HEAD TO HEAD
ScraperAPI vs ScrapingBee
Two credit-based scraping APIs with the same basic model and very different price curves. Prices per 1,000 pages, billing rules, MCP servers and third-party test results, fact by fact.
Quick verdict
For protected sites, the facts favour ScrapingBee at most budgets. It reached 84.47% in Proxyway's October 2025 benchmark to ScraperAPI's 68.95%, charges half the credits for JavaScript rendering, and its credits are cheaper on every comparable plan: premium proxies with rendering cost $4.90 per 1,000 on its $49 plan against $12.25 on ScraperAPI's. ScraperAPI's case is narrower but real: it was almost twice as fast (13.92 s vs 25.46 s average) and reached 99.97% on G2, where ScrapingBee managed 5%.
Performance figures come from named third-party benchmarks, with dates. How we pick.
ScraperAPI: our picks
- No pick in our guides
ScrapingBee: our picks
Price and billing
Prices are as of October 2026 from the ScraperAPI pricing page and the ScrapingBee pricing page. The Edge column says which product the fact favours and why; "Depends" means it turns on your workload.
| Fact | ScraperAPI | ScrapingBee | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Hobby $49/mo, 100,000 credits | Hobby $19/mo, 75,000 credits | ScrapingBee Lower entry price. |
| Plain request, per 1,000 at $49/mo | $0.49 | $0.20 | ScrapingBee 250,000 vs 100,000 credits for the same $49. |
| JS rendering, per 1,000 at $49/mo | $4.90 | $0.98 | ScrapingBee 5 credits vs 10, on cheaper credits. |
| Premium proxy + JS, per 1,000 at $49/mo | $12.25 | $4.90 | ScrapingBee Both 25 credits; cheaper credits. |
| Hardest tier, per 1,000 at $49/mo | $36.75 | $14.70 | ScrapingBee Ultra-premium + render vs stealth + JS, both 75 credits. |
| Premium proxy + JS, per 1,000 at 3M credits | $2.49 | $2.08 | ScrapingBee Business plans ($299 vs $249); the gap narrows with volume. |
| Google search, per 1,000 at $49/mo | $12.25 | $1.96 | ScrapingBee 10 credits (light request, the default) vs 25. |
| Free trial | 7 days, 5,000 credits, no card | 1,000 credits, no card | ScraperAPI Five times the trial credits. |
| What is billed | 200 and 404 responses, plus requests cancelled before 70 s | Failed requests free; auto mode bills only the configuration that worked | ScrapingBee Fewer ways to pay for nothing. |
| Default rendering | Off; opt in with render=true | On; opt out with render_js=false | Depends ScrapingBee's default costs 5× on plain pages if you forget to turn it off. |
| Concurrency at $49/mo | 20 threads | 50 concurrent requests | ScrapingBee More requests in flight for the money. |
| Geotargeting on entry plans | US & EU only on Hobby and Startup | On every plan | ScrapingBee Country-level targeting from $19. |
Every plan, per 1,000 pages
Plan price ÷ credits × the credits each request type costs, assuming you use the whole allowance. ScraperAPI takes 10% off for annual billing.
| Plan | Per month | Credits | Concurrent | Plain | JS | Premium + JS | Hardest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ScrapingBee Hobby | $19 | 75,000 | 25 | $0.25 | $1.27 | $6.33 | $19.00 |
| ScraperAPI Hobby | $49 | 100,000 | 20 | $0.49 | $4.90 | $12.25 | $36.75 |
| ScrapingBee Freelance | $49 | 250,000 | 50 | $0.20 | $0.98 | $4.90 | $14.70 |
| ScrapingBee Startup | $99 | 1,000,000 | 100 | $0.10 | $0.50 | $2.48 | $7.43 |
| ScraperAPI Startup | $149 | 1,000,000 | 50 | $0.15 | $1.49 | $3.73 | $11.18 |
| ScrapingBee Business | $249 | 3,000,000 | 200 | $0.08 | $0.42 | $2.08 | $6.23 |
| ScraperAPI Business | $299 | 3,000,000 | 100 | $0.10 | $1.00 | $2.49 | $7.48 |
| ScraperAPI Scaling | $475 | 5,000,000 | 200 | $0.10 | $0.95 | $2.38 | $7.13 |
| ScrapingBee Business+ | $599 | 8,000,000 | 400 | $0.07 | $0.37 | $1.87 | $5.62 |
| ScraperAPI Professional | $975 | 10,500,000 | 300 | $0.09 | $0.93 | $2.32 | $6.96 |
| ScraperAPI Advanced | $1,975 | 21,500,000 | 500 | $0.09 | $0.92 | $2.30 | $6.89 |
Hardest: ScraperAPI ultra_premium + render, ScrapingBee stealth proxy + JS (75 credits each).
How the credit costs differ
Both charge 1 credit for a basic request and 25 for premium proxies with rendering. Three differences decide most bills:
- Rendering is 10 credits on ScraperAPI and 5 on ScrapingBee, but ScrapingBee renders by
default. Send
render_js=falsefor server-rendered pages or pay 5× too much; ScraperAPI renders only withrender=true. - Billing rules. ScraperAPI charges 200 and 404 responses and requests cancelled before 70 seconds, so set a 70-second client timeout. ScrapingBee's unused credits expire; we could not confirm ScraperAPI's rollover terms.
- Top tiers. ScraperAPI's
ultra_premium(30 credits, 75 with render) is paid plans only; ScrapingBee's stealth proxy is 75 credits. Proxyway found top configurations of credit-based APIs costing up to 100 times their base rate.
Independent tests
These figures come from Proxyway's Web Scraping API Report 2025 (tests October 2025, published 3 December 2025) and ScrapeOps' fingerprint test (January 2026).
| Fact | ScraperAPI | ScrapingBee | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proxyway 2025: success on 15 protected sites (2 req/s, tested Oct 2025) | 68.95% (sixth of ten) | 84.47% (fourth of ten) | ScrapingBee 15.5 points higher. |
| Proxyway 2025: average response time | 13.92 s | 25.46 s (slowest tested) | ScraperAPI About half the wait. |
| Proxyway 2025: G2 | 99.97% | 5% | ScraperAPI Near-perfect on a site where ScrapingBee mostly failed. |
| Proxyway 2025: Hyatt (Kasada), Lowe's (Akamai) | 0% and 0% | not in our notes | Depends ScrapingBee's figures for these two sites aren't in our research notes. |
| ScrapeOps fingerprint test (Jan 2026, higher is better) | 27.81 | 24.76 | ScraperAPI Narrowly; both far below Zyte's 80.48. |
The two look like mirror images: ScrapingBee gets through more often across the board, slowly; ScraperAPI is quicker and excellent on some sites while failing completely on Kasada and Akamai protection. ScrapeOps' Cloudflare playbook (June 2026) put scraping APIs as a group at about 97% on Cloudflare sites, with no per-vendor split in our notes. Proxyway uses affiliate links and ScrapeOps runs a paid proxy aggregator, so treat both as third-party tests rather than neutral audits.
Features and AI agents
| Fact | ScraperAPI | ScrapingBee | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed per-domain rates | Amazon, Walmart, eBay 5 credits; Google, Bing 25; LinkedIn 30 | Dedicated Amazon, Walmart and YouTube tools; per-site rates not in our notes | ScraperAPI Published rates make e-commerce bills predictable. |
| Google search | 25 credits; Google search, news, jobs, shopping and maps tools | 10 credits (light) or 15; eight result types plus Fast Search | ScrapingBee Cheaper per search, more result types. |
| MCP server | Remote at mcp.scraperapi.com/mcp, plus an MIT-licensed local server (pip or Docker) | Hosted at mcp.scrapingbee.com/mcp, 18 tools, key in the URL | Depends ScraperAPI offers a self-hostable server; ScrapingBee documents its billing. |
| MCP billing | Not confirmed in the docs | Same credits as the API, no surcharge | ScrapingBee Documented. |
| Support | Email, weekdays, below enterprise (Proxyway) | No weekend support | Tie Both weekday-only on self-serve plans. |
| Ownership | Not part of Source.ai | Oxylabs' group (Source.ai) since 2025 | Depends Matters if you want suppliers from different groups. |
Which to choose
Choose ScraperAPI if…
- Response time matters more than overall success rate (13.92 s vs 25.46 s average).
- G2 or similar review sites are on your target list.
- You want Amazon, Walmart, eBay or Google at fixed per-domain credit rates.
- You want a bigger trial (5,000 credits over 7 days) before paying.
Choose ScrapingBee if…
- Your targets are protected and success rate matters most.
- You need rendering or premium proxies at volume: it is cheaper per request on every comparable plan.
- You want Google search and a hosted MCP server for AI agents on the same key.
- Your jobs run in batches, so a 25-second average response is acceptable.
Reviews and guides
- ScraperAPI review: plans, credit maths, MCP server and test results.
- ScrapingBee review: credits, Google API, hosted MCP and ownership.
- Our scraping API guide: picks by use case, including Zyte, Bright Data and Oxylabs.
- ZenRows vs ScrapingBee: the other head-to-head.
- Web scraping cost calculator and build vs buy guide: when your own crawler is cheaper.
Sources
Vendor pages checked October 2026. Prices change often; check the vendor's page before buying.
- ScraperAPI pricing
- ScraperAPI docs: credits and requests
- ScrapingBee pricing
- ScrapingBee remote MCP docs
- ScrapingBee Google API docs
- Proxyway Web Scraping API Report 2025 (tests Oct 2025, published 3 Dec 2025; Proxyway uses affiliate links)
- ScrapeOps fingerprint test, January 2026, and Cloudflare playbook, June 2026 (ScrapeOps runs a paid proxy aggregator)
- Proxyway news: Oxylabs, Decodo, Webshare and others form Source.ai