How to Build an Agency Shortlist from Clutch Listings

The Clutch.co Listings Scraper collects agencies from directory URLs with their service lines, rate bands, project minimums, ratings, and profile links. I maintain this Actor.

This guide builds a web-development agency shortlist. The useful result is a small set of agencies whose published services and budget expectations fit a brief, not a ranking based only on review stars.

Define the brief and choose its directory

Write down the service you need, approximate project budget, and any location or working-hours requirement. Browse the relevant Clutch directory and copy its URL into searchUrls. The example uses the web-developers directory.

maxItemsPerUrl caps each supplied directory separately and defaults to 100. With two URLs and a limit of 25, allow for up to 50 returned rows before removing overlap. The same agency can appear in multiple directories.

These are directory records. Published hourly ranges and minimum project sizes are agency claims, not offers for your project. A listing's position should not be interpreted as proof that it is your best supplier.

Budget for the sample

Pricing as of September 6, 2026. The active price is $0.0015 per returned result. Twenty-five agencies would cost $0.0375. Check current Actor pricing and the run charge breakdown; these calculations describe Actor events, and separately billed platform or proxy resources may also apply.

Collect 25 agency listings

Open the Actor on Apify. In Input, switch to the JSON editor and paste:

{
  "searchUrls": [
    "https://clutch.co/web-developers"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerUrl": 25
}

Click Start, then open the completed run’s output dataset.

Once the run finishes, inspect several profileLink values and services arrays. Check that the directory contains the kind of agency your brief needs. A web-development directory can include businesses whose main focus is mobile applications or other services.

Export JSON if you want to preserve arrays. CSV works for a review sheet if services and tags are retained in readable cells.

Read the returned fields

The historical sample shows a minimum of $50,000+ and an hourly band of $50 - $99 / hr. These are different budget signals. A low hourly rate does not make an agency suitable for a project below its stated minimum.

websiteUrl can be a Clutch redirect rather than the agency's final domain. Use profileLink for deduplication and open the website link before saving a canonical company domain. Service percentages and text such as +3 services also need interpretation, not blind numeric aggregation.

Reduce the export to a proposal list

Retain title, profileLink, websiteUrl, minProjectSize, hourlyRate, location, services, rating, and reviewCount. Add columns for budget fit, service fit, relevant case study, and review notes.

Deduplicate on the Clutch profile URL. Parse a lower bound from a project minimum only when the value is explicit; leave unknown values blank. For a $30,000 brief, an agency advertising $50,000+ merits a budget question before deeper evaluation, rather than an automatic assumption that it will accept less.

Review services next. Read both the named services and their emphasis, then open the agency website to find a project similar to your own. Record the case-study URL and the relevant outcome in your notes. A high star average with few reviews needs different context from a larger review history.

Select a handful of candidates and prepare the same brief for each: scope, deliverables, constraints, and expected timing. The dataset helps identify who to investigate; portfolio verification and comparable proposals complete the selection task.

Fix directory and field problems

If results are empty, open the supplied URL and verify that it is a company-listing directory rather than an individual agency profile or unrelated page. Keep one URL while checking the log.

Missing rate bands are unknown prices, not zero-cost services. Preserve the source text when parsing ranges, and do not sum service percentages if the listing truncates additional services. If overlapping directories produce duplicates, merge by profile link while retaining which directory introduced the candidate.

For smaller, defined freelance projects, the Fiverr shortlist guide uses gig and seller data with different price and scope checks.

For exporting Clutch agencies into your own review table, see the Node.js example. Use the current input fields above if the example differs.

Frequently asked questions

Which URLs should I provide?

Use Clutch directory or listing URLs after applying the category and location filters you need.

Is the cap global?

No. maxItemsPerUrl is applied to each URL.

Are hourly rates actual sold prices?

No. They are the published bands shown on Clutch profiles and should be treated as screening data.