Iñigo is correct in how he explained it to you. Apify doesn't get any money from free users, we just give them $5 to use in Apify but it's not real money. It's a discovery tool for everyone, as otherwise we are asking people to pay for something they have no reason to trust. This way they try your Actor and see that the results they get are the ones they want, and then sign up for a paid plan where everyone gets paid real money. If you don't let free users try your Actor then they will never know if it does what they need - that's fine if you're not depending on new customers for revenue, but assuming you need customers then it's best to let them get some results. Price your Actor so that your paying customers cover the operating costs, then make it more expensive for free tier users to reduce the number of results they can get.