ZenRows alternatives: 6 options compared on published price

Fetch, extract, crawl, batch and browser primitives on one credit balance. Looking for something different? These are the vendors in our data closest to ZenRows by product type and shared price metrics, compared on published prices checked 2026-10-16. Prices only, not quality.

partial verification from $19/mo MCP: Yes · ZenRows full pricing page

What to weigh about ZenRows first

Drawn from the ZenRows record on this site: its published watch-outs and the figures we could not verify.

Watch-outs

Monthly-billed and annual-billed rates differ by about 17%; check which one you compare against.
Fully protected pages cost 25 credits each.

Could not verify

Top-ups (up to 10x per period) are offered but their price is not published on the pricing page.

Alternatives at a glance

How these were chosen: a fixed rule counts the price metrics both vendors publish plus category overlap. The order is by that score. It is not by price, popularity or commercial relationship; FetchIndex has an affiliate relationship with Firecrawl only (disclosure).

6 alternatives to ZenRows, in order of relevance
Alternative	Category	Shared price metrics	Free tier	MCP / agent support	Verification	Head-to-head
Scrapfly alternatives to Scrapfly	Scraping APIs	Basic page fetch, JavaScript-rendered page, Protected / anti-bot page	1,000 credits on signup, no card, no time limit (one-time allotment).	Yes	full verificationchecked 2026-10-16	ZenRows vs Scrapfly
ScrapingBee alternatives to ScrapingBee	Scraping APIs	Basic page fetch, JavaScript-rendered page, Protected / anti-bot page	1,000 free API credits, no card (trial grant).	Yes	full verificationchecked 2026-10-16	ZenRows vs ScrapingBee
Zyte alternatives to Zyte	Scraping APIs	Basic page fetch, JavaScript-rendered page, Protected / anti-bot page	$5 free credit trial; 30 days, no commitment.	Yes	full verificationchecked 2026-10-16	no head-to-head page
Crawl4AI alternatives to Crawl4AI	Scraping APIs	Basic page fetch, JavaScript-rendered page	Self-hosting is free forever (you pay your own infra). Cloud: 1,000 free credits/month, no card.	Yes	full verificationchecked 2026-10-16	no head-to-head page
ScraperAPI alternatives to ScraperAPI	Scraping APIs	Basic page fetch, Protected / anti-bot page	1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits.	Yes	partial verificationchecked 2026-10-16	ZenRows vs ScraperAPI
Bright Data alternatives to Bright Data	Proxies & unblockers	Basic page fetch, Protected / anti-bot page	Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier.	Yes	full verificationchecked 2026-10-16	no head-to-head page

Price comparison by use case

Basic page fetch

Basic page fetch: lowest published price per vendor (all plans)
Vendor	Lowest published price	Plan / rate	Monthly spend needed	Compared with ZenRows
Zyte	$0.06 per 1,000	$500/mo commitment - Tier 1 HTTP	$500/mo	1.5x cheaper
ScrapingBee	$0.083 per 1,000	Business	$249/mo	1.1x cheaper
Scrapfly	$0.0909 per 1,000	Enterprise	$500/mo	about the same price
ZenRows	$0.0916 per 1,000	Scale	$458/mo	this vendor
ScraperAPI	$0.095 per 1,000	Scaling	$475/mo	about the same price
Crawl4AI	$0.3327 per 1,000	Cloud Scale	$499/mo	3.6x more expensive
Bright Data	$0.9995 per 1,000	Crawl API $1,999	$1999/mo	10.9x more expensive

JavaScript-rendered page

JavaScript-rendered page: lowest published price per vendor (all plans)
Vendor	Lowest published price	Plan / rate	Monthly spend needed	Compared with ZenRows
ScrapingBee	$0.415 per 1,000	Business	$249/mo	1.1x cheaper
Scrapfly	$0.4545 per 1,000	Enterprise	$500/mo	about the same price
ZenRows	$0.458 per 1,000	Scale	$458/mo	this vendor
Zyte	$0.48 per 1,000	$500/mo commitment - Tier 1 rendered	$500/mo	about the same price
Crawl4AI	$0.6653 per 1,000	Cloud Scale	$499/mo	1.5x more expensive

Protected / anti-bot page

Protected / anti-bot page: lowest published price per vendor (all plans)
Vendor	Lowest published price	Plan / rate	Monthly spend needed	Compared with ZenRows
Zyte	$0.61 per 1,000	$500/mo commitment - Tier 5 HTTP	$500/mo	3.8x cheaper
ScraperAPI	$1.04 per 1,000	Scaling	$475/mo	2.2x cheaper
Bright Data	$1.30 per 1,000	Unlocker Scale ($499)	$499/mo	1.8x cheaper
ScrapingBee	$2.08 per 1,000	Business	$249/mo	1.1x cheaper
Scrapfly	$2.27 per 1,000	Enterprise	$500/mo	about the same price
ZenRows	$2.29 per 1,000	Scale	$458/mo	this vendor

Estimated monthly cost at example volumes

Basic page fetch, using the cost calculator model: cheapest published plan that covers each volume, including published overage rates. Free tiers are not subtracted. Open the calculator with these inputs.

Basic page fetch: estimated monthly cost
Requests / month	ZenRows	Scrapfly	ScrapingBee	Zyte	Crawl4AI	ScraperAPI
10,000	$16.00 Build (annual billing)	$30.00 Discovery	$19.00 Hobby	$1.30 Pay as you go - Tier 1 HTTP	$10.00 Cloud Starter	$44.10 Hobby (annual billing)
100,000	$58.00 Launch (annual billing)	$30.00 Discovery	$49.00 Freelance	$13.00 Pay as you go - Tier 1 HTTP	$99.00 Cloud Builder	$44.10 Hobby (annual billing)
1,000,000	$166 Growth (annual billing)	$100 Pro	$99.00 Startup	$100 $100/mo commitment - Tier 1 HTTP	$395 Cloud Builder	$149 Startup

Which alternative fits which job

Scrapfly: Scraping, screenshot, extraction and cloud-browser APIs on one key and one credit pool. Tends to fit: Anti-bot-heavy scraping with transparent credit multipliers. Watch-out: Residential/Unblocker requests burn 5-25x the base credits.
ScrapingBee: Web scraping API with headless-browser rendering, proxies and AI extraction. Tends to fit: Developers wanting simple HTTP scraping with JS rendering. Watch-out: Default JS rendering means 5 credits per request unless you turn it off.
Zyte: Zyte API: automatic unblocking, rendering and extraction with per-site difficulty tiers. Tends to fit: Per-site fair pricing where easy sites are very cheap. Watch-out: Cost varies 10x+ by site tier; you must check your target domains.
Crawl4AI: Open-source (Apache-2.0) LLM-friendly crawler, with an optional hosted Cloud API. Tends to fit: Free, self-hosted crawling for RAG. Watch-out: Self-hosting means you handle browsers, proxies and blocks.
ScraperAPI: Proxy-rotating scraping API billed in API credits, with per-domain credit costs. Tends to fit: Simple 'send URL, get HTML' scraping at modest volume. Watch-out: Credit cost varies by domain: Google SERP = 25 credits, bot-protected sites 11+.
Bright Data: Large proxy networks plus Web Unlocker, SERP, Crawl and Browser APIs, datasets and scrapers. Tends to fit: Hard anti-bot targets at scale. Watch-out: Many products with separate pricing pages; check which one you need.

When ZenRows is still the better choice

Protected sites where you want a single credit meter
Agents that need MCP/CLI/SDK access

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest alternative to ZenRows?

For basic page fetch, Zyte has the lowest published price among the alternatives listed: $0.06 per 1,000 ($500/mo commitment - Tier 1 HTTP) versus $0.0916 for ZenRows (Scale). That is price only: check reliability on your own targets, and note the cheapest plan can require a larger monthly spend.

Is there a free alternative to ZenRows?

Alternatives with a recurring free tier in our data: Crawl4AI (Self-hosting is free forever (you pay your own infra). Cloud: 1,000 free credits/month, no card); ScraperAPI (1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits); Bright Data (Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier). Free-tier limits change often; check the vendor page.

Which ZenRows alternatives support MCP?

ZenRows: yes. Alternatives with a documented MCP server in our data: Scrapfly, ScrapingBee, Zyte, Crawl4AI, ScraperAPI, Bright Data.

Keep exploring

Use-case guides

Corrections welcome: [email protected]. Each vendor page lists the official sources used.