---
title: "Apify Rental Actors Retired: What Changed and What a Scraper Costs Now"
slug: "apify-rental-actors-retired-what-scrapers-cost-now"
type: "blog-post"
url: "https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/apify-rental-actors-retired-what-scrapers-cost-now"
date: "2026-10-28"
category: "Apify"
tags: ["apify", "apify pricing", "pay per event", "pay per result", "web scraping costs"]
read_time: 8
author: "Youssef Farhan"
---

# Apify Rental Actors Retired: What Changed and What a Scraper Costs Now

> Apify retired flat-fee rental Actors on 1 October 2026. Here is what changed, the pricing models you will see now, and how to work out cost per 1,000 results.

**Apify retired its flat-fee "rental" Actors on 1 October 2026, so you can no longer pay a fixed monthly rent to use a scraper.** According to Apify's documentation, remaining rental Actors were moved to pay-per-usage pricing, which means your cost now follows how much you run. The fix is simple: budget by cost per 1,000 results, pick scrapers that publish a per-result price, and cap spend before you schedule anything.

## What exactly changed with Apify rental Actors?

Rental pricing meant an Actor developer charged a flat monthly fee for unlimited use, and you also paid the platform usage (compute) of your runs. Per [Apify's rental documentation](https://docs.apify.com/actors/publishing/monetize/rental), the timeline has two dates:

- **1 April 2026:** no new rental Actors can be published and pricing on existing ones cannot be changed.

- **1 October 2026:** rental Actors are fully retired and the remaining ones are migrated to pay-per-usage pricing.

An Apify developer blog post on migrating to pay-per-event gives 30 September as the migration deadline, one day before the date in the docs. Treat the exact cutoff as "end of September or the first of October". It has passed either way. A write-up on [imisofts.com](https://imisofts.com/blog/apify-rental-actors-retired/) adds that the default exit for a developer who does nothing pays nothing, which is why many Actors were re-priced before the deadline.

Note on sourcing: we could read these claims only through search summaries of the Apify docs and third-party blogs, not the live Apify pages, so check the official pricing page before you rely on a figure.

## What are the Apify pricing models you will see now?

| Model | You pay | Cost predictability |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pay per result | A set price per item returned | High: results x price |
| Pay per event | A set price per defined event (an Actor start, a result, an enrichment) | High if you read the event list |
| Pay per usage | Platform compute and storage only, no developer margin | Lower: varies with run time and proxies |
| Rental (retired) | Flat monthly fee plus usage | Was high, now gone |

The practical consequence: a line that used to be a fixed number in your budget is now variable. [ScrapeGraphAI's Apify pricing breakdown](https://scrapegraphai.com/blog/apify-pricing) explains compute units, which is the unit pay-per-usage runs are metered in.

## Other Apify pricing changes reported in 2026

Pricing trackers report several smaller changes this year. These come from third-party trackers, not Apify announcements, so verify them:

- The per-run Actor RAM ceiling was reported doubled at every tier in July with no price change.

- The RAM add-on was reported cut from $2 to $1 per GB.

- The Free plan was reported cut to 5 concurrent runs, down from 25, in August.

If you run many scrapers at once on the free plan, the concurrency limit is the one most likely to affect you. See [our guide to the Apify Creator plan and proxy credits](https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/apify-creator-plan-1-dollar-500-credits-proxies) for the cheaper way to get more room.

## How do you work out what a scraper really costs now?

Use one number: **cost per 1,000 results**. Everything else is noise.

- **Find the price unit.** Open the Actor page and look for "per result" or an event list. A per-result price is the easiest to budget.

- **Multiply.** Results per run x runs per month x price per result.

- **Add proxy and compute if the Actor is pay-per-usage.** Run a small test (50 results), read the usage figure in the run log, and scale it up.

- **Set a maximum spend per run.** Apify lets you cap the charge on a run, so a runaway crawl cannot surprise you.

Example with prices taken from the Actor pages on this site (each states its own rate and the $5 free credit for a new Apify account):

| Actor | Listed price | 10,000 results |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kijiji Scraper | $0.0015 per result | $15.00 |
| Autotrader Canada Scraper | about $1.00 per 1,000 listings | about $10.00 |
| Canada411 Business Contact Scraper | about $0.20 per 1,000 results | about $2.00 |
| Bulk LLM Runner | from $0.002 per result | from $20.00 |

These are arithmetic on the published rates, not measured run costs. Prices can change, so confirm on the Actor page before you commit a budget.

## Why does pay per event make budgeting easier?

In pay per event, as Apify's Store lists it, the Actor author defines billable events, for example an Actor start or each result returned, and sets a price for each. For you as a user, that turns the Actor page into a price list. You can read the events, multiply by your expected volume and know the bill before the run starts. Pay per usage has no such list: the same input can cost more on a heavy site that needs residential proxies or a browser than on a light one, so you only learn the cost by testing.

That difference is why we suggest treating "pay per usage" as a prompt to run a pilot, and "pay per result" or "pay per event" as a prompt to do the arithmetic. Neither is better in every case. If an Actor does a lot of cheap work to return few results, usage pricing can be cheaper. If it returns many results from one fast request, a per-result price can be dearer than the raw compute. Test both when the volume is large.

## Should you stay on Apify, self-host, or use an API?

Ask three questions.

- **Is your volume steady and large?** Past a few hundred thousand results a month, compare against a self-hosted crawler on your own server. You then own proxies, retries and breakage.

- **Do you need it to keep working when the site changes?** A maintained Actor absorbs that for you. Self-hosting does not.

- **Is the data available from an official API?** If yes, the API is usually the safer choice. If no, a scraper is the practical route.

For a wider look at keeping scraping costs down, read [how to track competitor prices automatically](https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/track-competitor-prices-automatically-2026) and [how to scrape car listings from Autotrader, AutoScout24 and Kijiji](https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/scrape-car-listings-autotrader-autoscout24-kijiji). For other options by niche, browse the [vehicle scrapers hub](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/category/vehicle-scrapers).

## What does a monthly budget look like in practice?

Take a team that tracks used-car listings and runs one search every day. Suppose each run returns 500 listings. That is 15,000 results a month. At the listed Autotrader Canada rate of about $1.00 per 1,000 listings, the arithmetic gives about $15 a month. At the Kijiji rate of $0.0015 per result, 15,000 results come to $22.50. These are illustrations built from published rates, not measurements of a real account, and they exclude any Apify plan fee you may pay.

Now compare a pay-per-usage Actor you have never run. You cannot do the sum yet. So do this: run 100 results, note the usage cost in the run log, divide by 100 to get a per-result figure, then multiply by 15,000. Add a safety margin of your choosing for retries and site changes, and set the per-run limit just above the number you expect.

## What mistakes should you avoid after the switch?

- **Scheduling before testing.** A daily schedule multiplies any surprise by 30. Run it by hand first.

- **Ignoring result limits.** A search URL with no limit can crawl every page. Always set a maximum number of items.

- **Reading the headline price only.** Check whether the Actor lists extra events, such as an enrichment step, that add to the per-result price.

- **Assuming last quarter's price still holds.** Developers can re-price, and Apify changed its own plans several times this year according to trackers.

- **Forgetting the free credit.** A new account's $5 credit is the cheapest way to run a pilot, so use it for the test and not for production.

Teams that send scraped data into n8n or Make should also remember that their automation tool bills separately, per execution or per operation, so the scraper is only one line of the total. We compare those in [n8n vs Zapier vs Make for AI workflow automation](https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/n8n-vs-zapier-vs-make-ai-workflow-automation-2026).

## What should you do this week?

- List every Actor you used on a rental plan. Check each Actor page for its new price unit.

- Re-run one small job per Actor and write down the real cost of 100 results.

- Set a per-run spend limit on every scheduled task.

- Replace any Actor that now shows only "pay per usage" with a per-result alternative if predictability matters to you.

- Re-check the numbers monthly, because pricing changed several times this year.

## FAQ

**Are Apify rental Actors gone for good?**Per Apify's documentation, rental Actors were fully retired on 1 October 2026 and the remaining ones moved to pay-per-usage. New rental Actors could not be published after 1 April 2026.

**Do I need to re-subscribe or change my setup?**The sources we could read do not say that users must take any action. Check each Actor page for its current price unit and re-test a small run, because your bill is now metered rather than flat.

**What is the difference between pay per result and pay per usage?**Pay per result charges a fixed price for each item returned, so cost is results x price. Pay per usage charges only for platform compute and storage, so cost depends on how long a run takes and what proxies it uses.

**How do I stop a scraper from overspending?**Set a maximum charge per run in the run options, keep result limits low on test runs, and watch the usage figure in the run log before you schedule a job.

**Is there a free way to test an Actor?**A new Apify account gets $5 of free credit, which our Actor pages note covers thousands of results on the cheaper scrapers.

## Try a per-result scraper

If you want a predictable bill, start with a scraper that publishes a per-result rate. [Create a free Apify account](https://apify.com/fayoussef?fpr=youssef&fp_sid=blog), run one of the Actors above on a small input and check the cost before you scale.

Last updated: October 2026

## Actors used in this guide

- [Autotrader Canada Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autotrader-canada): Extract complete car listings from Canada's largest auto marketplace
- [Autotrader Canada - Per Result](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autotrader-ca): Alternative Autotrader.ca scraper with raw API JSON payload
- [Canada411.ca Business Contact Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/canada411-ca): It crawls Canada411.ca and extracts business and people contact information from every listing - names, phone numbers…