Collectors · App stores

Google Play scraper API in Python

Google Play app detail by package name — rating, reviews, category, price. One POST from Python with packages, rows back as JSON with 26 fields, $0.006 per delivered app. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the google_play_apps collector returns one dict per app, at $0.006 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_play_apps/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "packages": ["com.spotify.music","com.whatsapp"],
        "country": "us",
        "lang": "en",
        "max_results": 10,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("package"), row.get("title"), row.get("developer"), row.get("developer_url"))

Python: one Google Play apps run (Due package (US)), printing package, title, developer, developer_url

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Google Play apps collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`packages`	array	yes	Android package names (com.spotify.music) or Play store URLs.
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — picks the local site AND the proxy exit (default us).
`lang`	string	no	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, it, de.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 10)	How many apps to deliver at most (1–50). You pay only for delivered apps.

Response fields

26 fields per app.

Fields of each row (app)
Field	Type	What it holds
`package`	string	Android package name.
`title`	string	App name.
`developer`	string, nullable	Developer name.
`developer_url`	string, nullable	Developer page URL.
`category`	string, nullable	Play category.
`description`	string, nullable	Store description (trimmed).
`rating`	number, nullable	Average rating.
`reviews`	integer, nullable	Rating count.
`price`	number, nullable	Numeric price (0 = free).
`currency`	string, nullable	Currency code.
`content_rating`	string, nullable	Content rating.
`operating_system`	string, nullable	Target OS.
`installs`	string, nullable	Install band when the page shows one.
`icon`	string, nullable	Icon URL.
`url`	string	Localized store URL.
`full_description`	string, nullable	The full store description (up to 6000 characters).
`genres`	string[]	Genre chips shown on the page.
`screenshots`	string[]	Screenshot URLs at original size (up to 12).
`updated`	string, nullable	"Updated on" date as shown.
`updated_at`	string, nullable	The same date as YYYY-MM-DD.
`in_app_purchases`	boolean	True when the page says the app has in-app purchases.
`contains_ads`	boolean	True when the page says the app contains ads.
`editors_choice`	boolean	True when the app carries the Editors' Choice badge.
`developer_id`	string, nullable	Developer id on Google Play.
`availability`	string, nullable	Offer availability (InStock…).
`free`	boolean, nullable	True when the price is 0.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_play_apps/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"packages":["com.spotify.music","com.whatsapp"],"country":"us","lang":"en","max_results":10}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.006 per delivered app.

What Google Play apps rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.006
1,000	$6.00
10,000	$60.00

Up to 50 apps per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 333 apps. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Google Play apps API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 333 apps of this collector at $0.006 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 50 apps per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.006 per delivered app, no subscription.

Get an API key Google Play scraper API