Actors on Apify Store use one of four pricing models:
Pay per usage - paying for the used platform resources.
Rental - paying a flat monthly fee and the used platform resources.
Pay per result - paying for the produced dataset results.
Pay per event - paying for events defined by the Actor creator. An event can be anything from starting a run, processing a page, or making an external API call.
How do I know if an Actor is pay-per-event?
Pay-per-event Actors are marked with a "pay per event" label:
It's labeled next to the Actor's name in Apify Console.
Or next to the "Try for free" button on Apify Store.
How much does the Actor cost?
Each chargeable event has a fixed cost, detailed in the Actor's pricing breakdown, which allows you to understand your charges precisely.
The Actor's creator defines these events and their costs, which are displayed on the Actor's page. You can view your costs in your invoices and Billing > Historical usage.
Are there any other costs?
As with other pricing models, you will still be charged for reading and writing to datasets and storing results on the Apify platform. These costs are determined by your Apify plan and can be found in Billing > Pricing.
However, these costs are typically just a few cents when operating with pay-per-event Actors, unless you access the results repeatedly.
How is it different from other pricing models?
Pay per result
Pay per event charges for specific actions rather than just results. This can be more cost-effective for Actors with complex logic and high volumes of actions. For example, an Actor previously priced at $5 per 1,000 results might now cost $5 per run start and $2 per 1,000 results. This would reduce the cost of 5,000 results from $25 (pay per result) to $15 (pay per event).
As with pay-per-result Actors, you can set a maximum cost limit when starting a run. The Actor will terminate the run gracefully when it reaches this limit, and you will never be charged more than your defined limit.
Pay per usage
With pay per usage, you need to calculate how many platform credits your Actor will use. That was often hardly predictable. With pay per event, you have transparent, predictable pricing that gives you better budget control than estimating platform resources.
Rental
Once you rented an Actor, you paid the rental regardless of how many times you used it. With pay per event, you pay only for the events you trigger.
Have you encountered any problematic charges?
If you believe charges for an Actor are incorrect or if you suspect a bug in the Actor, please contact the Actor's creator via the Issues tab on the Actor's detail page in Apify Console.
So, what’s changing in a nutshell?
The pay-per-event pricing model offers a flexible and transparent way to pay for Actor usage, charging you for specific actions rather than platform resources or results. This model can be particularly cost-effective for Actors with complex operations and high volumes of events.
You can always expect the same performance and results from an Actor, regardless of the pricing model. The core functionality of the Actor remains unchanged.