The Apify $1M Challenge
Apify is putting $1 million on the table to reward developers like you, on top of the recurring revenue you can already earn on the marketplace, the largest of its kind in the world.
The challenge is simple: build new tools, publish them in Apify Store, and if enough people use them and like them, get extra rewards besides the revenue you’ve already earned. You can build whatever you’d like, from automation workflows, web data extractors, MCP servers, and new tools for AI agents.
In September alone, Apify paid out $563k to community developers, and that was before the challenge even began!
The $1M Challenge runs until January 31, 2026, but the revenue stream continues as long as people use what you built.
What you can win:
Up to $2,000 per Actor based on monthly active users
$2,000 weekly spotlight prizes
$30K, $20K, $10K grand prizes for the top three developers
Ongoing revenue from Actors after the challenge ends
Register for the challenge and the first five Actors published by January 31, 2026, are entered automatically.
Apify $5M challenge is also on Peerlist: https://peerlist.io/fabianmume/project/the-apify-1m-challenge
If you like the project, you can support it there.
This is an incredible opportunity for developers! I love that it not only offers upfront rewards but also encourages building tools that generate ongoing value. The combination of community recognition, recurring revenue, and the chance for grand prizes creates a powerful incentive to innovate. Definitely makes me excited to see what creative Actors people will build!
We had 9 actors connected to our backend 3 months ago. We are getting rid of them and there are only 3 now in our system, there will be none by the end of the year.
Sadly, your business model made our service unprofitable. For every 300 or 400 USD customer we were paying around 250 USD to Apify.
We changed to other tools and while it took hard work, now our cost is around 25~30 USD per client.
Fix that and you have a nice service. Good luck to the developers!
Hey Fabricio, Myrsini from Apify here. Appreciate the feedback! Happy to discuss further to work out a solution or potential improvements.
Your pricing model is wrong. Take any actor that charges per use, add the fixed amount, and add the Apify fee. Now make it run 15 or 20 times a day, and you'll have a hefty fee at the end of the month. We've already made the decision. You can take my comment as feedback for your current and future customers.
Would be happy to learn more about that. I'm sure the "costs of hard work" weren't zero, and I'm sure we could find a price where the cost of Apify < costs of new tools + cost of hard work.
Of course, the team's time is expensive for us, but we will amortize it over the next few months, and as we add more customers, it will be paid for itself pretty quickly.
That’s an awesome initiative, team Apify love how you’re empowering independent developers with real rewards!
If you ever plan to amplify this challenge or future launches across major media outlets(like USA Today, Digital trends, Yahoo, or Business Insider), I’d be happy to help get it the visibility it deserves through targeted PR coverage.
Wow I have some ideas in the pipeline for Actors so this is timely :)
wohoooo, let's go!
That's a great challenge and a good opportunity for me to finally stop procrastinating building actors for the Apify marketplace.