task.

My Apify API token: [PASTE YOUR TOKEN HERE]

How the actor works:
- API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/zenacquire~browser-as-a-service/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN
- Send JSON with "url" (the page) and "actions" (ordered list of browser steps)
- Actions available:
  → navigate — open a page
  → click — click a button or link (needs "selector")
  → type — fill in a text field (needs "selector" and "value")
  → scrape — grab text from the page (needs "selector" and "name")
  → screenshot — take a picture of the page ("fullPage": true for whole page)
  → wait — pause until something loads (needs "selector" or "ms")
  → select — pick from a dropdown (needs "selector" and "value")
  → hover — mouse over an element (needs "selector")
  → scroll — scroll the page (needs "y" for pixels or "selector" to scroll to)
  → evaluate — run custom JavaScript on the page (needs "expression")

Each scraped item comes back as { url, action, value } in the dataset.
Screenshots are saved in the key-value store.

Get results: GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/{RUN_ID}/dataset/items?token=YOUR_TOKEN
Get screenshots: GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/{RUN_ID}/key-value-store/records/{NAME}?token=YOUR_TOKEN

Here's what I want to do: [DESCRIBE YOUR TASK IN PLAIN ENGLISH]

Example things you can say:

• "Scrape all product names and prices from this Amazon search page: https://amazon.com/s?k=wireless+earbuds"
• "Go to Zillow, search for homes in Austin TX, and grab the first page of listings"
• "Take a screenshot of my website https://mysite.com"
• "Fill out the contact form on https://example.com/contact with my info"

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💬 Prompt for ChatGPT

Same idea — copy, paste, fill in the blanks:

Help me use the Apify actor "zenacquire/browser-as-a-service" to automate a browser task.

My Apify token: [PASTE YOUR TOKEN HERE]

API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/zenacquire~browser-as-a-service/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json
Body: { "url": "...", "actions": [...] }
Actions:
→ navigate (open page)
→ click (selector)
→ type (selector + value)
→ scrape (selector + name) — extracts text
→ screenshot (name, fullPage)
→ wait (selector or ms)
→ select (selector + value)
→ hover (selector)
→ scroll (selector or y pixels)
→ evaluate (expression — runs JavaScript)

Results: GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/{RUN_ID}/dataset/items?token=YOUR_TOKEN
Each result = { url, action, value }

What I need: [DESCRIBE YOUR TASK IN PLAIN ENGLISH]

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📋 Real-World Examples

🛒 Grab an Amazon product title and price

{
    "url": "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXXXXXXXXX",
    "actions": [
        { "type": "navigate" },
        { "type": "scrape", "selector": "#productTitle", "name": "title" },
        { "type": "scrape", "selector": ".a-price .a-offscreen", "name": "price" },
        { "type": "screenshot", "name": "product-page", "fullPage": true }
    ]
}

Output:

URL	Action	Value
amazon.com/dp/...	title	Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Headphones
amazon.com/dp/...	price	$278.00

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📰 Scrape Hacker News headlines

{
    "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com",
    "actions": [
        { "type": "navigate" },
        { "type": "scrape", "selector": ".titleline > a", "name": "headlines" }
    ]
}

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🔍 Search Google and grab results

{
    "url": "https://www.google.com",
    "actions": [
        { "type": "navigate" },
        { "type": "type", "selector": "textarea[name=q]", "value": "best headphones 2026" },
        { "type": "click", "selector": "input[name=btnK]" },
        { "type": "wait", "selector": "#search" },
        { "type": "scrape", "selector": "h3", "name": "results" },
        { "type": "screenshot", "name": "search-results", "fullPage": true }
    ]
}

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📸 Screenshot any website

{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "actions": [
        { "type": "navigate" },
        { "type": "screenshot", "name": "full-page", "fullPage": true }
    ]
}

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🧪 Quick Test (cURL)

Copy-paste into your terminal to test it right now:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/zenacquire~browser-as-a-service/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com",
    "actions": [
      { "type": "navigate" },
      { "type": "scrape", "selector": ".titleline > a", "name": "headlines" },
      { "type": "screenshot", "name": "hn", "fullPage": true }
    ]
  }'

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🐍 Python

import requests, time

TOKEN = "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2"

# Start the run
run = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/acts/zenacquire~browser-as-a-service/runs?token={TOKEN}",
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "actions": [
            {"type": "navigate"},
            {"type": "scrape", "selector": "h1", "name": "heading"},
            {"type": "screenshot", "name": "page", "fullPage": True}
        ]
    }
).json()

run_id = run["data"]["id"]
print(f"🚀 Run started: {run_id}")

# Wait for it to finish
while True:
    status = requests.get(f"{BASE}/actor-runs/{run_id}?token={TOKEN}").json()
    state = status["data"]["status"]
    if state in ("SUCCEEDED", "FAILED", "ABORTED", "TIMED-OUT"):
        break
    time.sleep(2)

# Get results
items = requests.get(f"{BASE}/actor-runs/{run_id}/dataset/items?token={TOKEN}").json()
for item in items:
    print(f"  {item['action']}: {item['value']}")

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📦 JavaScript / Node.js

const TOKEN = "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN";
const BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2";

const run = await fetch(
  `${BASE}/acts/zenacquire~browser-as-a-service/runs?token=${TOKEN}`,
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      url: "https://example.com",
      actions: [
        { type: "navigate" },
        { type: "scrape", selector: "h1", name: "heading" },
        { type: "screenshot", name: "page", fullPage: true },
      ],
    }),
  }
).then((r) => r.json());

const runId = run.data.id;
console.log(`🚀 Run started: ${runId}`);

// Wait for it to finish
let state;
do {
  await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000));
  const status = await fetch(`${BASE}/actor-runs/${runId}?token=${TOKEN}`).then((r) => r.json());
  state = status.data.status;
} while (!["SUCCEEDED", "FAILED", "ABORTED", "TIMED-OUT"].includes(state));

// Get results
const items = await fetch(`${BASE}/actor-runs/${runId}/dataset/items?token=${TOKEN}`).then((r) => r.json());
items.forEach((item) => console.log(`  ${item.action}: ${item.value}`));

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🎯 All Actions

What you want to do	Action	What to include
🌐 Open a page	navigate	url (optional — defaults to input url)
👆 Click something	click	selector
⌨️ Type into a field	type	selector + value
📋 Grab text from page	scrape	selector + name
📸 Take a screenshot	screenshot	name + fullPage (true/false)
⏳ Wait for something	wait	selector or ms (milliseconds)
📑 Pick from dropdown	select	selector + value
🖱️ Hover over element	hover	selector
📜 Scroll the page	scroll	selector or y (pixels)
💻 Run JavaScript	evaluate	expression + name

💡 What's a selector? It's how you point to something on a page. In Chrome: right-click any element → Inspect → right-click the highlighted code → Copy → Copy selector. Paste that into the selector field.

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⚙️ Options

Setting	Default	What it does
browserType	"chromium"	Browser engine: chromium, firefox, or webkit
timeoutSecs	30	Max seconds to wait per action
viewport	{"width": 1280, "height": 720}	Browser window size
proxyConfiguration	none	Use Apify proxy to avoid blocks

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💰 Pricing

Event	Cost
Per scraped result	$7.00 / 1,000
Per screenshot	$25.00 / 1,000
Actor start	$0.00005
Platform usage	Variable (cheaper on higher Apify plans)