Scrape Any Website on Autopilot: Apify + n8n, No Code Needed
Too many sites to check every day grinds you down. Copy, paste, reformat — an hour gone. One slip of the hand and a row gets missed. Worse still, you do the whole thing again the next day. This article covers how to hand that job off: Apify scrapes the data, n8n puts it on a schedule, and the spreadsheet is filled in before you wake up. No code at any point. Note: this is not a hands-on review. Steps are based on the Apify official integrations/n8n page (checked 2026-11-06) and n8n's official docs. Prices are as shown on the official site at the time of clicking. The n8n setup here is self-hosted; the workflow description follows its normal behavior.
What Apify does
In one line: a platform for running automation programs in the cloud. The programs are called Actors — write one once, then run it on a schedule or call it via API. Apify Store has tens of thousands of ready-made Actors you can use as-is. The company was founded in 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic, and has 25,000+ customers worldwide. There's already a full product review on this site — see the Apify review; here we only cover the wiring.
Pick an Actor: Website Content Crawler
That's the one used for this demo. Official Actor page. Don't use the old address starting with /store/ — that one now returns 404.
- What it does: deep-crawls one or more sites, extracts body text and files, outputs Markdown
- Who it's for: feeding large language models, building RAG knowledge bases
- Reputation: 4.6 stars (235 reviews), 175,000 users
- Price: $0.5–$5 per 1,000 pages in headless browser mode, $0.2 per 1,000 pages in plain HTTP mode
Free tier capacity: the Free plan gives $5 a month, no card required. For static pages only, using plain HTTP mode, $5 covers roughly 25,000 pages (at $0.2 per 1,000 pages). For a small site of a few thousand pages, that's zero cost.
Wiring up n8n in 5 steps
The Apify node is built by Apify and verified by n8n. It installs on self-hosted n8n too.
- Step 1, install the node. Go to Settings > Community Nodes and install @apify/n8n-nodes-apify.
- Step 2, connect your account. Use OAuth2, or grab an API token from Apify Console under Settings > API & Integrations and paste it in.
- Step 3, pick an action. In the node, choose Run an Actor and get dataset — it runs and hands you the dataset directly.
- Step 4, hook up the downstream. Write results into Google Sheets, or attach a notification node to send a message.
- Step 5, save the workflow. Give it a name — don't leave it as "New Workflow 1".
Other nodes in the set: Apify Trigger (fires a workflow when an Actor succeeds, fails, aborts, or times out), Run an Actor (accepts custom JSON input), Web Fetch (scrapes a single URL, returns Markdown/text/HTML), Run a task, Get items. For a single link, Web Fetch is faster — skip the deep crawl.
Scheduling: 8 a.m., spreadsheet fills itself
Once the workflow is saved, put a Schedule Trigger node in front. Set it to run once a day at 8 a.m. It runs on its own, writes the sheet on its own. Whether your computer is on or off doesn't matter — it runs on the server. Don't skip the failure branch either: Apify Trigger can listen for failures and aborts, so attach a notification node and you'll know the moment something breaks.
Cost estimate: start from the free tier
A little arithmetic. The Free plan gives $5 a month. Plain HTTP mode is $0.2 per 1,000 pages, so $5 is about 25,000 pages. Scrape 20 pages a day on a schedule and that's 600 pages a month — under $0.2. The free tier is more than enough. Starter costs $19/month and includes $19 of credit. It makes sense when: you start using the headless browser for dynamic pages; concurrency isn't enough and you hit the wall at 5 concurrent runs; you have more than 5 scheduled tasks; or you simply want to run volume and $5 won't last the month. Whether to upgrade is a question for your own billing page.
Payouts and compliance, plainly stated
Payouts. Commissions run through the FirstPromoter backend and can be sent to a bank account, Wise, or PayPal. Wise receiving USD then converting to RMB is friendly for promoters in China. Payout threshold: at least 3 referred customers plus $100 accumulated. Settled within the first 15 days of each month. Compliance. Apify is an established company registered in the Czech Republic, founded in 2015, funded and profitable, with 2023 revenue of €6.7 million. The tool itself is fine. But scraping compliance is the user's responsibility: follow the target site's robots.txt and terms of service. The tool provides capability; it doesn't carry that burden for you. There are rules on the promotion side too: no Google Ads or Meta Ads pushing affiliate links, no self-referrals, and email partners@apify.com first if you're referring enterprise customers.
Pricing tiers (checked on the official site 2026-11-06)
- Free: $0/month, $5 credit included, no card required, 5 concurrent runs, 5 scheduled tasks
- Starter: $19/month, includes $19 credit
- Scale: $199/month, includes $199 credit
- Business: $999/month, includes $999 credit
- Enterprise: custom, no price listed on the site
Priced in USD, annual billing takes 10% off, monthly fees plus overage billed by usage. Prices are as shown on the official site at the time of clicking.
How affiliate commissions work
Recurring commission. You get 20% for a referred customer's first 3 months, then 30% after that. No time cap — it runs until the per-customer cap. Starter tier (0–49 customers) caps at $2,500 per customer; Performer tier (50+ customers) caps at $5,000 per customer. Theoretical estimate, not actual earnings. Assume 100 customers all buy Scale ($199/month). For the first 3 months, each pays back $39.8 a month, so 100 customers is $3,980/month. After 3 months, each pays back $59.7 a month, so 100 customers is $5,970/month, roughly RMB 42,000/month. Annualized about $71,640. The per-customer cap is $5,000; at $59.7 a month it takes about 84 months to hit, so in practice it barely matters. Cookie duration: not published on the official page, so no number is invented here. Commissions can also be converted into platform credit, with a 15% bonus.
Six side-hustle angles: other ways to play this combo
- ⑥ Distribution. What this article is doing — write tutorials with links.
- ② A CPS directory. Add Apify to a tools collection and earn on clicks and conversions.
- ① Break the barrier for others. Build "scheduled competitor price scraping" workflows for small merchants and charge a service fee.
- ③ Sell courses. A scenario-based course on "data collection without code".
- ④ Build a product. A vertical data product on top of the Apify API.
- ⑤ Concept arbitrage. The company isn't public, so not applicable — one line and done.
Who it suits, who it doesn't
Suits: people who need to watch site data on a schedule; people who can install n8n but don't want to write a scraper; teams building RAG knowledge bases; promoters who want to distribute a tool. Doesn't suit: people scraping sites that require login or have strict anti-bot defenses; people who haven't thought through data compliance responsibility; people who just want a one-off free ride and won't run it long-term.
If you want to try it
The free plan needs no card — get it running first, talk money later. Entry point: Apify official site (affiliate short link, redirect verified working). More tool reviews in the Product Library.
Affiliate disclosure
The Apify link above is an affiliate link. If you sign up and buy through it, this site may earn a commission. Commission rate: 20% for the first 3 months, 30% after, recurring. Prices are per the official site, as displayed at the time of clicking. Commission estimates are theoretical, not actual earnings. One last honest word: the value of this combo isn't in the "scraping" — it's in the "scheduled automatic scraping." Anyone can scrape once. The spreadsheet filling itself at 8 a.m. every day is the time you actually get back.
