This article contains affiliate links: we may earn a commission. Learn more
We gave Claude Code the Apify MCP server on a free account and one job: a lead list of independent bookstores in Lisbon, with emails. Fifteen places came back for $0.06 in 51 seconds, then nine emails for twelve websites for $0.11. We ran it on November 14, 2026, on a new account with no credit card, and the agent made one refused call along the way.
This is a cost test, not an MCP tutorial. Every figure below comes from our own runs, and how we test explains why our agents do the testing.
What is the Apify MCP server?
It’s a server that lets an AI agent search the Apify Store, run an Actor and read its output. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard for plugging tools into an agent, described on modelcontextprotocol.io. Apify is a store of ready-made scrapers called Actors: its homepage counted 119,578 on November 14, 2026.
You create a token in the console under Settings, API & integrations. The server address is https://mcp.apify.com/ and the token goes in an Authorization: Bearer header. We used Claude Code and kept the token off screen: it spends your credit. In our run the agent called search-actors, fetch-actor-details, call-actor, get-dataset-items and get-actor-run.
What does the free plan include?
$5 of usage a month, no credit card, and the same Store as paid plans. The pricing page of November 14, 2026 lists Free at $0 (“$5 to spend in Apify Store or on your own Actors”), Starter at $19 a month and Scale at $199. Actors bill their own way: the two we used charge per result or per page.
At $0.004 a place, $5 buys about 1,250 Google Maps places if you run nothing else. The free plan also keeps data for 7 days only: the console labelled our dataset “Will be deleted in 6 days”.
Round one: how much does a Google Maps lead list cost?
15 places for $0.0602, in 51 seconds and 6 MCP calls. Our prompt asked for independent bookstores in Lisbon, the right Actor with its price checked, and a small run. The agent picked compass/crawler-google-places (Google Maps Scraper, 4.71 stars from 1,821 reviews according to the agent) and read its price: $0.004 per place plus $0.00005 per start.
The first call-actor was refused: “Maximum cost per run is less than the allowed minimum of $0.50”. The agent had set a $0.20 cap. It read the error, retried with $0.50, and the run finished in 10.5 seconds: 15 places, $0.0602.
It then flagged what we hadn’t asked about. Three places weren’t bookstores (a souvenir shop, a record store, a generic “Store”), and Almedina is a multi-branch chain. That leaves 12 real leads, two without a phone number on Google Maps.
Round two: can the agent find the emails?
9 of 12 websites returned an email, for $0.112. A second prompt gave the agent the dataset ID and one rule: report only what the Actor returns. It kept the 12 shops with their own website and chose vdrmota/contact-info-scraper (Contact Details Scraper, $0.002 per page).
One site out of 60 requests failed, so the agent ran it again alone. The first run cost $0.101, the retry about $0.011. Three sites returned no email, and the agent crawled five pages per site, so “none” means “not found”.
What should you check before using the list?
Everything the Actor does not verify. Two addresses sit on a different domain than the shop’s, and the agent said so. None of the emails is verified: verification is a paid option at $0.10 each, which we didn’t use. These are business addresses from public pages, but rules on prospecting differ by country, so check yours first.
The agent also decided who counts as a bookstore from names and categories, nothing more. That judgment is yours.
Why does the bill say $0.32 and not $0.17?
Because the account counts five runs, and only two were the ones we filmed. Round one cost $0.0602 and round two $0.112, about 17 cents. The console’s Billing page showed $0.32 used and $4.68 left. The gap is our rehearsal and a take we threw away, both Google Maps runs, which also sit in the list of runs.
Our verdict
For a first lead list, it’s the cheapest honest test we’ve run: pennies, a few minutes, and an agent that flags the gaps in its own result. But it’s raw data. Someone still has to decide who is a lead, check the emails, and keep a cap on every run. Start on the free plan, create a token and give your agent the same prompt with your own city and trade.
Not verified: we did not test the paid add-ons, the Actors that need a browser, or any Actor other than the two above. Our Apify account is the free plan.
FAQ
Is the Apify MCP server included in the free plan?
Yes. On November 14, 2026 we created an API token on a new free account, with no credit card, and connected https://mcp.apify.com/ to Claude Code with it. The free plan gives $5 of usage a month, per apify.com/pricing. Our five runs used $0.32 of it.
How much does an Apify lead list cost?
In our test, 15 Google Maps places cost $0.0602 (the Google Maps Scraper charges $0.004 per place on the free tier), and contact emails for 12 websites cost $0.112 (the Contact Details Scraper charges $0.002 per page). Together that is about 17 cents for 12 bookstores, 9 of them with an email.
What went wrong in the test?
The agent's first run was refused: it set a $0.20 spending cap and this Actor's minimum is $0.50. It retried and succeeded. Later, one site out of 60 requests failed in the email run, and the agent ran that site again. None of the emails was verified.
Can I email the contacts the Actor finds?
They are business addresses taken from public pages, but the rules differ by country, so check yours before writing to anyone. Two addresses we got sit on a different domain than the shop, and the email verification option costs $0.10 each. Treat the list as raw data.
How long does Apify keep the data on the free plan?
Seven days. The console showed our dataset as 'Will be deleted in 6 days' on November 14, 2026, so export what you want to keep.