Irmu vs Apify
A marketplace of pre-built Actors versus a direct API you call from your own code.
Apify is a platform before it is a scraping API. You run Actors — containerised scrapers, thousands of them in a public marketplace — on Apify's compute, and you pay for compute units, data transfer and any per-Actor fees on top. For a target someone has already built an Actor for, that is a shortcut measured in days.
The trade is that pricing is usage-shaped rather than request-shaped. A compute unit is not a page, and cost depends on how efficiently the Actor you chose was written. Failed-request policy does not map cleanly onto this model at all, because you are billed for compute regardless of what any individual request returned.
Irmu is the simpler primitive. You call an endpoint from your own code, you get a page back, and you are charged a known number of credits for it. No container, no compute unit, no third-party Actor whose efficiency you cannot see.
What each one costs
Public list pricing, checked on 29 August 2026. Vendors change plans often — verify on their pricing page before you commit.
Irmu
$40 / month — 200,000 credits
Credits, one ledger for every API. Plain fetch is 1 credit, JavaScript rendering 5, premium residential 10, premium plus rendering 25, an AI extraction query 5, and geotargeting by country, region or city is free. A response from the target — including 404, 500 or an anti-bot block — is a successful request and is billed. Requests Irmu cannot serve for its own internal reasons, or to domains outside coverage such as .gov, are not billed.
Apify
$29 / month (Starter) — $29 of included platform usage
Compute Units for Actor runtime, plus data transfer and proxy gigabytes, plus any per-Actor fees the developer sets. Cost per page depends on how efficiently the Actor is written, not on a published per-request rate.
- Apify's $29 Starter plan buys $29 of platform usage, not a page count, so cost per page can only be measured by running your Actor on real data.
- Apify's free plan gives $5 of platform credit a month with no card; Irmu's gives 200 credits a month.
- Because billing is compute-based, Apify has no per-request success or failure policy comparable to Irmu's. Irmu bills any response the target returns and absorbs its own internal failures and uncovered domains such as .gov.
Side by side
| Capability | Irmu | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Credits per request, published table | Compute units, transfer and Actor fees |
| Cost predictability | Known before you send the request | Depends on Actor efficiency and run length |
| Pre-built scrapers | Integrations plus AI extraction on any page | Thousands of marketplace Actors |
| Where code runs | Your infrastructure calls the API | Apify's platform runs your container |
| Scheduling and storage | Batch and webhooks, you own storage | Built-in scheduler, datasets and key-value stores |
| Proxy access | Not available yet — use GET /crawl | Apify Proxy, billed per gigabyte |
| Time to first result | One GET request | Pick or write an Actor, then run it |
| Vendor lock-in surface | One HTTP endpoint | Actors, datasets and platform primitives |
Which one fits your job
Choose Apify when
- An Actor already exists for your target and you would rather rent it than build it.
- You want the platform to own scheduling, storage and run history instead of your own infrastructure.
- Your scrapers are complex, stateful jobs rather than page fetches.
- Your team is already fluent in Crawlee and the Apify SDK.
Choose Irmu when
- You want cost per page to be a number you can compute before you run anything.
- Your scraping is one step inside a larger service you already operate.
- You would rather not depend on a third-party Actor's maintenance and efficiency.
- Browser control, screenshots, extraction and proxy on one key is the shape you want.
What Apify does well
- Thousands of ready-made Actors
- Built-in scheduling, storage and datasets
- Crawlee is genuinely good open-source tooling
- Flexible for complex custom workflows
Apify is a platform you build on; Irmu is a service you call. If you want run history, datasets and a marketplace, Apify earns its complexity. If you want a page back for a known number of credits, Irmu is less to reason about.
The same request, both ways
Moving off an Actor usually means replacing the run-and-poll cycle with a direct request from your own worker.
Apify
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(APIFY_TOKEN)
run = client.actor("apify/web-scraper").call(run_input={
"startUrls": [{"url": "https://example.com/product/42"}],
"pageFunction": "async ({ page }) => ({ html: await page.content() })",
})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
html = items[0]["html"]Irmu
import requests
r = requests.get(
"https://app.irmu.com/api/crawl",
params={
"url": "https://example.com/product/42",
"js": "true",
"premium": "true",
"country": "us",
},
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {IRMU_KEY}"},
timeout=90,
)
r.raise_for_status()
html = r.textSwitching questions
Other comparisons
Irmu vs Firecrawl
Agent-ready markdown and crawling versus a full fetch, browser, screenshot and proxy stack.
Irmu vs ScrapingBee
A closely matched credit model — the difference is browser control and the proxy port.
Irmu vs ScrapingDog
Similar entry pricing — the split is dedicated site scrapers versus general-purpose access.
Irmu vs ScraperAPI
Structured e-commerce endpoints and no-code pipelines versus a general access layer.
Irmu vs ZenRows
Two similar credit-based platforms — the difference is agent tooling versus browser and proxy depth.
Irmu vs Bright Data
The largest proxy network in the market versus a simpler, credit-priced access layer.
Irmu vs Oxylabs
Per-target enterprise pricing and strict pay-for-success versus a single credit ledger.
Try Irmu alongside Apify
200 free credits every month, no card required — benchmark on your own targets.