Apify vs Spider Cloud (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Apify if

• Fits if you'd rather run a ready-made Google or Maps scraper than write one
• Works for developers who want their own scrapers hosted, scheduled and monitored

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: each store Actor sets its own price, usually per result or per event, so two jobs that look alike can cost different amounts
• Tight if you're on Free, where Actors stop once the month's $5 of usage is spent
• Watch out: prepaid usage you don't spend expires each billing cycle, and use beyond it lands on the next invoice
• Pricey if you need residential proxies at $7 to $8 per GB or Google SERP proxies at $1.70 to $2.50 per 1,000 searches
• Pricey if you outgrow Starter, since the next plan is Scale at $199 a month

Pick Spider Cloud if

• Fits if you feed web pages to an AI agent or RAG pipeline as markdown
• Works for people who want a balance that never expires instead of a subscription

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a real free plan: the signup credit is worth $0.25
• Not for you if you cannot code, as it is an API, a CLI and agent integrations
• Watch out: failed or blocked pages are still billed, with a 0.01 credit minimum per page
• Watch out: Unlimited returns a 429 error above your concurrency and does not queue requests
• Watch out: zero data retention bills requests at 2.5 times the credits

Apify

• Store Actors set their own prices, so the cost of a job depends on which Actor runs it and how many results it returns.
• Use beyond a paid plan's prepaid amount is added to the next invoice; on the free plan, Actors stop until the next month.
• Prepaid usage that is not spent expires at the end of each billing cycle.
• Residential proxies cost $7 to $8 per GB and Google SERP proxies $1.70 to $2.50 per 1,000 searches, depending on plan.

Spider Cloud

• Failed or blocked pages are still billed, with a 0.01 credit minimum per page.
• The Unlimited plan does not support Google search, social media automation or multi-account use; those run on pay as you go.
• Requests above your concurrency on Unlimited get a 429 error and are not queued.
• A zero data retention setting bills requests at 2.5 times the credits.

Apify

Apify Store

Nearly 97,000 ready-made Actors for sites such as Google, Google Maps, TikTok and Instagram. Each sets its own price, usually per result or per event.

Google Search Results Scraper

Apify's own Actor returns organic and paid results, People Also Ask, related queries, AI Overviews and AI Mode by country and language, from $1.80 per 1,000 pages.

Build and host your own Actors

Start from Python, JavaScript or TypeScript templates, use the open-source Crawlee library, and run, schedule and monitor the Actors on Apify.

Proxies and unblocking

Datacenter and residential proxies, Google SERP proxies priced per 1,000 searches, and an unblocker billed per 1,000 requests.

API, CLI, webhooks and MCP

Run Actors and fetch results over a REST API or CLI, get webhooks when runs finish, chain Actors together, or call them from AI agents through an MCP server.

Automation integrations

Connectors for Make, n8n, Zapier and other automation tools, and setups for coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and OpenAI Codex.

Spider Cloud

Scrape, crawl and search

One API covers all three; whole-site crawls stream back page by page as JSONL, with markdown, HTML, text or JSON output.

Browser rendering and proxies

JavaScript rendering and proxy rotation are not billed as multipliers; proxies in 199 countries are listed on the site.

AI extraction

Sends a prompt and a URL and gets structured JSON back; AI extraction has its own price listed in the pricing details.

Agent integrations

The site lists an MCP server, a CLI and integrations with CrewAI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Dify and Flowise.

Open source core

The crawler is published under an MIT license on GitHub, and the cloud service is the hosted version.

Apify

• Free$0

  $5 of usage a month at $0.20 per compute unit, 16 GB of Actor memory and 5 concurrent runs. Stops when the $5 is spent.

• Starter$19

  per month, billed monthly, with $19 of usage included

  $0.20 per compute unit, 64 GB of Actor memory, 32 concurrent runs, chat support and the Bronze Store discount. Extra usage is billed.

• Scale$199

  per month, billed monthly, with $199 of usage included

  $0.16 per compute unit, 256 GB of memory, 128 concurrent runs, priority chat support, the Silver Store discount and lower proxy rates.

• Business$999

  per month, billed monthly, with $999 of usage included

  $0.13 per compute unit, 512 GB of memory, 256 concurrent runs, an account manager and the Gold Store discount.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom scraping solutions, pricing and limits, with SLAs on data and a dedicated team. Through sales.

Spider Cloud

• Pay as you go$5

  one-time top-up, used as you go

  No subscription and the balance does not expire. Billed at $1 per GB of content plus $0.0001 per CPU minute; larger top-ups of $500 or more earn a bonus.

• Unlimited$40

  per month for 2 concurrent requests

  Unlimited requests for a flat price based on concurrency, from $20 per concurrent request falling to $13 at higher volumes, up to 1,538 concurrent.

Apify

• Annual discount

  Save 10% with annual billing

  Apify's pricing page shows a 10% discount for billing annually instead of monthly.

• Education

  30% off Starter and Scale for students

  Apify's pricing FAQ says students are eligible for 30% off the Starter and Scale plans.

• Nonprofit

  Personalized discount for nonprofits

  Apify's pricing FAQ says nonprofit organizations can get a personalized discount on paid plans.

• Startups

  30% off the Scale plan for startups

  Apify's pricing FAQ offers startups a 30% discount on the Scale plan.

Spider Cloud

No public discounts listed.