How to collect Airbnb listing and price data without a public API using Python

Airbnb has never offered a public API for listing or pricing data, leaving developers with limited options such as static datasets or paid analytics platforms. A third approach involves collecting public Airbnb search results programmatically using a cloud-based scraping tool called an Apify Actor. The tool works around Airbnb's 270-listing search cap by splitting queries into sub-queries by price band and other filters, a method the developer calls 'exhaustive mode'. In a test run for Porto, Portugal, the script retrieved 300 unique listings in about 50 seconds at a cost of roughly $0.36, capturing fields like nightly price, ratings, and coordinates. Users are cautioned that Airbnb's terms restrict automated access, and that truncated runs can produce skewed data unless maxItems is set high enough to capture all results.