SocialPipe and Apify
Apify rents you compute to run a scraper. We sell you the finished call. Mostly it comes down to who you want fixing it when a platform changes.
They are not really the same kind of product
Apify runs scrapers, which they call actors, against more or less any website. You pick one from their store or write your own, and you pay for the compute it uses. A compute unit is one gigabyte of memory for an hour, at $0.20.
We are a fixed list: 329 endpoints across 9 platforms, $5 per 1,000 calls, nothing for you to run. No actor to pick, and no actor to write when the one you wanted does not exist.
Which means the prices do not compare directly, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What a compute unit gets you depends on how long the actor runs, which depends on the site, how many pages you asked for and how much memory you gave it. A call here costs what the price sheet says, before you make it.
Side by side
| SocialPipe | Apify | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per call, known in advance | Compute units: 1 GB of RAM for an hour |
| Rate | $5 per 1,000 calls | $0.20 per unit, $0.13 on the $999 plan |
| Coverage | 9 platforms, 329 endpoints | Anything an actor exists for, or that you write |
| Who maintains it | Us. A platform change is our problem | The actor's author, who may be you |
| Extras | None. The rate is the rate | Proxies, RAM and concurrency priced separately |
| Cost predictability | Known before the call | Depends how long the run takes |
| Spending ceiling | Requests stop at a zero balance | Prepaid credit plus usage |
We took their side of this table from their own pricing page on 20 September 2026. They can change it without telling us, so check before you decide. Ours comes from the same price sheet that bills you.
When Apify is the right answer
- The site you need is not one of ours. This is the big one. We cover 9 platforms and that is the whole list. Apify will point at anything with a URL.
- You need it to click around. Working through a flow, filling in a form, loading a page and reading what appears. We answer documented endpoints. We are not a browser.
- You want to own the scraper. If scraping is your product rather than something feeding it, renting compute and keeping the code makes more sense.
- You are already on Apify. If your pipeline is actors and datasets, adding one more actor beats adding one more vendor.
When we are the better fit
- Your platforms are on our list. The scraper is already written, we keep it working, and it is priced per call. Check the API reference first — if what you need is not in there, this page is not for you.
- You want to know the cost upfront. Every endpoint shows its own price, failed calls cost nothing, and spending stops when your balance runs out.
- You do not want to run anything. No actor, no memory setting, no concurrency add-on, no proxy to pick.
- You want an agent to call it. The MCP server exposes the catalogue to a client directly.
Short version: if you need lots of different sites, use Apify. If you need these 9 and would rather not maintain anything, use us. Plenty of people end up using both.
Choosing between the two
What changes when you stop renting compute.
For anything this FAQ does not cover, read the docs.
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