ScraperAPI vs ScrapingBee: price per 1,000 pages
Published prices compared, with the arithmetic shown. Last checked . Prices only: we have not tested reliability, speed or output quality.
At a glance
| ScraperAPI | ScrapingBee | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | scraping apis | scraping apis |
| Free tier | 1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits. | 1,000 free API credits, no card (trial grant). |
| Entry paid price | from $49/mo | from $19/mo |
| MCP / agent support | Yes | Yes |
| Verification | partial verification | full verification |
| Official pricing page | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) | Pricing (opens official site in a new tab) |
Analysis
ScraperAPI and ScrapingBee are close cousins: monthly credit plans, a simple HTTP API, JS rendering and proxy tiers. The difference is mostly credit buckets and multipliers.
Like-for-like credit buckets
| Use case | Monthly spend | ScraperAPI | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic page fetch | up to $50/mo | $0.441 Hobby (annual) | $0.196 Freelance |
| Basic page fetch | up to $100/mo | $0.441 Hobby (annual) | $0.099 Startup |
| Basic page fetch | up to $500/mo | $0.095 Scaling | $0.083 Business |
| Basic page fetch | any budget | $0.095 Scaling | $0.083 Business |
| Protected / anti-bot page | up to $50/mo | $5.39 Hobby | $4.90 Freelance |
| Protected / anti-bot page | up to $100/mo | $5.39 Hobby | $2.48 Startup |
| Protected / anti-bot page | up to $500/mo | $1.04 Scaling | $2.08 Business |
| Protected / anti-bot page | any budget | $1.04 Scaling | $2.08 Business |
What that means
- Plain pages. ScrapingBee gives you more credits per dollar at every comparable size: $0.2533 (Hobby, 75k credits) vs $0.49 (ScraperAPI Hobby, 100k credits) per 1,000; $0.099 (1M credits, $99) vs $0.149 (1M credits, $149); $0.083 (3M, $249) vs $0.0997 (3M, $299).
- Bot-protected pages. ScraperAPI's FAQ adds 10 credits when it bypasses Cloudflare, Datadome or PerimeterX, so an 11-credit page costs $1.10 per 1,000 on its $299 plan. ScrapingBee's premium proxy plus JavaScript is 25 credits: $2.08 per 1,000 on its $249 plan. Per request, ScraperAPI is cheaper here, if the target falls in its bypass category. The two definitions are not identical.
- JS rendering. ScrapingBee's default (JS on) is 5 credits ($0.495 per 1,000 on Startup). ScraperAPI's pricing page does not state the JS-rendering multiplier, so we leave that cell blank rather than guess.
- SERP. ScraperAPI lists Google/Bing at 25 credits: $2.49 per 1,000 searches on Business. ScrapingBee's pricing page does not publish a SERP rate, so there is no number to compare.
- Free tiers. Both give 1,000 free credits to start; ScraperAPI's FAQ describes it as monthly, ScrapingBee's page as a trial grant.
Verdict
For ordinary and JS-rendered pages, ScrapingBee is cheaper on the published numbers. For heavily protected sites where ScraperAPI's +10 bypass rule applies, ScraperAPI's per-request cost is lower, but it hides that cost in a FAQ, so use its domain cost estimator before you commit. Neither page publishes a pay-as-you-go rate for overflow.
Price ladders from the data
Effective price per unit at each published plan (monthly spend shown). Overage and assumption-based rows are excluded here; see each vendor page.
Basic page fetch
ScraperAPI
- $0.441 Hobby (annual) · $44.1/mo
- $0.49 Hobby · $49/mo
- $0.149 Startup · $149/mo
- $0.0997 Business · $299/mo
- $0.095 Scaling · $475/mo
ScrapingBee
- $0.2533 Hobby · $19/mo
- $0.196 Freelance · $49/mo
- $0.099 Startup · $99/mo
- $0.083 Business · $249/mo
Protected / anti-bot page
ScraperAPI
- $5.39 Hobby · $49/mo
- $1.10 Business · $299/mo
- $1.04 Scaling · $475/mo
ScrapingBee
- $6.33 Hobby · $19/mo
- $4.90 Freelance · $49/mo
- $2.48 Startup · $99/mo
- $2.08 Business · $249/mo
What we could not verify
- ScraperAPI: Credit multiplier for JavaScript rendering not stated on the pricing page/FAQ.; Per-credit PAYG rate for Scaling and above is not published.; Bonus-credit offer makes included credits ambiguous; not normalized.
- ScrapingBee: No overage/top-up rate published on the pricing page.; Page shows '/mo' prices; annual-discount terms not stated.
Independence. No vendor paid for this comparison and all links go to official sites with no affiliate tracking. See the disclosure. Full vendor pages: ScraperAPI · ScrapingBee.