TL;DR
- →Choose MapsHarvest if you want Google Maps lead lists without writing code, configuring proxies, or spending hours reading documentation.
- →Choose Apify if you're a developer who wants to build custom scraping pipelines across many different websites and data sources.
What is Apify and who is it for?
Apify is a cloud scraping platform that lets developers deploy "actors" — containerized scripts that scrape websites on demand. There are community-built actors for Google Maps, but they're not officially maintained and require configuration to run properly.
Apify is genuinely powerful if you know what you're doing. You can scrape virtually any website, chain scrapers together, store results in datasets, and integrate with hundreds of tools. But the keyword is if you know what you're doing. For non-developers, the learning curve is steep — you're configuring actor inputs, managing proxy settings, handling storage exports, and debugging failed runs. That's before you've collected a single lead.
Setup & time to first lead
MapsHarvest:
- Sign up at mapsharvest.com — no credit card required
- Pick your business category from 4,000+ GMB categories
- Select your states or cities
- Hit start, download CSV when done
Total time to your first lead: under 5 minutes.
Apify:
- Create an Apify account
- Browse the Actor Store for a Google Maps actor
- Read the actor documentation and configure input JSON
- Set up proxy settings (or pay for Apify proxies)
- Run the actor, debug any failures
- Export dataset to CSV and clean the output
Total time to your first usable lead list: 2–4 hours minimum if you've never used it before.
Pricing comparison
Apify's Starter plan is $49/month and includes a compute unit allowance. Proxy usage is billed separately, and heavy scraping jobs can chew through compute units fast. For a sales team scraping multiple states per week, costs can easily climb past $100/month without careful management.
MapsHarvest starts at $19/month with a transparent 1 credit = 1 lead model. Before you start any scrape, the dashboard shows you the estimated credit cost. No surprises. You can also top up credits à la carte if you need a one-time large scrape without upgrading your plan. See our pricing page for the full breakdown.
US coverage & automation
MapsHarvest covers all 50 US states, DC, and Puerto Rico — over 30,000 cities. When you pick a state, we automatically loop through every city and town. You don't provide a list of cities. You don't configure pagination. It just works.
With Apify's Google Maps actors, city-level coverage requires you to manually provide search URLs or city lists. Running a full-state scrape means either providing hundreds of URLs upfront or scripting a loop yourself. That's developer work — not something a cold caller or sales manager should have to deal with.
MapsHarvest also has checkpoint resume: if a scrape is interrupted, you pick up exactly where you left off. Apify has no equivalent. A failed run on a large job means starting over.
Full feature comparison
| Feature | MapsHarvest | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Target user | Cold callers, sales teams | Developers & engineers |
| Setup time | 2 minutes (sign up & go) | Hours (configure actors, proxies, storage) |
| No coding required | ✓ Zero code | ✗ Requires code or actor config |
| Google Maps specific | ✓ Purpose-built | General platform (actor required) |
| Free plan | ✓ 50 credits, no card | Limited free tier |
| Starting price | $19/mo | $49/mo (Starter) |
| Proxies included | ✓ Built-in, no extra cost | Extra cost or BYO proxies |
| Anti-block built-in | ✓ Automatic | Manual proxy configuration |
| US city-by-city coverage | ✓ 30,000+ cities automated | Manual input required |
| Checkpoint resume | ✓ Built-in | ✗ Not available |
| CSV/XLSX/JSON export | ✓ One click | Requires dataset export setup |
| Smart filters (UI) | ✓ Rating, reviews, phone, website | Code-level filtering only |
| Scheduled scrapes | ✓ Scale plan | ✓ Available (paid) |
| Webhooks | ✓ Growth plan | ✓ Available |
Verdict
Apify is a great platform — if you're a developer who wants fine-grained control over a custom scraping pipeline. It's flexible, powerful, and integrates with almost anything.
But if you're a cold caller, SDR, sales agency, or lead gen consultant who wants Google Maps data in a spreadsheet without touching code, Apify will frustrate you before it helps you. MapsHarvest gives you the same data — cleaner, faster, cheaper — without the developer tax.
The 50 free credits mean you can run a test scrape right now and compare the output yourself. No credit card, no commitment.
Zero setup. Instant leads.
Start your first Google Maps scrape in under 5 minutes.
Try MapsHarvest free →