Book titles, prices, stock and ratings from the category pages of books.toscrape.com, a public sandbox site made for scraping practice.
What it does
Reads category pages of books.toscrape.com, follows their next-page links and saves one result per book: title, price, currency, stock state, star rating and the book's page URL. The data is read live at run time.
books.toscrape.com is a sandbox made for scraping practice, so this actor is a safe, cheap way to try pay-per-event scraping, or to test a data pipeline or an AI agent's tool call before you point it at a real catalogue.
Who it is for
- Developers who need a small, predictable dataset to test an import, a pipeline or a dashboard.
- Builders of AI agents who want a cheap tool call to try the Apify MCP server.
- Anyone learning how a pay-per-event actor works and what it charges.
How to use it
- Open the actor on Apify Store and go to its Input tab.
- Fill in
startUrls; every other field has a default (see Input below). - Click Start. The run ends at the limits below, or earlier at the "Maximum cost per run" you set.
- When the run ends, open the Output tab: view the results as a table, or export them as JSON, CSV or Excel.
Input
| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
startUrls |
array | required | Category pages of books.toscrape.com (the actor follows their next-page links). |
maxItems |
integer | 100 |
Stop after this many results. At most 1000 per run. |
Example input:
{}
Output
Each result is one dataset item:
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
url |
string | Web address of the item: its own page, or the page it was read from. |
title |
string | Title of the item as shown on the page. |
price |
number or null | Price as a number, in currency; null when the page shows none. |
currency |
string or null | ISO 4217 currency code of price, for example USD. |
inStock |
boolean | True when the listing shows the book as in stock. |
rating |
integer or null | Star rating (1–5) shown on the listing; null when missing. |
fetchedAt |
string | When the page was read (ISO 8601, UTC). |
Example output (real items from a test run):
[
{
"url": "https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/sharp-objects_997/index.html",
"title": "Sharp Objects",
"price": 47.82,
"currency": "GBP",
"inStock": true,
"rating": 4,
"fetchedAt": "2026-11-04T21:53:08.784Z"
},
{
"url": "https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/in-a-dark-dark-wood_963/index.html",
"title": "In a Dark, Dark Wood",
"price": 19.63,
"currency": "GBP",
"inStock": true,
"rating": 1,
"fetchedAt": "2026-11-04T21:53:08.784Z"
}
]
Download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.
Pricing
Pay per event: a small fee per run plus a fee per result saved. Platform usage is included in these prices.
| Event | When it is charged | Free plan | Bronze plan | Silver plan | Gold plan | Platinum plan | Diamond plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Run started (run-started) |
Flat fee once per run; covers starting the run. | $0.0625 | $0.05 | $0.045 | $0.04 | $0.04 | $0.04 |
Result (result-item) |
One result saved to the dataset. | $0.0063 | $0.005 | $0.0045 | $0.004 | $0.004 | $0.004 |
Example (lowest plan price): a run that saves 100 results costs $0.04 + 100 × $0.004 = $0.44. That is $4.00 per 1,000 results plus $0.04 per run. You pay only for results saved to the dataset; set "Maximum cost per run" in the run options and the actor stops there.
Limits
- One run saves at most 1,000 results and loads at most 60 pages. Larger jobs: split the start URLs over several runs.
- Default memory 512 MB; no proxy.
- When a limit is reached, the run ends normally and keeps every result saved so far; the status message says which limit it was.
The site has 1,000 books in 50 categories; it reads listing pages only, not the book detail pages.
Use with AI agents
AI agents can call this actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server. Add it to an MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code and others):
{
"mcpServers": {
"apify": {
"url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=saffo/books-fixture"
}
}
}
Or call it over HTTP and get the results in the response:
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/saffo~books-fixture/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{}'
FAQ
How much does it cost?
You pay per event: from $0.004 per result plus $0.04 per run. The Pricing section lists the price on every Apify plan. Platform usage is included, and the run stops at the maximum cost per run you set.
Can I use it from an AI agent or my own code?
Yes. Add it to any MCP client through the Apify MCP server, or call the Apify API; the examples under Use with AI agents show both. Results come back as JSON.
How many results can one run return?
Up to 1,000 results from at most 60 pages. For more, split the input over several runs.
Does it collect personal data?
No. It saves only the fields listed under Output and leaves out names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and profiles of private persons.
Is this real shop data?
No. books.toscrape.com is a demo shop built for scraping practice: its prices and ratings were assigned at random and have no real meaning. Use the actor to try pay-per-event scraping or to test a pipeline, not for market research.
Why are the prices in pounds?
The sandbox lists every book in GBP. The actor saves the price as a number and the currency code next to it, so your code never parses a "£" sign.
Support
Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab.
Changelog
0.6 (2026-11-05)
- README: the search keyword in the title, how-to steps and a FAQ; SEO title and description for search engines.
0.5 (2026-11-05)
- Maintenance release.
0.4 (2026-11-05)
- Maintenance release.
0.1 (2026-11-04)
- First release.