Apify through Squiid

What Apify is

Apify is both a marketplace and a platform. The store holds thousands of actors, each a published scraper for a particular site or task, that you run with a JSON input and collect results from a dataset. The platform underneath runs your own code too, with residential and datacenter proxies, scheduling, request queues, dataset and key-value storage, and webhooks when a run finishes. Runs are billed by compute units plus proxy traffic. Actor inputs are schema-described, so calling one is closer to using an API than to configuring a scraper.

In AI-coded projects Apify is the shortcut when the target is a well-known site. Rather than writing selectors that break next month, you run an actor somebody maintains and consume its dataset. Common cases are social profiles, marketplace listings, review collection, job boards and directory data, usually feeding a database that an agent then queries or a vector store it retrieves from. Runs are observable with logs and intermediate results, which helps when a target site changes and a scraper starts returning empty rows.

Why connect it through Squiid

Apify is on the Squiid roadmap. When it is connected, runs and dataset access will go through https://api.squiid.io/v1/apify/... with Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY, with the official clients working by base URL swap (gateway convention), and compute units, proxy traffic and storage will meter against prepaid credits at Apify's listed price on one invoice. The token stays with Squiid, which matters on a platform where a token can start runs that cost money. Datasets can be exported as JSON or CSV, or read incrementally while a long run is still going.

• One account, one key, one bill, one dashboard. Apify sits beside every other service your project uses, on the same invoice and the same credit balance.
• Key custody. Squiid holds the Apify credentials. Your code carries SQUIID_API_KEY, so APIFY_TOKEN, APIFY_ACTOR_ID never land in a repository, a preview deployment or an agent’s context.
• Metering you can see. Every call is counted per service and per day, so you know what Apify costs before the month ends.
• Pause on zero. When prepaid credits run out the gateway stops authorizing usage instead of running up a bill you did not fund.
• One rotation. Rotating the Squiid key cuts off every agent, worker and deployment at once, with no provider key to hunt down.

What you get

• Thousands of prebuilt scrapers for specific sites
• Your own crawlers hosted with queues and storage
• Residential and datacenter proxies
• Scheduling and completion webhooks
• Apify list pricing, no markup

How to connect Apify

One variable replaces the provider credentials this service would normally need. Requests go to the gateway and the official SDKs work by pointing their base URL at it (gateway convention).

# .env
# replaces APIFY_TOKEN, APIFY_ACTOR_ID
SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

# every request: https://api.squiid.io/v1/apify/...
# header:       Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY

Pricing through Squiid

Apify charges a plan fee plus compute units, proxy traffic and storage, with some actors priced per result, at the provider's listed price. Squiid passes that through at par: one dollar of prepaid credit is one dollar of Apify usage, with no markup and no per-request margin.

Apify has no subscription attached on Squiid today. If a plan is required for a feature you need, it passes through at the provider’s listed price with no Squiid fee.

Squiid adds no markup to provider prices. There is a free plan at $0 a month with a 15% fee when you top up credits, Solo at $19.97 a month with a top-up fee that starts at 8% and falls to 3.5% as your spend grows, Team from $29.97 a seat a month with the same ladder one point lower, and Custom with a rate of 3% or less. Credits are prepaid, so Apify usage stops when the balance reaches zero rather than producing an invoice you did not fund. Auto top-up with a cap keeps production running without handing anyone an open-ended card.

If you leave

Nothing to move: Apify is usage-metered, so leaving means creating your own Apify key and pointing the client at it. Squiid never owns your code, your schema or your domain, and the gateway speaks Apify's own API, so the client change is a base URL. The handover page lists what happens for every provider in the catalogue.

Works with every coding agent

Apify through Squiid is just an HTTP call with a bearer token, so every agentic coding tool can use it with the single key already in your environment:

• Claude Code
• Cursor
• ChatGPT
• Codex
• Grok
• Gemini CLI
• GitHub Copilot
• Windsurf
• Perplexity
• Devin
• Replit
• v0
• Lovable
• Cline

Vibe coding a feature on Apify usually means asking for it in plain language and letting the agent write the integration. Because the key is Squiid’s rather than the provider’s, it can do that without ever holding a credential that could be leaked, logged or committed.