Build a price tracker with Crawlee and Apify

Description and use

Create an automated price tracker with Crawlee and Apify: a Python script that scrapes a product page, stores data, and sends email alerts when the price drops below a set threshold.

Problem

Need to monitor product price and receive alerts when it drops below a threshold.

Outcome

The workflow produces a fully functional price tracker that automatically scrapes a product page, stores data, and sends email alerts when the price drops below a user-defined threshold.

Workflow

• Install Apify CLI via Homebrew or NPM
• Create a new Actor using the Python + Crawlee + BeautifulSoup template
• Open src/main.py and replace start_urls with target product URL
• Modify request_handler to extract product name and price using CSS selectors
• Test the scraper with apify run --purge and verify JSON output
• Add price threshold logic and call Apify’s Send Email Actor when price < threshold
• Configure APIFY_API_TOKEN via apify login
• Run the Actor locally to confirm email alerts
• Push the Actor to Apify Cloud with apify push
• Update Actor settings (Start URLs, email) and start the run
• Export scraped data in CSV/Excel/JSON from the Actor output

Evidence

Install the Apify CLI. You can do this using either Homebrew or NPM with the following commands: brew install apify-cli npm -g install apify-cli

Source

Define a price thresholdprice_threshold = 80… if data['price'] < price_threshold: actor_run = await Actor.start( actor_id="apify/send-mail", …

Source