Apify Web Scraping Tutorial: Complete Beginner Guide (2026)

Step 1: Create your Apify account

1. Go to apify.com and sign up (free, no credit card required) — Go to apify.com and sign up (free, no credit card required)
2. Verify your email — Verify your email
3. You start on the Free plan with $5 monthly compute credit — You start on the Free plan with $5 monthly compute credit
4. Familiarize yourself with the Console the dashboard shows your runs, schedules and data

Step 2: Find the right actor in Apify Store

Apify Store (apify.com/store) contains 4,000+ pre-built scraping tools called "actors." Each actor scrapes a specific website or data type. Search by website name (e.g., "Google Maps"), by data type (e.g., "reviews") or by use case (e.g., "lead generation").

• For lead generation: search "Google Maps" → Google Maps Scraper
• For price monitoring: search "Amazon" → Amazon Product Scraper
• For social data: search "TikTok" or "Instagram" → respective scrapers
• For review mining: search "[site] reviews" → review-specific actors
• For general web scraping: search "Cheerio" or "Playwright" → generic scrapers for any website

Step 3: Configure the actor

Every actor has an Input tab where you configure what to scrape. Common input types:

• Search queries: "coffee shops in Austin, TX" (for Google Maps Scraper)
• URLs: paste product or profile URLs (for Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram scrapers)
• Keywords: "marketing automation" (for search-based scrapers)
• Max results: limit the number of items to scrape (start small: 50-100 for testing)
• Filters: some actors support filtering by rating, date, location, etc.

For your first run, set max results to 20-50. This keeps the run fast and cheap while you verify the output quality.

Step 4: Run the actor

1. Click the green "Start" button — Click the green "Start" button
2. Watch the run log Apify shows real-time progress as the actor scrapes
3. Wait for completion small runs take 1-5 minutes, larger runs 5-30 minutes
4. Check the run status "Succeeded" means your data is ready

Step 5: Export and use your data

Once the run succeeds, your data is in the Dataset tab:

1. Click the "Dataset" tab to see your scraped results — Click the "Dataset" tab to see your scraped results
2. Preview the data verify the fields are what you expected
3. Click "Export" and choose format CSV (for Excel/Google Sheets), JSON (for developers), or Excel
4. Download the file — Download the file
5. Open in Excel or Google Sheets to analyze, filter and sort — Open in Excel or Google Sheets to analyze, filter and sort
6. Import into your CRM, outreach tool or database as needed — Import into your CRM, outreach tool or database as needed

Step 6: Scale up and automate

Once you have verified the actor works for your use case, scale up: increase max results, run more frequently, or upgrade to Pro for scheduling. The workflow stays the same — only the volume changes.

For automation: upgrade to Pro ($49/mo), create a schedule for your actor, set up a webhook to send results to your tools. Your scraping pipeline now runs on autopilot.

Common beginner mistakes to avoid

• Starting too big: run 20 results first, not 2,000. Verify output before scaling.
• Ignoring actor documentation: each actor has specific input requirements and tips. Read the description.
• Forgetting to export: free tier data expires after 7 days. Export immediately after each run.
• Not checking the log: if a run fails, the log tells you why (wrong input, blocked by site, rate limited).
• Using the wrong actor: there are often multiple actors for the same site. Compare install counts and recent updates.