Jina AI vs ScrapingBee (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Jina AI if

• Fits if you want page text for a model with a single URL prefix
• Works for people who also need embeddings or a reranker from the same key

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you want search without a key, since the search endpoint is blocked without one
• Watch out: the OCR option uses 40 times more tokens, and each search starts at 10,000
• Watch out: the free key lets you use up the 10 million tokens and then nothing renews
• Watch out: auto top-up is on offer, and the price may be charged in USD, EUR or another currency

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

Jina AI

• Token counts drive the bill: the jina-ocr-v1 option costs 40 times more tokens, and each search starts at 10,000 tokens.
• The search endpoint (s.jina.ai) is blocked without an API key.
• Tokens are bought as top-ups; the page notes an auto top-up, and the price may be charged in USD, EUR or other currencies.
• A new pricing model began on May 6, 2025; older auto-recharge settings keep the old price.

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.

Jina AI

Reader

Prefix a URL with r.jina.ai to get its content as LLM-friendly text. Options include a CSS selector, a token budget and a choice of browser engine.

Web search

s.jina.ai searches the web and returns results as LLM-friendly text. Every request costs a fixed number of tokens, starting at 10,000.

Embeddings and reranker

Embeddings turn text or images into vectors and a reranker reorders results; both are on the same key and token balance.

MCP server

mcp.jina.ai can be added as an MCP server so an LLM can call the APIs directly.

Cloud marketplaces

Embeddings and reranker models can be deployed through AWS SageMaker, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, billed via those accounts.

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.

Jina AI

• Free key$0

  10 million free tokens on a new key. Free-key rate limits: 500 RPM for Reader, 100 RPM for search.

• Paid top-up$50

  one-time top-up, used as you go

  1 billion tokens at $0.050 per 1M tokens. Paid keys have the same rate limits as free keys.

• Premium top-up$500

  one-time top-up, used as you go

  11 billion tokens at $0.045 per 1M. Premium key: 5,000 RPM Reader, 24-hour support.

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.