Crawlbase vs ScrapingBee (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Crawlbase if

• Fits if your workload is uneven and suits pay as you go with a hard spending cap
• Works for developers who want Google, Bing and other sites as JSON from one API

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: heavily defended sites cost 1.5 to 20 times a standard request, applied automatically
• Watch out: JavaScript rendering doubles any request, screenshots cost 2 credits and stored pages 0.5 credits a month
• Pricey if you want a subscription, which starts at $99 a month for 200,000 credits
• Tight if your usage swings, since a subscription's credits reset monthly and use past them is billed as you go unless you turn it off

Pick ScrapingBee if

• Fits if you need to scrape the pages behind the results as well as Google itself
• Works for feeding web pages to AI agents as Markdown or JSON

Look elsewhere if

• Watch out: JavaScript rendering is on by default and makes a request cost 5 credits instead of 1
• Watch out: a Google search costs 10 to 15 credits, so Hobby's 75,000 credits is 5,000 to 7,500 searches
• Skip it if you need Bing or other engines, as Google is the only search engine it lists
• Tight if your usage swings, since credits last a month and don't roll over
• Pricey if you need priority support or team management, which start at $249 a month

Crawlbase

• Without a subscription, pay as you go has no monthly fee and is billed in arrears per 1,000 requests, falling from $3.00 for the first 1,000 to $0.02 at high volume.
• Heavily defended sites cost 1.5 to 20 times a standard request, applied automatically, and JavaScript rendering doubles any request.
• A subscription's credits reset each month; use past them is billed as pay as you go unless you turn that off.
• Screenshots cost 2 credits each and stored pages 0.5 credits a month.

ScrapingBee

• A request costs 1 credit at its simplest, 5 with JavaScript rendering (on by default), and 10 or 25 with premium proxies.
• A Google search costs 10 credits with Light Request enabled and 15 otherwise.
• Credits last one month and do not roll over; only successful requests are charged.
• Priority support, an account manager and team management start at the $249 Business plan.

Crawlbase

Crawling API

Fetches any page with rotating residential proxies, CAPTCHA and block handling included, optional JavaScript rendering in a real browser, and full-page screenshots.

Google SERP Scraper

Turns a Google search address into JSON with organic results, ads, People Also Ask, the local pack and related searches, at the same price as raw HTML.

Built-in scrapers

More than 100 scrapers return structured JSON from sites such as Amazon, Walmart, LinkedIn, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex and Tripadvisor.

Enterprise Crawler

Crawls asynchronously at scale and delivers the results to storage, for jobs too large to run request by request.

Smart AI Proxy and Cloud Storage

A single proxy endpoint that rotates residential IPs, and storage that keeps crawled pages for 0.5 credits a page a month.

Spend caps and MCP server

Set a hard spending cap on the account or a workspace, and give AI agents live web data through the Web MCP server.

ScrapingBee

Headless browser rendering

Pages load in headless Chrome, with waits for selectors, set viewports and headers, and scripted clicks, scrolls and form fills before the scrape.

Proxy rotation and geotargeting

Proxies rotate on every request, with premium and stealth proxies for harder sites and routing through more than 200 countries and territories.

Google Search API

A dedicated endpoint returns Google results as JSON, with organic results, ads, local results, related questions and related searches.

AI and rule-based extraction

Pull fields out with CSS or XPath rules, describe them in plain language with an AI query, or get any page back as clean Markdown.

Ready-made scraper APIs

Separate endpoints for Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini answers, a sub-second search API and an employee search API.

CLI, MCP server and SDKs

A command-line tool, an MCP server and Python and Node.js SDKs connect the API to coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.

Crawlbase

• Starter$99

  per month for 200,000 credits, billed monthly

  About $0.50 per 1,000 credits, or $1,089 a year with yearly billing. Use past the block continues as pay as you go.

• Scale 500K$199

  per month for 500,000 credits, billed monthly

  About $0.40 per 1,000 credits, or $2,189 a year with yearly billing.

• Scale 1M$349

  per month for 1,000,000 credits, billed monthly

  About $0.35 per 1,000 credits, or $3,839 a year with yearly billing.

• Growth$599

  per month for 2,000,000 credits, billed monthly

  About $0.30 per 1,000 credits, or $6,589 a year with yearly billing.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom volume above 2 million credits a month, with SLAs and invoicing. Through sales.

ScrapingBee

• Hobby$19

  per month for 75,000 API credits

  25 concurrent requests, with JavaScript rendering, premium proxies, geotargeting, screenshots and the dedicated scraper APIs included.

• Freelance$49

  per month for 250,000 API credits

  50 concurrent requests and the same features as Hobby.

• Startup$99

  per month for 1,000,000 API credits

  100 concurrent requests and the same features as Hobby.

• Business$249

  per month for 3,000,000 API credits

  200 concurrent requests, and adds priority email support, a dedicated account manager and team management.

• Business +$599

  per month for 8,000,000 API credits

  400 concurrent requests with everything in Business.

• Enterprise 14$999

  per month for 14,000,000 API credits

  500 concurrent requests. Larger Enterprise tiers run up to $5,799 a month for 120 million credits and 900 concurrent requests.

Crawlbase

• Annual discount

  One month free with yearly billing

  Crawlbase's pricing page says yearly billing gives one month free, about 8% off: Starter is $1,089 a year instead of $99 a month.

ScrapingBee

No public discounts listed.