"Scraping API" covers a wider range than the name suggests. Some providers are general-purpose HTML APIs — you send a URL, they return the rendered page through rotating proxies. Some are full platforms with pre-built scrapers for specific sites. Some are LLM-ready extraction engines that hand back clean JSON or markdown instead of raw HTML. And some are structured data APIs that skip scraping entirely and just return the records you were trying to assemble.
The pricing models are all over the map, which makes head-to-head comparison hard. Most charge per request with credit multipliers — JavaScript rendering might cost 5x, premium proxies 10x, and both together 25x — so a "150,000 credit" plan can mean only a few thousand real requests on protected sites. Others bill per successfully delivered record, per compute unit, or per GB of proxy bandwidth. Headline pricing rarely reflects what you'll actually pay, and a flashy success-rate claim means little until you test it on your own targets.
We compared the providers that actually deliver in 2026 across what matters most: what they scrape, success rate on protected sites, output format, developer experience, and real starting price. The 12 below are the ones worth your time. The short version: before you build a scrape-parse-verify pipeline, check whether the data you want already exists as a clean API call — because for a lot of B2B use cases, it does.
Quick Comparison
The top 12 scraping APIs and data extraction platforms at a glance
| Rank | Provider | Starting Price | Type | Best For | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | LinkFinder AI | $29/mo | Structured data API | B2B contact & company data | 4.9/5 |
| #2 | Bright Data | ~$499/mo | Proxy + scraper suite | Hard targets at scale | 4.6/5 |
| #3 | Apify | $29/mo | Platform + Actors | All-in-one scraping | 4.6/5 |
| #4 | Firecrawl | $16/mo | LLM-ready extraction | AI / RAG pipelines | 4.5/5 |
| #5 | ScraperAPI | $49/mo | General-purpose API | Simple, reliable HTML | 4.4/5 |
| #6 | ScrapingBee | $49/mo | General-purpose API | Easy JS rendering | 4.3/5 |
| #7 | Scrape.do | $29/mo | General-purpose API | Best-value entry | 4.3/5 |
| #8 | Zyte API | From $0.13/1K | API + Scrapy heritage | Pay-as-you-go scaling | 4.2/5 |
| #9 | Oxylabs | From $49/mo | Proxy + Scraper API | Enterprise proxies | 4.2/5 |
| #10 | Crawlbase | From $29/mo | General-purpose API | Budget developer use | 4.0/5 |
| #11 | ZenRows | From $69/mo | API + browser automation | JS-heavy sites | 4.0/5 |
| #12 | SerpApi | From $25/mo | Specialized SERP API | Search-results data | 3.9/5 |
Prices and ratings are starting points and reflect our editorial assessment as of 2026 — credit multipliers, proxy passthrough, and per-record billing can change real costs significantly, so always confirm current pricing on each provider's site before committing.
LinkFinder AI
Skip the Scrape-Parse-Verify Pipeline — Get B2B Contact & Company Data as a Clean API Call
Here's the question most people don't ask before signing up for a scraping API: do you actually need to scrape anything? If your end goal is B2B data — verified work emails, phone numbers, job titles, company firmographics — then a raw HTML scraper adds three steps you don't want: scrape the page, parse the markup, then verify the result. Every one of those steps can break, and you maintain all of them.
"We were paying for a scraping API, a parser we maintained ourselves, and an email verifier. LinkFinder replaced all three." Ahem 👀
LinkFinder AI is a structured data API: you describe the people or companies you want and it returns clean, verified records directly — no proxies, no headless browsers, no broken selectors at 2am when a site changes its HTML. It's built around a simple promise: 1 credit = 1 request on any endpoint, billed monthly with no lock-in, and an API included on every plan, including the free tier.
To be clear about scope: LinkFinder is not a general-purpose web scraper. It won't pull arbitrary e-commerce listings, render every JavaScript page on the internet, or scrape search results — for that, providers like Bright Data, Apify, or Firecrawl below are the right call. But if the data you're chasing is business contacts and company info, LinkFinder gets you there in one call instead of a pipeline.
Key Features
- Structured output, not raw HTML - Verified emails, titles, and firmographics returned directly
- Flat pricing - 1 credit = 1 request on any endpoint, no per-result multipliers
- API on every plan - Including the free tier; no enterprise contract required
- Natural-language lead search - Describe your ideal prospect in plain English
- Bulk processing - Upload a CSV and enrich thousands of records without rate-limit babysitting
- Simple REST API - Clean endpoints and predictable responses, ready out of the box
Starting at $29/month – includes 10,000 records with simple, transparent pricing and no hidden fees. No per-call surprises, no expiring credits, no overage traps.
✓ Pros
- No scraping, parsing, or verification to maintain
- Flat, predictable 1-credit-per-request pricing
- API access on every plan, including free
- Best-in-class email finding accuracy
- Monthly billing, no annual lock-in
- Works out of the box - no approval process
✗ Cons
- Not a general-purpose web scraper (no arbitrary URLs or e-commerce)
- Focused on people and company data, not raw page content
- Phone / direct-dial coverage is lighter than enterprise providers
Need B2B data, not a scraping pipeline?
Get verified contacts and company data from a single API call — flat pricing, API on every plan, no infrastructure to maintain
Start Your Free TrialNo credit card required • API on every plan • Flat pricing • Cancel anytime
Bright Data
The Enterprise Standard for Unblocking Hard Targets at Scale
Bright Data operates one of the largest commercial proxy networks in the world and pairs it with a Web Scraper API, a Web Unlocker, a cloud Scraping Browser, and 400+ pre-built scrapers for sites like Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Zillow. If you need to scrape aggressively protected pages at serious volume, it's the gold standard.
It also carries the most complete compliance posture in the category (GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, SOC 2) and bills per successfully delivered record — failed requests aren't charged. The trade-offs are cost and complexity: there's no meaningful free tier beyond trial credits, the Web Scraper API runs around $1.50 per 1,000 records pay-as-you-go, and monthly plans typically start near $499, putting it out of reach for small projects.
Key Features
- Massive proxy network - Residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile IPs
- 400+ pre-built scrapers - Structured data for major sites without writing rules
- Web Unlocker - Bypasses the most aggressive anti-bot systems
- Pay per successful result - Failed requests aren't billed
- Strongest compliance posture - GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, SOC 2
From ~$499/month – Web Scraper API around $1.50 per 1,000 records pay-as-you-go; no real free tier beyond trial credits. Enterprise agreements available.
✓ Pros
- Best-in-class unblocking on hard targets
- Enormous, flexible proxy network
- Pay only for successful results
- Top-tier compliance certifications
✗ Cons
- Expensive; meaningful plans start ~$499/mo
- No real free tier to evaluate
- Steeper learning curve and setup
- Overkill for small or simple jobs
Apify
All-in-One Platform With a Marketplace of Pre-Built Scrapers
Apify is a full scraping platform built around "Actors" — pre-built, hosted scrapers for thousands of specific sites and use cases that you can run without writing your own code. If an Actor matches your target, you get structured results fast; if not, you can build and deploy your own on the same infrastructure with scheduling, storage, and proxy access included.
Pricing is compute-based (roughly $0.16 per compute unit) with a Starter plan at $29/month plus a small free credit to test, and pay-per-result Actors for popular targets often land between $0.30 and $5 per 1,000 results. The trade-offs: compute-based billing is harder to predict than flat per-request pricing, and there's per-run startup overhead since each Actor is a managed program rather than a single endpoint.
Key Features
- Actor marketplace - Thousands of pre-built scrapers ready to run
- Build-your-own - Deploy custom scrapers on the same platform
- Scheduling & storage - Cloud cron jobs and dataset hosting included
- Proxy access - Residential and datacenter proxies built in
- Generous testing - Free credit, plus 50% student discount
Starter from $29/month – $29 in credits at ~$0.16/CU, with a free tier to test. Pay-per-result Actors typically run $0.30–$5 per 1,000 results. Business tier at $999/mo.
✓ Pros
- Huge library of ready-made scrapers
- Flexible — run, build, or schedule
- Strong success rates on tough sites
- Good free tier and student pricing
✗ Cons
- Compute-based billing is hard to predict
- Per-run startup overhead adds latency
- Quality varies across community Actors
- Steeper to learn than a single endpoint
Firecrawl
LLM-Ready Markdown & JSON, Built for AI Pipelines
Firecrawl has become the default scraping layer for AI builders. Instead of returning raw HTML you have to parse, it turns any URL into clean, LLM-ready markdown or structured JSON in a single call — handling JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHAs, and anti-bot detection along the way. It also ships an MCP server that plugs directly into Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.
For RAG pipelines, AI agents, and content workflows, the output format alone saves real engineering time. Pricing is subscription/credit-based: a free tier with ~500–1,000 pages, Hobby at $16/month for 5,000 credits, and Standard at $83/month (~$0.00083 per page) for 100,000. The gotchas: credits don't roll over on standard plans, Stealth Mode costs 5x more per page, and the pay-per-call model punishes bursty, high-frequency workloads.
Key Features
- LLM-ready output - Clean markdown or structured JSON, not raw HTML
- Crawl & scrape - Single pages or whole sites in one call
- MCP server - Native integration with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf
- Handles JS & anti-bot - Rendering and CAPTCHA solving built in
- Generous free tier - Test without a credit card
Hobby from $16/month (5,000 credits) – free tier ~500–1,000 pages; Standard at $83/month for 100,000 pages (~$0.00083/page). Credit-based, subscription only.
✓ Pros
- Clean, LLM-ready output saves parsing work
- Purpose-built for AI and RAG
- MCP integration with popular dev tools
- Competitive per-page cost at scale
✗ Cons
- Credits don't roll over on standard plans
- Stealth Mode costs 5x per page
- Pay-per-call punishes bursty workloads
- No built-in scheduling or pre-built scrapers
ScraperAPI
The Most Widely Used General-Purpose Scraping API
ScraperAPI is one of the oldest and most popular general-purpose scraping APIs. You pass a URL, it returns the rendered HTML — handling proxy rotation, JavaScript rendering, and CAPTCHA solving behind a simple interface with solid documentation and a Render Instruction Set for guiding headless-browser actions.
It's a dependable choice for mainstream targets, with a free-forever tier (1,000 credits/month after an initial 5,000) and paid plans from $49/month. The trade-offs are familiar: it returns raw HTML, so you still write your own parsers, and it falls short on heavily protected sites — exactly where the credit multipliers (rendering and premium proxies can cost 25–75 credits per call) hurt most.
Key Features
- Simple URL-in, HTML-out API - Easy to integrate
- Proxy rotation & JS rendering - Managed infrastructure
- Render Instruction Set - Drive headless-browser actions via API
- Free-forever tier - 1,000 credits/month to start
- Dashboard cost calculator - Track credit usage and quota
From $49/month (Hobby) – free tier with 1,000 credits/month. Credit multipliers apply for JS rendering and premium proxies on protected sites.
✓ Pros
- Simple, reliable, well-documented
- Good free-forever tier
- Solid on mainstream targets
- Easy to integrate quickly
✗ Cons
- Returns raw HTML — you write parsers
- Weaker on heavily protected sites
- Credit multipliers inflate real cost
- No structured-data output
ScrapingBee
Easy JavaScript Rendering With Excellent Documentation
ScrapingBee is known for being one of the easiest scraping APIs to get started with — intuitive endpoints, clear docs, and managed headless browsers, proxy rotation, and CAPTCHA solving so you don't manage that infrastructure. It was acquired by Oxylabs in early 2026, which brings more proxy muscle behind it.
Plans start at $49/month (Freelance) with a free trial of 1,000 credits and no card required. The catch is the credit math: standard requests are cheap, but JavaScript rendering costs 5 credits, premium proxies push higher, and stealth mode can hit 75 — so a "150K credit" plan can translate to far fewer real requests, and success rates drop sharply on heavily guarded sites.
Key Features
- Intuitive API - Fast to set up with clean docs
- Managed JS rendering - Headless browsers handled for you
- Proxy rotation & CAPTCHA - Infrastructure abstracted away
- Google Search API - Dedicated SERP endpoint
- Free trial - 1,000 credits, no credit card
From $49/month (Freelance) – free trial with 1,000 credits. Credit multipliers: ~5x for JS rendering, more for premium/stealth. Higher tiers add credits and concurrency.
✓ Pros
- Very easy to start, great docs
- Reliable on simple/moderate sites
- Free trial to evaluate
- Backed by Oxylabs' proxy network
✗ Cons
- Credit multipliers shrink real volume
- Low success on heavily protected sites
- Returns raw HTML to parse
- Post-acquisition changes still settling
Scrape.do
The Best-Value Entry Point for General Scraping
Scrape.do offers a drop-in scraping API with rotating proxies and JavaScript rendering at one of the most aggressive entry prices around. Its Hobby plan is $29/month for 250,000 successful requests, with 1,000 free credits and no credit card to start — and because you're billed on successful requests, the math stays cleaner than multiplier-heavy competitors.
In independent benchmarks it tends to post fast response times and strong success rates, making it a favorite for developers who want value without enterprise complexity. The trade-offs are scope and polish: it's a straightforward proxy-and-render API (you still parse the HTML), and it doesn't offer the pre-built scrapers, marketplace, or LLM-ready output of the bigger platforms.
Key Features
- Low entry price - $29/mo for 250,000 successful requests
- Billed on success - Cleaner cost math than multipliers
- Proxy rotation & JS rendering - Standard managed infrastructure
- Non-expiring free credits - 1,000 to start, no card
- Fast response times - Strong in independent benchmarks
From $29/month (Hobby) – 250,000 successful requests, 1,000 free credits, no credit card. Higher tiers scale request volume and concurrency.
✓ Pros
- Excellent value at entry
- Success-based billing
- Fast and reliable in benchmarks
- Freemium plan that doesn't expire
✗ Cons
- Returns raw HTML to parse
- No pre-built scrapers or marketplace
- No LLM-ready output
- Smaller ecosystem than the giants
Zyte API
Flexible Pay-As-You-Go With Deep Scrapy Heritage
Zyte (formerly Scrapinghub, the team behind the open-source Scrapy framework) offers a smart scraping API that automatically picks the cheapest path that works for each target — plain HTTP when possible, full browser rendering only when needed. Pay-as-you-go starts as low as $0.13 per 1,000 simple requests with no base fee, and there's a $5 trial credit.
For engineering teams that want granular control and don't mind usage-based billing, it's powerful and cost-efficient on easy targets. The big caveat is unpredictability: per-request pricing spans a wide range depending on how protected a site is, there's no spending cap on pay-as-you-go, and teams have reported surprise bills — so set alerts and test before scaling.
Key Features
- Smart routing - Auto-selects HTTP vs. browser per target
- Scrapy heritage - From the team behind the framework
- Low PAYG entry - From $0.13/1K simple requests, no base fee
- Scrapy Cloud - Managed hosting for Scrapy spiders
- Managed data feeds - Hands-off option from $500/mo
Pay-as-you-go from ~$0.13/1K simple requests (no base fee) – $5 trial credit. Costs rise sharply on JS-rendered and protected pages; managed feeds from $500/mo.
✓ Pros
- Very cheap on simple targets
- Smart per-request routing
- No base fee on pay-as-you-go
- Trusted reliability at scale
✗ Cons
- Unpredictable per-request pricing
- No spending cap on PAYG
- Surprise-bill risk without alerts
- Best value needs engineering effort
Oxylabs
Premium Proxies and a Web Scraper API for Technical Teams
Oxylabs is a premium, enterprise-leaning provider built around a very large proxy network (residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile) plus a Web Scraper API, a Web Unblocker, and the AI-assisted OxyCopilot that suggests scraping code. It emphasizes compliance, high uptime, and analytics dashboards with success-rate stats.
The Web Scraper API starts around $49/month, and residential proxies run roughly $4/GB with the Web Unblocker near $9.4/GB. It's a strong fit for large-scale, technically capable teams — but it's pitched at that audience, so it's heavier and pricier than a simple drop-in API for a small project, and getting full value assumes engineering resources.
Key Features
- Large premium proxy pool - Residential, datacenter, ISP, mobile
- Web Scraper API & Unblocker - Managed extraction and anti-bot
- OxyCopilot - AI-assisted scraping code suggestions
- Analytics dashboards - Success rates and performance metrics
- Ready-made datasets - Available for purchase
Web Scraper API from ~$49/month – residential proxies ~$4/GB, Web Unblocker ~$9.4/GB. Enterprise pricing and SLAs available.
✓ Pros
- High-quality, large proxy network
- Strong compliance and uptime
- Good analytics and tooling
- OxyCopilot speeds development
✗ Cons
- Premium pricing, enterprise-leaning
- Heavier than a simple drop-in API
- Best value needs engineering
- Proxy bandwidth costs add up
Crawlbase
A Budget-Friendly General-Purpose Scraping API
Crawlbase (formerly ProxyCrawl) is a developer-focused scraping API that handles proxy rotation and JavaScript rendering behind a simple interface, positioned as one of the cheaper options in the category. Its Developer plan starts around $29/month, and there's a free tier with roughly 5,000 requests to test the service.
For developers who want straightforward, affordable scraping without committing to an enterprise platform, it's a reasonable entry point. The trade-offs are the usual ones for budget general-purpose APIs: it returns raw content you parse yourself, coverage and success rates on the most heavily protected sites trail premium providers, and the surrounding ecosystem and tooling are lighter.
Key Features
- Low-cost entry - Developer plan around $29/month
- Free tier - ~5,000 requests to evaluate
- Proxy rotation & JS rendering - Managed for you
- Simple API - Straightforward to integrate
- Storage & scraper endpoints - Supporting tooling available
From ~$29/month (Developer) – free tier with ~5,000 requests. One of the cheaper general-purpose scraping APIs.
✓ Pros
- Affordable entry point
- Free tier for testing
- Simple to integrate
- Good for straightforward jobs
✗ Cons
- Returns raw content to parse
- Weaker on hardest targets
- Lighter ecosystem and tooling
- Less proven at large scale
ZenRows
API Plus Cloud Browser Automation for JS-Heavy Sites
ZenRows pairs a Universal Scraper API with a Scraping Browser that runs Puppeteer or Playwright scripts on cloud infrastructure, backed by a large residential proxy pool. It also ships pre-built scrapers for Amazon, Walmart, Zillow, and Google, plus integrations with Zapier, Make, n8n, Scrapy, and Selenium — useful when sites need real browser interaction.
The Developer plan is $69/month for 250,000 basic requests, but only 10,000 fully-protected results (rendering and premium proxies cost 25 credits per call combined). It's faster than some competitors on protected sites with no surprise parameter traps, but the entry price is higher than rivals and benchmark success rates have been mixed, so test on your targets first.
Key Features
- Universal Scraper API - Proxy rotation and JS rendering
- Scraping Browser - Puppeteer/Playwright on cloud infra
- Pre-built scrapers - Amazon, Walmart, Zillow, Google
- Workflow integrations - Zapier, Make, n8n, Scrapy, Selenium
- Large residential pool - ~55M IPs
From $69/month (Developer) – 250,000 basic requests or ~10,000 fully-protected results. Multipliers: 5x JS, 10x premium proxy, 25x both. 14-day trial.
✓ Pros
- Strong browser-automation option
- Fast on protected sites
- No forced parameter traps
- Good workflow integrations
✗ Cons
- Higher entry price than rivals
- Few protected results at entry tier
- Mixed benchmark success rates
- Returns raw content to parse
SerpApi
The Specialist for Search-Engine Results Data
SerpApi isn't a general scraper — it's purpose-built for search-engine results pages, extracting clean, well-parsed JSON from Google, Bing, YouTube, Walmart, and 15+ other engines. Organic results, ads, knowledge panels, featured snippets, and AI Overviews come back clearly separated, making it the go-to for rank tracking and SERP intelligence.
Its parsing quality and documentation are best-in-class for this niche, with real-time results and a 250-search free tier. The trade-offs are cost and rigidity: plans start at $25/month for 1,000 searches (then $75 / $150 / $275 tiers), there's no pay-as-you-go, and at roughly $15–$25 per 1,000 it's among the priciest per query — and comparing it on raw request volume misses that it's a specialist, not a general scraping API.
Key Features
- 15+ search engines - Google, Bing, YouTube, Walmart, and more
- Clean structured JSON - Organic, ads, panels, snippets separated
- AI Overview capture - Tracks Google's AI answers
- Real-time results - Live SERP data on request
- Free tier - 250 searches/month for testing
From $25/month (Starter) – 1,000 searches; tiers at $75 (5,000), $150 (15,000), $275 (30,000). Free tier 250 searches. No pay-as-you-go.
✓ Pros
- Best-in-class SERP parsing
- Broad search-engine coverage
- Excellent documentation
- Strong AI Overview support
✗ Cons
- SERP-only, not a general scraper
- Among the priciest per query
- No pay-as-you-go; rigid caps
- Higher tiers needed for volume
Chasing B2B data? You may not need to scrape at all.
If your goal is verified contacts and company data, skip the scrape-parse-verify pipeline. LinkFinder AI returns clean, structured records from a single API call — flat 1-credit-per-request pricing and an API on every plan.
Start Your Free TrialNo credit card required • 10,000 records included • API on every plan • Cancel anytime