---
title: "How to Scrape AutoTrader South Africa for Used Car Prices in Rand"
slug: "how-to-scrape-autotrader-south-africa"
type: "blog-post"
url: "https://automationbyexperts.com/blog/how-to-scrape-autotrader-south-africa"
date: "2026-10-26"
category: "Web Scraping"
tags: ["AutoTrader South Africa", "Used Cars", "South Africa", "Car Prices", "Web Scraping", "Apify"]
read_time: 8
author: "Youssef Farhan"
---

# How to Scrape AutoTrader South Africa for Used Car Prices in Rand

> Export autotrader.co.za listings to Excel with numeric ZAR price, mileage, engine and power specs, dealer rating and province, for a tenth of a cent per car. Build a used car price index for any make and model in South Africa.

**Short answer:** paste an autotrader.co.za search URL, a dealer directory page or a single dealer's page into the [AutoTrader South Africa Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autotrader-co-za-scraper) and run it. It follows every results page and returns 25+ fields per car, including the price as a number in rand, mileage in km, make, model, variant, year, engine size, power in kW, torque, dealer name, suburb, province and dealer rating. It costs $0.001 per listing, so 1,000 cars cost $1.

AutoTrader is South Africa's largest car marketplace, and it is the closest thing the country has to a live used car price index. Dealers use it to price trade-ins and watch competitors, finance and insurance companies use it to value vehicles, and buyers use it to know what a fair price is. None of that is easy from the website, which shows cars one page at a time and formats prices as text. This guide shows how to get the data into a spreadsheet and what to do with it.

## What data do you get for each car?

- **Listing:** URL, ad ID, status (used, new or demo) and the full description

- **Vehicle:** make, model, variant, year, body type, transmission, fuel type, drivetrain, colour, doors, engine, engine size, power in kW and torque in Nm

- **Price:** formatted text (for example "R 294 900") and a numeric `price_zar` for calculations

- **Mileage:** formatted text and a numeric `mileage_km`

- **Dealer:** dealer ID (empty for private sellers), dealer name, suburb, province, dealer rating score and number of dealer reviews

- **Media:** gallery image URLs

The numeric price and mileage fields matter more than they look. Scrapers that return "R 294 900" as text force you to clean every row before you can sort or average anything.

## Which pages can you scrape?

- **A search page** with any filters the site supports: make, model, price, year, province. Pagination is followed automatically.

- **A dealer directory page**, such as all dealers in Johannesburg. Every dealer on it is opened and their full stock is scraped, so one URL covers a whole city.

- **A single dealer's page**, for their entire inventory.

- **A single listing.**

URLs from any other website are rejected at the start of the run, so a typo never turns into a run that looks stuck.

## How do you scrape AutoTrader South Africa step by step?

- **Build your search** on autotrader.co.za, for example all Toyota Hilux double cabs from 2019 onwards in Gauteng, and copy the URL.

- **Paste it into Start URLs** in the [AutoTrader South Africa Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autotrader-co-za-scraper). Add several searches or dealer pages if you like.

- **Set Max items** to 200 for a first test, or use the start and end page fields to scrape a specific range.

- **Run it** and download the results as Excel, CSV or JSON.

- **Schedule it weekly** to build a price history.

```
{
  "start_urls": [{ "url": "https://www.autotrader.co.za/cars-for-sale/all-cars/gauteng" }],
  "max_items": 500
}
```

## How much does it cost?

$0.001 per listing, plus a negligible start fee.

- 1,000 cars: **$1.00**

- A weekly snapshot of 5,000 cars for a month: about **$20**

There is also an optional **seller phone number** field, charged at $0.008 per number delivered, available on paid Apify plans only. The number is the same for a dealer's whole stock, so it is fetched once per dealer and reused: 500 cars from 40 dealers costs 40 phone numbers, not 500. Listings that come back without a number cost nothing extra. Apify's free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, enough for 5,000 listings without phones. You can [try it on Apify](https://apify.com/fayoussef/autotrader-co-za-scraper?fpr=youssef&fp_sid=abe_blog_autotraderza) with one search.

## How do you build a used car price index for South Africa?

- **Pick the models** that matter to you: the top sellers, your stock, or a fleet.

- **Scrape them weekly** with the same searches.

- **Group by make, model, variant and year**, and split mileage into bands such as under 50,000 km, 50,000 to 100,000 km and over 100,000 km.

- **Take the median `price_zar`** per group each week. The median is less affected by a few overpriced or mistyped listings than the average.

- **Plot the medians** over time. Within a couple of months you have a price trend per model and a clear view of depreciation by mileage.

Remember that these are asking prices, not sale prices. They are still the best public signal of the market, and a car that stays listed for weeks is a sign it is priced above what buyers will pay.

## What else can dealers do with the data?

- **Watch competitors:** scrape the dealer pages of the five dealers nearest you weekly and see what they add, drop and reprice.

- **Price trade-ins:** check the live spread for the exact variant, year and mileage before making an offer.

- **Compare dealer reputation:** the rating score and review count show which competitors customers trust.

To be told only what changed since last week, run the [Dataset Diff](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/dataset-diff) actor after each scrape: it reports new listings, removed listings and price changes. For European comparisons, [AutoScout24](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autoscout24) covers the main European markets.

## Is it legal to scrape AutoTrader South Africa?

The actor reads publicly listed vehicles and does not log in. Vehicle data such as prices, specs and dealer names is business information that is generally fine to collect for analysis. Phone numbers of private sellers are personal information under South Africa's POPIA, so collect them only for a legitimate purpose and follow POPIA's rules on direct marketing, which require consent for unsolicited electronic marketing to individuals. Do not republish listings or photos. AutoTrader is named only to describe what the actor reads; the tool is independent of AutoTrader.

## Frequently asked questions

**What does the AutoTrader South Africa scraper return?**25+ fields per car, including make, model, variant, year, numeric ZAR price, mileage in km, engine size, power, torque, transmission, fuel type, dealer name, suburb, province and dealer rating.

**How much does it cost to scrape 1,000 cars from autotrader.co.za?**$1.00, at $0.001 per listing. Optional seller phone numbers cost $0.008 each, fetched once per dealer, and require a paid Apify plan.

**Can I scrape a whole dealer's stock?**Yes. Paste the dealer's page URL and the actor scrapes their full inventory. A dealer directory page scrapes every dealer listed on it.

**Can I track price changes over time?**Yes. Schedule the same searches weekly and compare runs, or chain the Dataset Diff actor to get only new listings, removed listings and price changes.

**Is scraping AutoTrader South Africa legal?**The actor reads only public listings. Vehicle and dealer data is business information; private sellers' phone numbers are personal information under POPIA and need a lawful purpose and consent rules for direct marketing.

More car marketplaces, including Canada, Australia, the UK and Europe, are in the [vehicle scrapers hub](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/category/vehicle-scrapers).

## Actors used in this guide

- [Autotrader South Africa Car Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autotrader-co-za-scraper): It extracts detailed car listings from Autotrader.co.za - South Africa's leading vehicle marketplace - from any searc…
- [Dataset Diff - Only New & Changed Items From Any Actor](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/dataset-diff): Point it at any Apify Actor, task or dataset and it returns only what changed since the last run - new rows, edited r…
- [Autoscout24 Scraper](https://automationbyexperts.com/apify/autoscout24): Scrape pan-European car listings with full equipment lists & GPS coordinates