# treg vs Apify

Data APIs that answer in the same call, at 0% markup. Apify runs Actors that scrape almost any site.

Read from Apify's public pages on 5 November 2026. HTML page: https://treg.to/compare/treg-vs-apify

## treg vs Apify: the short answer

Apify and treg both give your agent paid tools through one MCP server. treg is like OpenRouter for tools: one API key and one balance for many paid APIs. treg is a catalog of commercial data and generation APIs, billed per call from a prepaid balance at the provider's rate with 0% markup, and each call returns the provider's own answer. Apify Store has 109,000+ Actors, cloud programs by Apify and other developers that scrape and automate the web, paid from a plan's monthly usage. Use Apify for a site with no API, and treg for SEO, enrichment, ad and generation data, with your own keys and accounts beside it.

## Which one fits

Choose Apify if:

- You need data from a site that has no API: Apify has an Actor, or you can build one.
- You want residential and SERP proxies for scraping hard sites.
- You want $5 of free usage every month, with no card.
- You want to build Actors and sell them in Apify Store.
- You want runs on a schedule, with webhooks and workflow integrations.

Choose treg if:

- Your agent needs SEO, enrichment, ad or generation data from commercial APIs.
- You want the provider's own answer in the call, not a run and a dataset to read after.
- You want a prepaid balance with no plan and no seats, at 0% markup.
- You want your own keys to win and never be metered, and your own accounts behind one token.
- You want a team daily spend cap, a per-call cost ceiling and per-member call caps.

## treg vs Apify, side by side

"Not published" means the product's pages say nothing about it.

### Billing

| | treg | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | A prepaid team balance. Each catalog call is billed at the provider's own rate. No subscription and no seats. | Plans with prepaid monthly usage: Free $0 ($5), Starter $19, Scale $199, Business $999. Actors bill per event or per compute unit; paid plans pay overage up to a limit you set. |
| Free start | $1.00 of credit, once per new verified account. No card. | $5 of usage every month, no card. Access pauses when it runs out. |
| Fees | 0% markup, a commitment in the terms. No top-up fee. Calls on your own keys, tools and connected accounts are never metered, except X through treg's own X app, which X bills per use. | Actor prices are set by their developers; Apify keeps 20% of an Actor's revenue. Compute is $0.13 to $0.20 per unit by plan. Unused monthly usage expires. |
| x402 or stablecoin pay per call | Not yet. Top-ups are by card today. | Yes: x402 or MPP (USDC on Base or Solana, and more) buys a prepaid token with a fixed spend cap, from $1. The token expires after 14 days. |

### What your agent can use

| | treg | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Size, in their words | 4,100+ tools across 126 providers, plus the tools your team registers. | 109,000+ ready-to-run tools called Actors (Apify Store). |
| Paid data with no account at the vendor | Yes: SEO and SERP data, backlinks, people and company enrichment, social profiles and posts, ad libraries, web search and scraping, image, video and voice generation. | Yes, mostly web scraping: social platforms, maps, search results, e-commerce and any website, through Actors by Apify and other developers. |
| Your own accounts | Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads, Business Profile, Tag Manager, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Pinterest Ads, Snapchat Ads, YouTube, LinkedIn, Slack, X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook Pages. | Integrations send run results to Google Drive, Airtable, HubSpot, Snowflake, Zapier, Make and n8n. |
| Actions (writes) | Writes in your connected accounts (ad changes, Slack messages, social posts) and any API or CLI your team registers. No triggers or scheduled workflows: the agent runs the steps. | Actors automate work on the web. Schedules, tasks and webhooks run without the agent. |
| What a call returns | The provider's own answer, unchanged. Routed tools add a small wrapper and say so. | An Actor run. Its results go to a dataset that you read with a second call, in the shape the Actor's developer chose. |

### How your agent connects

| | treg | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| MCP | A remote MCP server with OAuth or a token header, for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others. | A remote MCP server (mcp.apify.com) with OAuth or a token, a local stdio server and plugins for coding agents. The server is open source (MIT). |
| API, CLI and SDKs | An HTTP API (method, path, query and body reach the provider unchanged), a CLI and an agent skill. No SDKs. | A REST API with OpenAPI, JavaScript and Python clients, a CLI and Agent Skills. |
| Bring your own keys | Yes, on every account. Your team's key always wins and is never metered. | Not published |
| Open source and self-host | Code on GitHub under Apache 2.0 with added terms. You can self-host for your own team; offering it as a hosted service to others needs permission. | Crawlee and the CLI under Apache 2.0, the MCP server under MIT. Self-hosting the platform is not published. |

### Control

| | treg | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Price before the call | Yes. Each tool's rate, with its source and the date it was checked. | Yes for pay-per-event Actors, on each Actor's page. Pay-per-usage cost is known after a test run. |
| Spend limits | A team daily spend cap, a per-call cost ceiling, per-member daily call caps and daily budgets per tagged customer (advisory). No per-key hourly or lifetime caps. | A monthly usage limit on paid plans (at most $100 of overage on Starter) and a maximum charge per run. |
| Call records | An audit log of calls with their cost, and every charge in the balance ledger. | A log for each run and a daily usage chart in billing. |
| Team | Teams with owner, admin, member and viewer roles, and tool access per member. | Organization accounts on all plans, with members, permissions and one bill. |

## Where Apify does best

- **The size of the store.** 109,000+ Actors, built by Apify and other developers. If a site has no API, there may be an Actor for it, or you can build one with the open-source Crawlee.
- **Pay with no account.** An agent can pay with x402 or MPP and get a prepaid token with a fixed spend cap, from $1.
- **Free usage every month.** $5 of usage renews each month, with no card.
- **Sell your own tools.** Developers publish Actors to Apify Store and keep 80% of the revenue.
- **Runs without the agent.** Schedules, tasks, webhooks and integrations with Zapier, Make, n8n and data stores.

## Where treg is the better choice

- **The provider's own answer.** A treg call returns the provider's answer, unchanged, in the same call. An Apify call starts a run, and you read its dataset after.
- **Commercial data APIs.** SEO and SERP data, backlinks, people and company enrichment, ad libraries and image, video and voice generation, on treg's accounts.
- **No plan, 0% markup.** A prepaid balance billed at each provider's rate, with no markup, no top-up fee and no seats.
- **Your own keys and accounts.** Your key for a provider wins and is never metered. Your connected Google, Meta and other accounts are behind the same token.
- **Self-host for your team.** treg's code is on GitHub under Apache 2.0 with added terms, and you can run it for your own team.

## Using Apify and treg together

Both are MCP servers, so one agent can hold both. A team could use Apify to scrape a site without an API, and treg for SEO, enrichment and ad data, its own keys and its connected accounts.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is there an Apify alternative for AI agents?

Yes, for data APIs. treg is an Apify alternative that gives an agent SEO and SERP data, enrichment, ad libraries and image, video and voice generation, billed per call. Apify is the choice for a site with no API, with 109,000+ Actors in Apify Store.

### How much does Apify cost?

Apify pricing starts free, with $5 of usage a month and no card. Paid Apify plans cost $19, $199 and $999 a month with the same amount of usage, and Actors bill per event or per compute unit. Apify keeps 20% of an Actor's revenue.

### Does Apify have an MCP server?

Yes. Apify runs a remote MCP server at mcp.apify.com with OAuth or a token, a local stdio version and plugins for coding agents. Apify's MCP server is open source under MIT.

### Apify vs treg: what is the difference?

The main difference is what a call returns. An Apify call starts an Actor run, and you read its dataset with a second call, in the shape the Actor's developer chose. A treg call returns the provider's own answer, unchanged, in the same call.

### Can I use Apify and treg together?

Yes. Apify and treg are both MCP servers, so one agent can hold both. A team could use Apify to scrape a site without an API, and treg for SEO, enrichment and ad data, its own keys and its connected accounts.

### How does treg pricing work compared with Apify?

treg bills each call from a prepaid balance at the provider's own rate, with 0% markup, no top-up fee, no plan and no seats. treg gives $1.00 of credit once per new verified account. On Apify, unused monthly usage expires.

### Can I self-host treg?

Yes. treg's code is on GitHub under Apache 2.0 with added terms, and you can self-host treg for your own team. Apify does not publish a way to self-host its platform; Apify open-sources Crawlee and its CLI under Apache 2.0.

## Sources and method

1. [Apify home page](https://apify.com)
2. [Apify pricing](https://apify.com/pricing.md)
3. [Apify Store](https://apify.com/store)
4. [Agentic payments (x402, MPP)](https://agi.apify.com/AGENTS.md)
5. [Apify MCP server docs](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp)
6. [Monetize your Actor](https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/publishing/monetize)
7. [Organization accounts](https://docs.apify.com/platform/collaboration/organization-account)
8. [Apify MCP server on GitHub](https://github.com/apify/apify-mcp-server)

Read on 5 November 2026. Corrections: jason@treg.to.

All comparisons: https://treg.to/compare