Basic vs Advanced exports and Cloud run costs
Compare export depth and estimate the credits a Cloud run can use.
Basic and Advanced at a glance
Cloud Importer and Cloud Aggregator can export Zillow search results in two ways. The best choice depends on the amount of property detail you need and the number of credits you want the run to use.
| Export type | Data collected | Credit rule | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Fields available directly from Zillow search-result pages | 1 credit for each results page processed | Larger, lower-cost lists where search-result data is sufficient |
| Advanced | Basic fields plus additional data collected from each primary property listing | 1 credit for each primary listing processed | Smaller or more detailed datasets where the additional property fields matter |
Basic can collect a page of search results in one operation. Advanced performs additional work for each primary listing so that it can collect the more detailed property fields. That difference is why Basic is charged by results page and Advanced is charged by listing.
Advanced does not mean that every field will contain a value. A field can be empty when Zillow does not provide that information for a particular property. Select List of exported data points in a job form to compare the fields supported by each export type.
Understand page-based and listing-based costs
A Zillow search-results page can contain up to 40 primary listings. A Cloud job can process the first page only or, when Export all listings is enabled, up to 20 pages from each source URL.
This makes the maximum cost per source URL straightforward to estimate:
| Search coverage | Basic | Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| First page only | 1 credit | Up to 40 credits |
| Up to 20 pages | Up to 20 credits | Up to 800 credits |
For Advanced, the calculation is:
primary listings processed × 1 credit
For example, if an Advanced run processes 137 primary listings, it uses 137 credits. A broad
20-page search can process as many as 800 primary listings (20 pages × 40 listings) and can
therefore use up to 800 credits in one run.
If those 137 listings were spread across four Zillow results pages, the same coverage would use four credits in Basic mode and 137 credits in Advanced mode. The Advanced run costs more because it collects the additional property-level data.
The maximum is not a prediction
Zillow may return fewer than 40 listings on a page, fewer pages than requested, duplicate results, or a different result count by the time the job runs. The review screen is an estimate. The completed result shows the actual credits used.
Failed listing retrievals do not use credits
Listing-based processing charges only for primary listings whose data is successfully retrieved. If an Advanced Importer or Aggregator, Fetcher, or Monitoring run cannot retrieve a listing, that listing uses zero credits. A successfully retrieved listing can still contain empty fields when Zillow does not provide those values.
Aggregator jobs can process several searches
Cloud Aggregator applies the same rules to every source URL in the job. Estimate each search separately, then add the estimates together.
For example, an Advanced Aggregator job with three source URLs, each capable of returning 20 full
pages, could use up to 2,400 credits (3 URLs × 20 pages × 40 listings). Overlapping properties may
appear in more than one search, and Zillow may return fewer pages or listings, so use this figure as
a maximum exposure rather than an expected charge.
Advanced rental buildings and units
Some Zillow rental results represent an entire building and include detailed information for the units inside that building. For Advanced exports, the building is the primary listing that consumes a credit. The units included within that building data do not consume additional credits.
For example, one primary building listing with details for 25 units costs one Advanced credit, not 26 credits. Enabling Export all building units can add many unit rows to the exported file, but those derived unit rows do not increase the Cloud credit charge.
This exception applies to units contained within a primary building listing. If Zillow returns separate properties as separate primary listings, each primary listing is still counted normally.
Other Cloud workflows
Cloud Fetcher always uses Advanced property processing and charges one credit for each primary property processed from the uploaded list. Cloud Monitoring also uses credits for the individual properties processed in each run. Neither workflow offers the Basic page-based option.
Check the actual charge
Before starting a job, review its export type, page coverage, number of source URLs, and estimated credit use. After the run finishes, open the result or run history to see the actual number of properties processed and credits used.