Scraping API credits explained
Last checked: 2026-11-06
A credit is a unit of plan allowance, not a request. One request can cost 1 credit or 75. On a plan of 1,000,000 credits, you get 1,000,000 plain requests, or 100,000 at 10 credits each. So compare cost per 1,000 requests of your type, not credits.
We have not tested these services. Credit costs below were read on 2026-11-06 from the providers' pages. ScrapingBee's cost of 75 credits came from a fetched documentation summary.
Credit costs, and what 1,000 requests cost
The cost columns are our sums on each provider's 1,000,000-credit plan: ScraperAPI Startup at $149 and ScrapingBee Startup at $99.
| Request type | ScraperAPI credits | Cost per 1,000 | ScrapingBee credits | Cost per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain, no rendering | 1 | $0.149 | 1 | $0.099 |
| JavaScript rendering | 10 | $1.490 | 5 | $0.495 |
| Premium proxies | 10 | $1.490 | 10 | $0.990 |
| Premium plus rendering | 25 | $3.725 | 25 | $2.475 |
| Top option listed | 30, or 75 with rendering | $4.470 or $11.175 | 75, rendering only | $7.425 |
ScraperAPI also adds cost by target. It lists 5 credits for Amazon, Walmart and eBay, and 25 for Google and Bing. It lists 10 credits for domains it labels as protected. Those can change, so use its own cost lookup first.
Cash paid for one month, same volume
These are our sums, assuming every request succeeds. Credit plans round up to the first plan that fits.
| Provider | 100,000 plain | 100,000 rendered | 1,000,000 plain | 1,000,000 rendered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ScraperAPI | $49 (Hobby) | $149 (Startup) | $149 (Startup) | $975 (Professional) |
| ScrapingBee | $49 (Freelance) | $99 (Startup) | $99 (Startup) | $599 (Business +) |
| Zyte, tier 1 site | $13 (pay as you go) | $100 ($100 commitment) | $100 ($100 commitment) | $500 ($500 commitment) |
| Zyte, tier 5 site | $100 ($100 commitment) | $768 ($500 commitment) | $610 ($500 commitment) | $7,680 ($500 commitment) |
Zyte does not use credits. It sets five price tiers by site, so the same page count can differ more than tenfold. Its middle tiers were read from a fetched summary.
These figures do not compare like for like across sites. A site that needs premium options costs far more than the rendered column shows. Between the two credit plans, ScrapingBee costs the same at 100,000 plain requests and less in the other three columns. That holds only for these request types, not for every target.
Other billing models
- Bright Data Web Unlocker charges $1.50 per 1,000 on pay as you go, and says you pay only for successful requests.
- Oxylabs Web API charges from $1.00 down to $0.75 per 1,000 results for non-JS custom domains, depending on plan.
- Decodo Web Data API sells plans with a page limit. See Decodo pricing explained.
ScrapingBee, Oxylabs and Decodo share a parent group, Source, so do not treat them as independent of each other. See the group note.
What to check on any credit plan
- How many credits your actual target costs.
- Whether failed requests use credits. ScraperAPI says it charges only for 200 and 404 responses, plus requests you cancel within 70 seconds.
- Whether credits roll over. ScrapingBee says they last one month. ScraperAPI says the balance resets at renewal.
Enter your own numbers in the scraping API cost calculator. For one provider in depth, read ScraperAPI pricing explained.
Lawful use depends on the place, the data and the site's terms. This is not legal advice. ScraperAPI may pay us if you buy through a link in future. That does not change these sums.
Check ScraperAPI's current plans and credit rules on its own page.
See ScraperAPI plans