How we compare to other web scraping APIs
Let's compare Scraping Fish to other web scraping APIs in terms of pricing.
| API | Proxy type | Monthly commitment | True API request1 cost2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scraping Fish | Mobile 4G/LTE | Pay as you go | $0.0020 |
| ScrapingAnt | Residential | Min. $19/mo | $0.04753 |
| ScrapingBee | Residential | Min. $49/mo | $0.03683 |
| ScraperAPI | Residential | Min. $49/mo | $0.03683 |
| ScrapFly | Residential | Min. $30/mo | $0.018753 |
1 How much you will actually pay for one request to the API, not for one API credit which is a misleading pricing system for customers
2 Cost per API call with the best available type of proxy and JS rendering enabled
3 Assuming that you use all of the API credits available in your subscription within a month
Check results of web scraping API benchmark to compare selected APIs in terms of reliability, proxy quality, speed and cost.
Examples
Let's consider a few common monthly scraping volumes and use cases and compare the APIs cost:
| Use case | Scraping Fish | ScrapingAnt | ScrapingBee | ScraperAPI | ScrapFly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 requests residential/mobile proxy without JS rendering | $10 | $49 | $49 | $49 | $30 |
| 5,000 requests residential/mobile proxy with JS rendering | $10 | $249 | $99 | $149 | $100 |
| 20,000 requests residential/mobile proxy without JS rendering | $40 | $249 | $99 | $149 | $100 |
| 20,000 requests residential/mobile proxy with JS rendering | $40 | ? | $99 | $149 | $250 |
| 120,000 requests residential/mobile proxy without JS rendering | $240 | ? | $249 | $299 | $500 |
| 120,000 requests residential/mobile proxy with JS rendering | $240 | ? | $999 | $299 | ? |
| 400,000 requests residential/mobile proxy without JS rendering | $800 | ? | $999 | $999 | ? |
| 400,000 requests residential/mobile proxy with JS rendering | $800 | ? | $999 | $999 | ? |
With new unlimited plans offered by Scraping Fish, you can have fixed monthly web scraping costs and make unlimited number of requests. The cost only depends on the concurrency you need and starts at $100 per month for one concurrent connection.
Factors to consider
Pay as you go vs monthly supscription
With mandatory monthly subscriptions offered by other web scraping APIs, you have to commit to a certain number of API credits (which very loosely translate to actual API requests) that are renewed every month. If you don't use all of the API credits from your monthly plan, the remaining credits will be lost, which can be inconvenient if your needs change from month to month.
In contrast, with Scraping Fish, you can purchase any number of API requests according to your needs, so you can be sure to use all purchased requests. For larger packs, you'll get additional requests for free, and the expiration time can be up to one year. There's also an option for subscribing to autorenewing packs if you want to make sure you never run out of API requests and keep all of your web scraping jobs running.
Proxy type
Scraping Fish offers the best proxies available - 4G/LTE mobile proxies by default, at no additional cost. These are the best type of proxy for web scraping because the IP addresses in 4G/LTE proxies are used only for a short period of time before being changed.
In contrast, regular requests offered by other web scraping APIs rely on datacenter proxies, which are often blacklisted and not suitable for most real-world use cases. This means that you might have to use premium residential proxies, which can cost 25 to 75 times more and still aren't as good as Scraping Fish's mobile proxies.
JavaScript rendering
In Scraping Fish, you can scrape with JS rendering at no additional cost. Each successful request you make is worth exacly 1 API request. The simplest possible pricing. No unexpected or hidden costs.
If you want to render JS in other web scraping APIs, they will charge you up to 10 times more for each request.
Try Scraping Fish API
To test Scraping Fish API, you can buy a pack of 1,000 requests for just $2.