ScraperAPI review
A proxy and JavaScript-rendering scraping API with published per-domain credit costs for hard sites.
A proxy and JavaScript-rendering scraping API with published per-domain credit costs for hard sites.
Reviewed by
Vincent Edes · Founder & reviewer
Last reviewed Sep 3, 2026
ScraperAPI overview showing automated proxy rotation and published per-domain credit costs.
ScraperAPI is a scalable proxy and rendering service designed for data engineering teams with existing parsing pipelines. When you pass a URL to the API, their servers manage IP rotation, solve CAPTCHA challenges, render dynamic JavaScript, and retry failed requests automatically. Instead of positioning as an AI context engine, ScraperAPI functions as raw data collection infrastructure, distinguishing itself through published credit rate cards for challenging target websites.
Credit costs reflect target difficulty directly. While standard websites consume a single credit, scraping Amazon costs five credits, Google search costs 25 credits, and LinkedIn costs 30 credits per request. Additionally, bypassing bot detection systems like Cloudflare adds ten credits to the base charge. To keep costs predictable, their dashboard includes a Domain Cost Estimator, and you can pass a max_cost parameter to prevent requests from exceeding your budget.
Plans start higher than other services in this category, with the Hobby tier on their pricing page priced at $49 per month for 100,000 credits and 20 concurrent connections. Annual billing reduces the cost by 10 percent to $44.10 per month across the year. The Startup plan costs $149 for 1,000,000 credits, while the Scaling tier costs $475 for 5,000,000 credits with optional overage billing. New accounts receive a seven-day trial with 5,000 credits, alongside a permanent free plan with 1,000 monthly credits.
ScraperAPI is the right choice when scraping major e-commerce platforms or search engines where explicit cost caps matter. If you are building an AI agent that requires clean Markdown and direct MCP support, start with Firecrawl. If you want brand data alongside web scraping, consider Context.dev. Browse the rest in our web scraping API catalog.
What's included with ScraperAPI
- Automated proxy rotation and headless browser rendering across all plans
- Published credit rate cards for Amazon, Google, and LinkedIn
- Budget cap parameters and dashboard estimators to control request costs
- Geotargeting support covering both regional and country-level IPs
- Automated CAPTCHA solving and anti-bot challenge bypass
Our review
ScraperAPI pros and cons
Pros
- Clear and published credit costs for challenging target domains
- Budget protection parameters prevent unexpected credit drainage
- Automatic request retries and reliable residential proxy pools
- Includes a seven-day trial and permanent free allowance
Cons
- Starting subscription tier costs $49 per month
- Search engines and social platforms consume credits quickly
- Lacks native Markdown output and agent protocol integrations
- Unused credits do not roll over across billing cycles
Best for
Data engineering teams scraping search engines, social directories, and large e-commerce platforms that benefit from explicit per-domain cost ceilings and automatic proxy management.
Skip if
You are building an AI agent that expects native Markdown output and MCP integration, or you want a low-cost starter plan below $49 per month.
Score breakdown
- Features: 4.1 out of 5
- The API provides strong fundamentals for enterprise data harvesting, including automated proxy rotation, headless browser rendering, full crawler capabilities, and structured parsing for e-commerce. It does not provide modern agent features such as MCP integration or domain brand intelligence.
- Reliability: 4.4 out of 5
- Reliability is backed by automatic retries, sophisticated bot mitigation bypass, and an explicit 99.9 percent uptime target. The gateway enforces strict concurrency limits with 429 status codes rather than queuing requests, meaning developers must carefully manage thread limits in client code.
- Value: 3.4 out of 5
- With an entry price of $49 per month, ScraperAPI is the most expensive starting tier in this group, and scraping protected targets like Google or LinkedIn at 25 to 30 credits per page can quickly consume an allocation. The included Domain Cost Estimator and cost ceiling parameters help prevent overspending.
- Docs & SDKs: 4.0 out of 5
- The documentation clearly explains credit multipliers, domain rate cards, and billing policies in detail. While thorough for traditional scraping operations, it lacks integration guides for modern AI agent environments.
- Ease of use: 4.0 out of 5
- Basic integration is straightforward because it follows standard proxy API patterns that most developers are already familiar with. Navigating domain-specific credit multipliers and configuring budget protection parameters requires some initial planning.
The API provides strong fundamentals for enterprise data harvesting, including automated proxy rotation, headless browser rendering, full crawler capabilities, and structured parsing for e-commerce. It does not provide modern agent features such as MCP integration or domain brand intelligence.
Reliability is backed by automatic retries, sophisticated bot mitigation bypass, and an explicit 99.9 percent uptime target. The gateway enforces strict concurrency limits with 429 status codes rather than queuing requests, meaning developers must carefully manage thread limits in client code.
With an entry price of $49 per month, ScraperAPI is the most expensive starting tier in this group, and scraping protected targets like Google or LinkedIn at 25 to 30 credits per page can quickly consume an allocation. The included Domain Cost Estimator and cost ceiling parameters help prevent overspending.
The documentation clearly explains credit multipliers, domain rate cards, and billing policies in detail. While thorough for traditional scraping operations, it lacks integration guides for modern AI agent environments.
Basic integration is straightforward because it follows standard proxy API patterns that most developers are already familiar with. Navigating domain-specific credit multipliers and configuring budget protection parameters requires some initial planning.
Pricing
Scaling
Popular$475/month
Per month · 5,000,000 API credits per month. First self-serve tier with pay-as-you-go overage.
- 5,000,000 API credits
- 200 concurrent threads
- Pay as you go when credits run out
- Country-level geotargeting
Price last checked: September 3, 2026
Tech stack
- Pricing type
- Subscription Free tier
- Type
- Scraping Crawling Web search
- Output
- HTML Structured JSON
- Capabilities
- JavaScript rendering Anti-bot / proxies Schema extraction
Alternative web scraping APIs
If ScraperAPI is not the right fit, these are the closest alternatives based on pricing, features, and use case.
ScrapingBee
Choose ScrapingBee if you prefer a lower entry subscription at $19 per month for general scraping tasks and do not target major search engines.
Firecrawl
Best for AI agentsChoose Firecrawl if you need clean Markdown formatted for AI language models rather than raw HTML delivered through proxy pools.
Frequently asked questions
How much does ScraperAPI cost?
The Hobby tier costs $49 per month for 100,000 credits, while the Startup plan costs $149 per month for 1,000,000 credits and the Business plan costs $299 per month for 3,000,000 credits. If you commit to an annual billing plan, you receive a 10 percent discount across all tiers. In addition, new users can explore the service with a seven-day trial of 5,000 credits, followed by a permanent free allocation of 1,000 credits per month.
Does one ScraperAPI request always cost one credit?
No, the credit cost varies depending on how heavily protected the target website is. Standard websites consume one credit, but scraping Amazon costs five credits, Google search costs 25 credits, and LinkedIn costs 30 credits. If the request encounters bot protection layers like Cloudflare, an extra ten credits are added to the total cost.
Do ScraperAPI credits roll over?
No, unused credits expire when your monthly subscription renews and do not carry over to the subsequent billing cycle. If your project experiences irregular traffic spikes, higher plans like Scaling offer optional pay-as-you-go overage with custom spending limits.
Is ScraperAPI good for AI agents?
While ScraperAPI reliably delivers raw page content, it does not include agent-centric features like automated Markdown conversion, live web search endpoints, or Model Context Protocol support. For LLM applications, specialized tools such as Firecrawl or Context.dev provide a more direct integration path.
Sources & research
Claims in our review are checked against primary sources, changelogs, official documentation, and founder updates.