Connect Apify to Claude Code via MCP

Access 20,000+ web scrapers as Claude Code tools. Scrape any website, extract structured data, and build AI-powered data pipelines — all from your terminal.

MCP ServerWeb ScrapingData ExtractionFree Tier Available

What is Apify?

Apify is a cloud platform for web scraping, browser automation, and data extraction. It runs pre-built or custom automation scripts called Actors in managed Docker containers. The platform handles proxies, anti-blocking, storage, and scheduling so you can focus on what to extract rather than how.

20,000+

Pre-built Actors in the Apify Store

Free tier — $5/month credits, no card required

MCP

Official MCP server for Claude Code integration

Setup Guide

Create an Apify Account

Sign up at apify.com — the free tier includes $5 in monthly credits with no credit card required. This is enough for testing and light scraping jobs.

Get Your API Token

Go to Settings → Integrations → API Tokens in your Apify dashboard. Create a new personal token with full access. Save it — you'll need it for the MCP connection.

Security Note

Never commit your API token to source code. Store it in your .env.local file or use an environment variable.

Add the MCP Server to Claude Code

Run this command in your terminal to add Apify as an MCP server:

# Add Apify MCP server (hosted — recommended)

$ claude mcp add --transport http apify https://mcp.apify.com/sse

# Or run locally with npx

$ claude mcp add apify -- npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server

When prompted, enter your Apify API token. The hosted version at mcp.apify.com is recommended — no local installation needed.

Verify the Connection

Start a new Claude Code session and ask it to list available Apify Actors:

$ claude

> Search Apify for a Google Maps scraper

Found: apify/google-maps-scraper — Extract business listings...

If Claude can discover and describe Actors, the MCP connection is working.

Run Your First Scrape

Ask Claude to run an Actor and retrieve results:

> Use Apify to search Google for "best AI tools 2026" and give me the top 10 results

# Claude will:

# 1. Find the Google Search Scraper Actor

# 2. Run it with your query

# 3. Retrieve and format the results

# 4. Present them in a structured table

Popular Actors for AI Workflows

These are the most useful Actors for AI agent pipelines. All are available from the Apify Store and can be called directly from Claude Code via MCP.

Google Search Scraper

apify/google-search-scraper

Extract Google search results for any query — titles, URLs, snippets

Website Content Crawler

apify/website-content-crawler

Crawl entire websites and extract clean text/markdown for RAG pipelines

Instagram Scraper

apify/instagram-scraper

Scrape Instagram profiles, posts, comments, and hashtags

Amazon Product Scraper

apify/amazon-crawler

Extract product data, prices, reviews from Amazon

Google Maps Scraper

apify/google-maps-scraper

Extract business listings, reviews, contact info from Google Maps

LinkedIn Profile Scraper

apify/linkedin-scraper

Extract public LinkedIn profile data for lead generation

YouTube Scraper

apify/youtube-scraper

Extract video metadata, transcripts, comments, channel data

Web Scraper

apify/web-scraper

General-purpose scraper with CSS selectors and pagination

Use Cases

How AI Starter Package users combine Apify with Claude Code for real business automation.

Market Research

Scrape competitor websites, pricing pages, and product listings. Feed structured data into Claude for analysis.

Google Search ScraperWebsite Content CrawlerAmazon Product Scraper

Workflow

Apify scrapes → Dataset stored → Claude analyzes → Report generated

Lead Generation

Extract business data from Google Maps, LinkedIn, and industry directories. Build targeted prospect lists.

Google Maps ScraperLinkedIn Profile ScraperWeb Scraper

Workflow

Apify extracts contacts → Filter by criteria → Claude drafts outreach → Export to CRM

RAG Knowledge Base

Crawl documentation sites, wikis, and knowledge bases. Convert to structured markdown for retrieval-augmented generation.

Website Content CrawlerWeb Scraper

Workflow

Apify crawls site → Clean markdown extracted → Chunked and embedded → Claude searches at query time

Content Monitoring

Schedule recurring scrapes to monitor price changes, new content, reviews, or competitor updates.

Web ScraperGoogle Search Scraper

Workflow

Scheduled Actor run → Compare with previous → Claude summarizes changes → Alert via webhook

Apify Pricing

Apify uses a credit-based system. Most light scraping fits within the free tier.

Plan	Price	Best For
Free	$0/mo ($5 credits)	Testing, light scraping, learning
Starter	$29/mo	Freelancers, small data projects
Scale	$199/mo	Teams with regular scraping needs
Business	$999/mo	Companies with core scraping operations

Crawlee — Open-Source Alternative

Don't want to pay? Crawlee is Apify's open-source web scraping framework. Run it locally on your own machine — no API key, no costs.

# Install Crawlee (JavaScript/TypeScript)

$ npx crawlee create my-scraper

# Install Crawlee (Python)

$ pip install crawlee

Crawlee handles browser rendering, anti-blocking, retries, and data export. Use it when you want full control or need to run scrapers on your own infrastructure.

How This Fits Your AI Brain

Data In

Scrape websites → feed into knowledge base
Extract competitor data → AI analysis
Monitor prices/reviews → scheduled alerts

Works With

Claude Code (via MCP server)
n8n workflows (native integration)
RAG pipelines (structured data output)

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