Web Scraping API Pricing — Full Cost Comparison for 2026

Web scraping API pricing is intentionally opaque. Providers use different billing units — credits, requests, compute units, CPM — making direct comparison nearly impossible. This post cuts through the noise with a standardized comparison of every major scraping API's real per-request costs in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Effective per-request costs range from $0.0004 (Jina Reader) to $0.015 (Bright Data Web Unlocker with JS rendering) — a 37x difference
• ScraperAPI is the cheapest for raw HTML at volume ($49/100K = $0.0005/request)
• SearchHive ScrapeForge offers the best value for AI-ready output (Markdown + extraction at ~$0.0018/request)
• Credit-based pricing (Firecrawl, ScrapingBee) hides the true cost — JS rendering can consume 5-25x more credits than simple requests
• Pay-as-you-go pricing is almost always cheaper than monthly plans if your volume fluctuates

How We Compared

Every price below is normalized to cost per 1,000 successful requests at the lowest paid tier. For JS rendering, we note the additional cost multiplier. All prices verified as of April 2026.

Pure HTML Scraping APIs (No JS Rendering)

ScraperAPI and ZenRows dominate here. ScraperAPI gives you 100K requests for $49 — by far the lowest per-request cost. ZenRows matches the entry price but gives you 2.5x the volume.

ScrapingBee looks expensive at $49/1K, but that's because each request gets premium proxy rotation. At their Business tier ($249/9K), it's $27.66/1K — still pricey but justified if proxy quality matters more than volume.

JS-Enabled Scraping (Headless Browser)

Here's where things get interesting. ScraperAPI's flat pricing means JS rendering costs the same as plain HTML — a massive advantage if most of your targets need JavaScript. Most competitors charge 30-50% more for JS.

Oxylabs' auto-detect feature is smart: it only applies JS rendering when the target page actually requires it, potentially saving 40-60% compared to always-on rendering.

AI-Ready Output (Markdown + Extraction)

For RAG pipelines and AI agents, you want clean Markdown or structured JSON — not raw HTML that you have to parse yourself.

Jina Reader is absurdly cheap at $0.40/1K for Markdown output, but it can't render JavaScript. If your targets are static content, it's the clear winner.

SearchHive ScrapeForge and Firecrawl are roughly equivalent in output quality. SearchHive is ~30% cheaper at comparable volumes and includes AI-powered extraction that Firecrawl charges extra for.

Hidden Costs That Add Up

Proxy upgrades. Several providers (ZenRows, ScraperAPI) offer datacenter proxies by default. Residential proxies — which bypass more sophisticated blocking — cost extra. Budget $3-8/1K additional for residential.

CAPTCHA solving. Some providers include it (Bright Data, ScraperAPI), others don't. If you're hitting protected sites, expect CAPTCHAs on 5-15% of requests. External solving services charge $1-3 per 1,000 CAPTCHAs.

Data extraction. Raw HTML needs parsing. If you're building a pipeline that converts HTML to structured data using LLMs, factor in ~$0.01-0.05 per page for GPT-4o-mini extraction calls. This is why AI-native APIs like SearchHive ScrapeForge and Firecrawl are worth their premium — extraction is included.

Overage charges. Most providers either throttle excess requests or charge 1.5-2x the standard rate for overages. A few (ScraperAPI, ZenRows) offer hard caps instead of overages — preferable for predictable budgets.

Volume Pricing Tiers

At scale (100K+ requests/month), the pricing picture shifts:

ZenRows offers the most aggressive volume discounting. At 250K requests for $49/mo ($0.20/1K), it's the best value for high-volume HTML scraping.

SearchHive's pricing scales more moderately but stays competitive for AI-ready output at every tier.

The Real Cost Comparison

Here's the cost to scrape 10,000 pages with JS rendering and get back clean Markdown, comparing three realistic setups:

Setup A: ScraperAPI + trafilatura (DIY extraction)

• ScraperAPI: $49/mo (100K with JS)
• Extraction: ~$0 (trafilatura is free, but less accurate than LLM)
• Total: $49 for 10K pages

Setup B: Firecrawl (all-in-one)

• 10K credits: ~$100/mo at blended rate
• Total: ~$100 for 10K pages

Setup C: SearchHive ScrapeForge (all-in-one)

• 10K requests with JS: $29 starter (5K) + ~$60 for additional 5K
• Total: ~$89 for 10K pages with AI extraction included

Setup A wins on raw cost but loses on extraction quality. Setup C gives you AI-grade extraction at 89% of Firecrawl's cost. The right choice depends on whether you need structured data or just clean text.

Code Example: Comparing Costs Programmatically

from searchhive import ScrapeForge

client = ScrapeForge(api_key="sh_live_...")

# Scrape with cost tracking
results = []
for url in page_urls[:100]:  # first 100 pages
    result = client.scrape(url, include_metadata=True)
    results.append(result)
    # metadata includes: credits_used, cost_estimate, latency_ms

# Calculate actual cost
total_credits = sum(r["metadata"]["credits_used"] for r in results)
print(f"Scraped {len(results)} pages for {total_credits} credits")
print(f"Estimated cost: ${total_credits * 0.0018:.2f}")

Recommendation

Lowest cost, raw HTML: ScraperAPI. Simple, cheap, reliable.

Best value for AI pipelines: SearchHive ScrapeForge. Markdown + structured extraction at lower cost than Firecrawl.

Best value at scale: ZenRows. Aggressive volume pricing with solid anti-bot capabilities.

Enterprise reliability (budget no object): Bright Data. Highest bypass rates, largest proxy network, premium pricing.

Budget zero (static sites): Jina Reader. 1,000 free Markdown extractions per month.

→ Start scraping with SearchHive ScrapeForge — 500 free requests/month, no credit card. See pricing

Related: Cheapest Web Scraping APIs for Developers and Fastest Web Scraping APIs — Speed Benchmarks