Scraping & crawling APIs
Send a URL, get back HTML, markdown or JSON. These services handle proxies, retries and often JavaScript rendering for you.
| Vendor | Free tier | Paid plans | MCP / agent support | Verification |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firecrawl | 1,000 credits/month, no card (about 1,000 pages or 500 searches), 2 concurrent requests. | from $19/mo | Yes | full verification |
| ScraperAPI | 1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits. | from $49/mo | Yes | partial verification |
| ZenRows | 5,000 credits/month, no card, every primitive except standalone residential proxies. | from $19/mo | Yes | partial verification |
| Scrapfly | 1,000 credits on signup, no card, no time limit (one-time allotment). | from $30/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Jina Reader | No-key Reader at 20 RPM; new API keys come with 10M free tokens. | usage-based / pay as you go | Yes | partial verification |
| Zyte | $5 free credit trial; 30 days, no commitment. | from $100/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Crawl4AI | Self-hosting is free forever (you pay your own infra). Cloud: 1,000 free credits/month, no card. | from $10/mo | Yes | full verification |
| ScrapingBee | 1,000 free API credits, no card (trial grant). | from $19/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Apify also | $5 of prepaid usage per month, no credit card. | from $19/mo | Yes | partial verification |
| Bright Data also | 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. | from $499/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Oxylabs also | $5 welcome credit toward any product (one-time as described), no ongoing free tier stated. | from $30/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Tavily also | 1,000 API credits/month, no card. Free for students; 100k free credits advertised for startup-program applicants. | from $30/mo | Yes | full verification |
| Exa also | $10 of credits every month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, no payment method. | usage-based / pay as you go | Yes | full verification |
| Hyperbrowser also | 5,000 credits included with a free account (~50 browser hours or 5,000 fetched pages). | from $30/mo | Yes | full verification |
Read the rankings carefully. Each vendor's best published price is shown, which is often on a larger plan. Rows marked component only exclude other charges; see methodology. Prices only, not quality.
Basic page fetch
One successful page/URL fetch with no JavaScript rendering and no premium anti-bot tier.
| # | Vendor | Plan / rate | Price per 1,000 | Monthly spend needed | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zyte | $500/mo commitment - Tier 1 HTTP | $0.06 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 2 | ScrapingBee | Business | $0.083 per 1,000 | $249/mo | monthly |
| 3 | Scrapfly | Enterprise | $0.0909 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 4 | ZenRows | Scale | $0.0916 per 1,000 | $458/mo | annual |
| 5 | ScraperAPI | Scaling | $0.095 per 1,000 | $475/mo | monthly |
| 6 | Crawl4AI | Cloud Scale | $0.3327 per 1,000 | $499/mo | monthly |
| 7 | Browserbase | Startup (Fetch API) | $0.50 per 1,000 | $99/mo | payg |
| 8 | Firecrawl | Scale | $0.599 per 1,000 | $599/mo | annual |
| 9 | Oxylabs | Flexible - custom domain non-JS | $0.80 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 10 | Bright Data | Crawl API $1,999 | $0.9995 per 1,000 | $1999/mo | monthly |
| 11 | Hyperbrowser | All plans (Fetch) | $1.00 per 1,000 | none | payg |
JavaScript-rendered page
One page that needs a headless browser to render.
| # | Vendor | Plan / rate | Price per 1,000 | Monthly spend needed | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ScrapingBee | Business | $0.415 per 1,000 | $249/mo | monthly |
| 2 | Scrapfly | Enterprise | $0.4545 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 3 | ZenRows | Scale | $0.458 per 1,000 | $458/mo | annual |
| 4 | Zyte | $500/mo commitment - Tier 1 rendered | $0.48 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 5 | Crawl4AI | Cloud Scale | $0.6653 per 1,000 | $499/mo | monthly |
| 6 | Oxylabs | Flexible - custom domain JS | $1.30 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
Protected / anti-bot page
One page behind aggressive bot protection using the vendor's premium unblocking path.
| # | Vendor | Plan / rate | Price per 1,000 | Monthly spend needed | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zyte | $500/mo commitment - Tier 5 HTTP | $0.61 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 2 | Apify | Business (Unblocker) component only | $1.00 per 1,000 | $999/mo | monthly |
| 3 | ScraperAPI | Scaling | $1.04 per 1,000 | $475/mo | monthly |
| 4 | Bright Data | Unlocker Scale ($499) | $1.30 per 1,000 | $499/mo | monthly |
| 5 | ScrapingBee | Business | $2.08 per 1,000 | $249/mo | monthly |
| 6 | Scrapfly | Enterprise | $2.27 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
| 7 | ZenRows | Scale | $2.29 per 1,000 | $458/mo | annual |
| 8 | Hyperbrowser | All plans (Fetch + ultra stealth) | $10.00 per 1,000 | none | payg |
URL to LLM-ready content
One URL converted to clean markdown/text for RAG or agents.
| # | Vendor | Plan / rate | Price per 1,000 | Monthly spend needed | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Firecrawl | Standard | $0.83 per 1,000 | $83/mo | annual |
| 2 | Exa | Contents (per content type) | $1.00 per 1,000 | none | payg |
| 3 | Tavily | Growth | $1.00 per 1,000 | $500/mo | monthly |
Head-to-head comparisons · Which tool should I pick?